Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-09-18
AMERICANS TEACH
BRITISH MARKSMEN
Showed Them the Best Way to
Shoot During Recent Matches
Abroad.

When in England with the United
States trapshooting team to the Olympic
games, Frank Troeh, OF Vancouver Wash.
broke 1l9 targets in succession one day
and 1873 on another in shooting off ties on
ten-target events and Forest McNier, of
Houston, Tex, broke 100 straight in three
events on the English championship pro-
gram, for which he received the Gold Star
and innumerablc trophies, according to
Peter p. Carney.
McNier's perfect score was the first
ever recorded in this event. Before the
advent of the Americans in the champion
ships the longest straight run in British
trapshooting annals was 40. In England
they shoot l-S ounces of powder to "a
in this country, but they use both barrels
in Great Britain while we only use one
here. There were upwards Of 1000 runs
of better than fifty in the United States
last year. This shows more than anything
we know of the difference between the
hooters of Britain and America.
These long runs by the Americans are
more remarkable when one considers the
difficulties encountered in making them
English shooters have for a long time been
writing pieces To the papers" about the
hard targets. claiming that it was impos-
sible to break them. The Americans dis
coYered that the targets were made OF
cement and the only way to break them
was TO put the entire load in the center
and TO put il there quick. On his first ten
targets in England, Mark Arie only broke
three. No one in this country who knows
anything about shooting would even think
of Arie missing one in ten. Then the
Americans investigated.
Frank Troeh went out in the field and
collected some of the targets that had been
shot at One of them he fastened to post
and went back l6 yeards and shot at it.
He put the entire charge on the target
without breaking il. He brought it home
as q souvenier. This will give you an idea
of the hardness of the English targets and
the difficulties in compiling high scores
and long runs.
IL also explains the lack of interest in
trapshooting in England. One cannot be
expected To participate IN sport IN which
he or she cannot obtain results. This was
pointed out To the Englishmen. The
American shooters went SO far as to go to
the factory where English clay birds were
manufactured and showed the producers
how targets are made in the United States
and also convinced the Englishmen that
when they were hit that the sport would
benefit. and that Enelishmen would show
considerable improvement In their shoot
ing.
In the Olympic games targets made IN
America were used They broke when
they were hit The longest run made by
any shooter in the Olympic games WAS
A. This WAS made by McNier.
ARRANGEMENT OF TRAPS.
While the Americans were allowed to
shoot from the position in vogue IN this
country, other conditions were vastly diff
ferent. The trap arrangement Is much
different than in the United States. Here
we use stationary trap erected IN the
ground 10 yards in front of the firing line.
In Europe expert traps are used. They
are placed in trench built of stone, rs
feet long. FIVE feet deep and five feet wide
The trench is on straight hne. The firing
line is I6 metres, about II yards, behind
the trench The pegs are Is feet apart,
also on a straight line. There are three
expert traps in the trench In front OF each
shooter and he never knows from which of
the three the target Is going 10 be released.
This is difficult enough but the hardest
part is to come. In the English champion
rhip events 90 targets were shot from the
SECULAR formation and the last ten were
shot from pegs, two and four, the shooters
changing places after five shots. Shooting
this way each shooter had nine traps to
contend with, the shooter on peg two hav-
ing the targets thrown for hum from traps
in front of positions /, 2 and 3, and the
hooter at number four getting them from
3, or s. In the Olympic games the first
seventy targets were thrown as In Eng
land, the next twenty as above described
and the final ten with one shooter up at
time. He stood at number three position
and had TO take chance on getting tar
get from any one of Is traps, all unknown
angles. Mark Arie was the only shooter to
break 10 straight In this style of shooting
MORE OF WALK THAN SHOOT.
The Americans have no use for the
European style of squad shooting, six
men up, and moving to the next peg after
each shot. They claim, and rightly too,
that il is more of walking match than a
shooting competition and readily under
stand why the target events are mainly at
ten birds. The squad style of shooting as
n vogue In the United States was demon
strated both IN England and in Belgium
in practice matches and the shooters of
these countries were much interested.
In Europe two shots are allowed at each
target. The European idea heretofore has
been to fire the first shot quick and the
second shot quicker, the shooter hoping TO
hit the target without stopping to take
aim. To show the quality of the United
States shooters, want to say that some of
the members of the foreign teams shot
both barrels every time and still didn't
average 90 per cent OF their targets. The
Americans did their shooting with the first
shot-seldom using the second barrel
McNier only used the second barrel seven
times in the Olympic games and the 9TH
ers didn't fire the second shot much oftener
than the Texan.