Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
The year was 1875, and long before ESPN, endorsement deals, or even organized leagues as we know them, one of the most electric sporting events on earth unfolded on a windswept stretch of Irish coastline at Dollymount, just outside Dublin. This was the Great International Rifle Match—a transatlantic clash that, for a brief window in history, made precision rifle shooting a premier spectator sport.
At distances out to 100 yards, the differences between rimfire and centerfire aren’t subtle—they are foundational. A .22 LR match round leaves the muzzle at roughly 1050 feet per second, already flirting with the sound barrier and quickly settling into subsonic flight. Compare that to a typical centerfire round—say a .308—moving at nearly three times that speed, carrying significantly higher ballistic efficiency, and backed by a rigid, jacketed bullet designed to punch through the air rather than cooperate with it.
Today, when German shooters don their old green sport jackets, they’re not just competitors. They’re descendants of the city guard. And when the Schützenkönig or Ritter (Knight) is crowned at the festival, it’s not merely a marksmanship title—it’s a symbolic knighting. It says, you have upheld the standard, you belong…