19th Century Riflemen

The 19th Century saw a huge growth in interest in rifle target shooting. Queen's Prize winners were hailed as hero's and thousands of spectators turned up to witness the long range international matches. Who were these riflemen that attracted such public attention....?

The firearms and gunmakers of the 19th Century are often the feature of study, but today the riflemen are for the most part forgotten. These pages attempt to redress that and record some of the men who pioneered the sport of target rifle shooting from the muzzle loading and into the black powder breech loading era.

Articles

• The Woe’s of Corporal Peake - Controversy surrounding the award of the Gold Medal for the 1868 Queen's Prize.
• On Riflemen - Observations via a US magazine on the nature of American and British riflemen [1887].
• Record Breaking (Long Range) Scores - Several riflemen in the 19th century shooting with breech loading black powder target rifles at 800, 900 and 1000 yards made the outstanding score of 224 x 225.
• The Long Range Riflemen’s Reunion, 1901 - Many of the long range rifle veterans in the USA gathered together for a reunion in December 1901.

Riflemen Index

Riflemen Indexes by nation include brief information about those featured, and link to more extensive biographic detail where available.

Biography

Where more extensive biographic detail is available than featured in the Riflemen Indexes, it is featured in this section. Biographies are included in alphabetic order, irrespective of nationality of the rifleman. Special collections feature:

• Sir Henry Halford
• William Ellis Metford