“Gone are the years of the tar-paper shacks with the wind whistling through the boards. Now the hutments are so sanitary they look like a set from Dr. [Marcus] Welby.”
—The American Rifleman, June 1975
The 1975 National Match program was a classic display of extremes. Some of the worst weather in recent memory wreaked havoc on many scores and schedules, yet two of the world’s most decorated shooters—Gary Anderson and Lones Wigger, Jr.— took advantage of the coveted lulls to fire record and near perfect scores in their respective national title runs.
Pistol shooters were the first recipients of Mother Nature’s wrath and the center-fire team championship was canceled when target turning equipment malfunctioned in downpour conditions, preventing the match from being completed in the same day. Overall, some of the lowest handgun scores in years topped the results bulletins and chief among them was the 2615 that Bonnie Harmon fired to claim his second national championship. Harmon’s score was 35 points below his winning effort three years earlier, while two-time defending champ Hershel Anderson could only muster a 2603, though he did manage to win the .22 Championship and topped the National Trophy Individual field. Harmon, meanwhile, was a member of the winning National Trophy Team and added the President’s Pistol Match honor to his cache of awards.
Smallbore prone shooters were blessed with good weather and no one was more prepared than Lones Wigger, Jr., to take advantage of the conditions. From the opening shot, Wigger demonstrated excellence at a level unseen at the National Matches. During the first two days of metallic-sight competition, his first 319 shots were Xs and 10s at an astounding ratio of four to one. But on the final shot of the final iron sight match, Wigger, perhaps a bit tired or nervous (or both), sent his last round 100 yards downrange for a nine.
Wigger’s closest competitor heading into the scope phase was Dave Weaver at three points back. The margin was not an impossible one to overcome but over the next two days, 400s, 1600s and 3200s popped up like mushrooms after a rainfall, including Wigger’s 3200-298X, just 22 Xs short of perfection for a record-setting any-sight title. When combined with his iron-sight score, the prone champion amassed another National Match record—6399-556X—eclipsing the 6396 mark set by Dave Ross in 1970. Wigger also joined Bill Woodring and Presley Kendall as the only three-time winners of the national prone title.
Schuyler Helbing defended her women’s crown and added a junior title in 1975, while George Stidworthy, the crafty old scope shooter, added two more 1600s to his copious collection of them in a successful come-from-behind bid to regain the senior title he won two years earlier. With his win, Stidworthy was also the recipient of the inaugural Sam Bond Memorial Trophy.
As Wigger was wrapping up his stunning individual performance, the U.S. Randle Team came through with its own display of excellence on August 12, 1975. On a bright morning under the watchful eye of official witness and veteran British Randle Team member Veronica Tidmarsh, the 10 American women took up position and proceeded to shoot 400 record shots inside the 10-ring for a perfect 4000x4000 score.
With the end of the prone phase there was a shuffling of firing points as some shooters departed and others arrived. Those who left apparently took the good weather with them as the first day of position was windy and scores reflected the abuse that gusts and let-offs heaped upon the competitors. The leader after the first day was Army Lt. Robert Gustin, who claimed the iron-sight title with a score of 1557-71X, and little did anyone know that this aggregate alone would determine the 1975 national position champion.
The final day of the position tournament dawned dark and brooding. Soon after the “Commence Fire” command was given, it began to rain and by the time the standing stage ended, a steady downpour forced a postponement. Targets had become so sodden that they were becoming unscorable, and it was after a three-hour delay that Match Directors Warren Cheek and Stan Mate made the reluctant call to cancel the remainder of the position program. With that administrative move, Gustin became the 1975 national position champion based solely on the two iron-sight, four-position matches. The weather-induced match cancellations during the pistol and smallbore phases certainly earned the 1975 program a mention as one of the more climatically challenged in National Match history.
A challenge of another sort took place in big bore when Olympic and world champion Gary Anderson came through in the last match of the championship by firing a 199-10X in the 600-yard Air Force Cup to win his first national high power title. Anderson’s National Match record score of 1580-71X edged Army Sgt. Earl Waterman by one and came after wins in both the President’s and Nevada Trophy Match Aggregates where he fired a Hart-barreled Winchester Model 70.
Waterman finished as the top service shooter with his heavy-barreled M14, an equipment allowance that was recently approved by the National Board for Trophy Match competition as well. His 1579 score was an impressive accomplishment in that it bested by five the previous national record set by Martin Edmonson in 1972, who also fired an M14. But after this year’s 160-shot contest, Waterman could not overcome the efficient performance of Anderson, one of the world’s most accomplished shooters.
The 1975 National Matches ended with the firing of the National Trophy Team Match, won by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s “Blue” six-person squad. Two days prior, U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Gary Schmidt was crowned National Trophy Rifle Champion in the individual Board event.
