No4 Butt length fitting?

[Strangely Brown]

But in real life, you told the bloke to find a rifle that DID fit. End of!

And this is what I recall in 1969, the battery shooting team had first pick of whatever was in the armoury and they were then put on onside with our names on.

[Peter Laidler]

Funniest - and most expensive were with those who wore glasses. Butt too short, then the backsight whacked your glasses and chipped the lenses. One of our blokes, Alan Sanford, a blanket stacker (Ordnance storeman...!) from Bendigo was a good shooter and always made it into the shooting teams but no matter what length of butt he had, ALWAYS ended up with chipped glasses..

Someone ask me about Alan on a rundown shoot from a fire trench and the python!!!!!!!

[Mk VII]

My late father also got chipped glasses like that.

[muffett.2008]

Chipped glasses were usually a sign of crawling up the backsight, peep needed to be larger......but that's life.
Awe go on Pete, tell us the story.

[Peter Laidler]

I'm glad it was you that asked about this Muffer as you've been there, seen it and got the T shirt.

There was one particular shoot in a competition among what we used to call THE MAJOR UNITS CUP called ‘Fire and Movement’. It was particularly gruelling especially in the heat and humidity even when we only wore lightweight JG’s (or jungle greens). But it meant 600 yards of fire and movement as a series of 100 yard rundowns. Webbing was all lightweight ’44 pattern ‘skeleton order’ of cross straps, full pouches, bayonet, 2x full water bottles plus another item from a select list. So you usually chose a pistol in a holster or a long parang/machete/gollock……, both of which flapped about. Cotton rubberised jungle boots with woollen socks (best in the heat so said) and a floppy hat tied on with string because if your hat came off you had to go back for it - AND keep your loaded and cocked rifle pointing down the range!

There was a ‘LOAD’ at the 600 yard firing point and tension as the butt party didn’t rush about …….. until the figure 11 targets appeared. Then you ran for your life to the 500 yard firing point and engaged the two fig 11 targets in front of you with 5 rounds at each. You’d lost all track of time by now but after what seemed like a few seconds to spare, they’d disappear. Stand up, breath deeply and without further ado and a quick check by the RCO staff, change lever to SAFE followed by another ‘……WATCH AND RUN……. WATCH AND RUN……..’. Targets appear again after a very short break and off you’d go again…..knackering stuff. At 400 yards you went through the same rigmarole again but now, even the good shots were tiring and a couple of the bullets were going wild. There followed a magazine change……… all in the same time as before when there was NO magazine change. The correct drills had to be followed without the usual verbal orders screamed down the firing point. A sort of organised chaos. Unloads, reload, ready, safety ON - a sort of local active service 'make-safe' under the close scrutiny of the RCO staff…….. targets up, a scream of ‘R U N……..’ and off we’d all go again, trying to keep in some sort of line.

Water bottle thumping on your ar5e, pistol or parang flapping in the breeze and the bayonet and magazines now rubbing on your chest on to 300 – another magazine change, change sights - and on and on until it came to 100 where the fire trenches were. There were strict instructions here because we all had loaded and cocked rifles with the safety on. Some, like me, always ran with the muzzle upwards, one handed the other holding onto the pistol. Others muzzle down the range one handed while others muzzle across the chest, held 2 handed. It wasn’t unknown for a round to go loose by this stage of the competition but I say no more about that.

We were all very fit 19 or 20 year old Nashos but even then, by the time we reached 100 yards you were totally knackered but you could jump into the fire trench – this time for a few ‘snap’ exposures. And don't forget that there was still a run to 50 and 25 yards for the free-fire shoot. But at 100 yards is where it started to unravel, especially if you were at the 600 yard point where the next details were waiting. And even worse if you were the RCO staff following the shooters because Alan Sanford……….

Oh yes, Alan Sanford was an Ordnance wallah, one of the Battalion add-ons in the Support Company, like the cooks, the RAEME and Service Corps transport drivers……, you know the type. Great bloke, he had wealthy parents but not quite wealthy or in-the-know enough to ensure that when Allan’s batch was called during the ballot (Conscription was by ‘….the ballot’ or 'the bollocks' as it was affectionately known, because that’s where Harold (Harold Holt, the PM of Oz) had hold of you then….) mummy and daddy couldn’t pull strings so Nasho Allan was in the net and the shooting team. As I remember, his girlfriend was a pom from Reading who’s mum and dad had emigrated to Oz several years before.

Alan jumped into the 100 yard fire trench at Batu Ranges like a penguin jumping into the sea. And like a penguin leaping OUT of the sea, so he leapt, a millisecond later, straight OUT of the fire trench almost without stopping. In a zillionth of a second, the change lever was switched to R and Al had fired 5 rapid rounds into the bottom of the pit. There was uproar as the huffing and puffing and still 25 yards or so behind us RCO staff blew their emergency whistles. If these whistles blew, it meant an immediate stop for EVERYBODY. Everybody except Sanford who still let another round go into the trench.

Apparently, Al had jumped into the fire trench with the biggest python you’d ever seen slumbering at the bottom. Or so it sounded from a few firing points further down the line where I was sat bemused at it all by now chatting to Frank Sweeting, rifles at the ready and sweating like an arabs balls. When the smoke and dust had settled, all you could hear was the shouting and balling of the CSM (was it CSM Von Kurts, Muffer?) jumping up and down like a frog on fire while looking through his steamed up binos 500 yards away.

The python, snakes being earless, was looking up at the bemused RCO staff while one of them tried to hook it out of the trench with a bayonet on the rifle….., to no avail. The huge python was probably one of the zillion other harmless snakes that we’d encounter every day. As for the size…, well, it depends on what you call huge. But so far as I recall this 18” or so long snake had gone into the fire trench to catch a toad, had a meal and gone to sleep only to be rudely awoken to Alan.

Soon forgotten and gone into history as another day during another era. Me and another old RAR pal, Col Mingay were talking, or rather, chuckling about this the other day. I wonder where Al is now?

[browningautorifle]

I remember the rundowns well from long distance...we had no pythons though.

[muffett.2008]

Ahh, the fun of it......wet weather was great too. diving into the mud, sliding past your drop point to the blasts of whistles as you slid in front of blazing barrels, the odd barrel opening up like a peeled banana....mud takes no prisoners, yeah the memories.

[David TS]

Brilliant story

[Lashenden]

As ever, the only place on the internet for the authorised version of LE management.

[Lashenden]

Once in six years? We shot all the time and had regular annual camps dedicated to weapons skills at Hythe and Lydd. The party taking the armoury stores also enjoyed an overnight motorway drive from South Wales in the back of a 3 tonner, sitting in our sleeping bags to keep warm and using the gaps in the canvas to provide a bit of fresh air. Ugh.