“Everyone seems to shoot better at Camp Perry … I believe that the model conditions at the National Matches are an inspiration for shooters and club officers to take back with them and a goal to strive for in local matches.”
—Shooter account in The American Rifleman, March 1978
Ten years after the structural shake-up that forever changed the course of National Match conduct, the 1978 program at Camp Perry featured the most complete schedule since the days of full military support, punctuated by the return of the National Trophy Infantry Team Match.
Interestingly, major course of fire modifications in both the smallbore and high power programs did not keep the 1977 national champions from defending their titles, while the high score in the unchanged and familiar pistol 2700 course came from a relative newcomer to the sport.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Charles McCowan fired a winning score of 2635-126X in his first National Matches appearance that featured just one match win (.22 Rapid Fire) among the 12 that comprised the NRA pistol championship. Win streaks were the rage in other award categories, however, as the Army’s Kim Dyer defended her women’s title, John Farley won his third straight police championship and Gil Hebard extended his stay atop the senior field to five years.
In Board competition, Master Sgt. Bonnie Harmon, the three-time NRA national champion who finished second to McCowan in 1978, won the National Trophy Individual Match while the Army underscored its overall dominating presence with a Gold Cup win in the Trophy team match.
The smallbore championships were notable in that while many things changed, many still remained the same. Position shooting featured a new course of fire and target (A-49), which opened up a whole new vista in record setting for the 423 competitors in the inaugural event, yet title defenses were the name of the game in both position and prone.
Mary Stidworthy’s repeat win earned her two distinctions—she became the first woman two-time national prone open champion and the first competitor to win back-to-back titles since G. Wayne Moore in 1946 and 1947. An even older record was brought to the fore when on the first day of prone, Ron West eclipsed by an X the 400-37X iron sight Dewar course score set by Bill Woodring in 1939. This score, combined with the 1978 program’s other iron sight matches, earned West the Hoppe Trophy for the metallic sight championship.
Tricky winds, dropped points and lead changes were hallmarks of the scope competition. But when the scores were added to the results from the first two days, it was 1977 all over again for Stidworthy, who led by Xs going into the last match of the championship. Just 40 tens was all it would take for a historic title defense and instead of having to hold for the X-ring, which covered a mere 0.78 square inches, Stidworthy had essentially a football field with the 3.14-square-inch 10-ring as her aiming point. She came through with a 400-31X and with it, the national open, service and women’s titles were hers. The remaining categories were won by Douglas Knoop (civilian), Marsha Beasley (collegiate), John Rost (junior) and Richard Hanson (senior).
The curtain rose on a new position format in the face of winds that proved so challenging, the high prone score of 399 was attained by only one shooter and in standing, many competitors thought themselves lucky simply to get all 40 record shots on the paper. In the end, just five offhand scores exceeded 300, led by the Army’s Karen Monez at 315. Lones Wigger, Jr., then hunched forward and shot a phenomenal 381 kneeling in the buffeting winds—15 points ahead of his nearest challenger—to move into first with a 1084, a record score that was the lowest ever to win an iron sight championship.
Better scores came on the final day thanks to calmer conditions and scopes, and with victories in two of the three positions, Wigger won his 11th position title. Wigger’s first three-position championship was his third straight title and fifth in six years. It was also the first time anyone had won more than two consecutive times, an accomplishment that Wigger not only achieved but mastered, as 1978 proved to be just one third of the way into the longest string of position titles in National Match history.
After the conversion of the President’s Match into a National Trophy event the year before, the course of fire in the NRA high power championship underwent an overhaul in 1978. The two aggregates (Vandenberg and Nevada) that comprised the 2000-point championship in 1977 were lowered to 800 points each and a third aggregate, the Clarke Trophy, was added to complete the new 2400-point possible. The Clarke Trophy aggregate included three new matches—the Crescent, Appreciation and Cavalry Cups—whose trophies dated back to earlier days as NRA President’s Match awards, while the fourth contest was a reinstatement of the Crowell Trophy Match.
Carl Bernosky won the newest aggregate en route to successfully defending his title with a 2375-113X. With his back-to-back national championships, Bernosky accomplished what appeared to be a popular 1970s trend at Camp Perry as both Ron Troyer (1970-1971) and Gary Anderson (1975-1976) also defended high power titles. The decade before, Middleton Tompkins (1963-1964, 1967-1968) executed the feat twice while Loyd Crow (1955-1956) was the first big bore competitor to earn the distinction in the post-World War II era.
Nancy Clark, who won the women’s title in 1977, topped the junior category this year and the Army’s Diane Klimas was the high woman by a 20-point margin—firing the service rifle to claim her first national title. Gerritt Stekeur won his fourth senior championship this decade while Army Reservist Tommy Pool, who won back-to-back smallbore position titles in the early 1960s, was the top service rifle shooter in 1978.
Long-range shooting at the National Matches was given a boost when the Palma Individual Match was added to the program this year as well as the presentation of the Canadian Cup to the high aggregate shooter in the Leech, Wimbledon and Palma Matches. William Tabor fired a 438-20X in the Palma that featured 15 shots each at 800, 900 and 1,000 yards. Other long-range victors included Dean Allemand in the Leech Cup Match with a record 199-7X and Al La Berge in the Wimbledon Cup Match with a score of 199-8X. La Berge also captured the Canadian Cup for his combined long-range score of 829-30X.
The addition of the National Trophy Infantry Team Match, last fired in 1967, to the 1978 match schedule brought the number of Board contests to six. It was the final event of this summer’s program and was won by the six-person Army Reserve unit over 27 other teams. The Army Reserve preceded its Infantry Match win with a victory in the National Team Match while Marine Sgt. Dennis Ghiselli topped the field of 651 competitors for the Daniel Boone Trophy in the individual match the day prior. The first of the National Board rifle events fired this year was the President’s Match on opening day of the high power program where Reservist Glenn Hoffer fired a record score of 296-8X in the event.
1978 NATIONAL MATCHES FACT
OVERALL OPERATION: The NRA is responsible for planning, coordinating and operating the NRA National Rifle and Pistol Championships (including NRA schools) and the NBPRP National Trophy Match program (including the Small Arms Firing School), except as noted herein. This includes establishing the schedule, planning the program, preparing the ranges, receipt of entries, procurement of awards (except those provided by the NBPRP), recruitment of all non-military support personnel, operation of all aspects of the Championships including billeting and volunteer facilities. The Small Arms Firing School will be the responsibility of the NBPRP exclusively, except for range preparation and for the accommodation of those participants at Camp Perry.
—Memorandum of Agreement, January 18, 1978
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