Interesting that Nuessle's rifle has both the Swiss lever-styled guard with the enlarged forward palm rest loop for the "closed up" offhand position as well as the American style Tuning-fork palm rest forward for a more "open" hand-forward offhand grip for the open-style used in military offhand shooting.

  Both the other rifle seem to me to have the wooden block type palm or fingertip rest just ahead of the trigger guard. and they are equipped with military-type slings.   Nuessle's rifle has the sling swivels but the sling itself is not visible.  The Ballard has padding wrapped around the forend as if front sling and swivel are used as a front "grip-stop" as seen on later position-rifles.    I don't know what to make of the wad of padding on the middle rifle
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One assumes that the same rifle had to be used at all three shooting positions and that a "traditional" palm rest would be an inconvenience in anything but the offhand shooting

edited: damn ought-to correct

Waterman, yes, they have survived in a few instances- like the Springfield and Marine Corp museums. The bookThe Springield 1903 Rifles by Lt. Col. Wm. S. Brophy has photos of quite a few, along with photographs of Fisher, Stokes, and Crossman. Stokes used Western ammunition in his rifle it says. There is a lot of variation in the rifles pictured, having been tailored to each individual. 
By the way, I own a group of old National Rifleman magazines that were owned by Crossman, with his mailing labels still upon the covers. His daughter gave 'em to me when I was just a kid. She was my aunt's neighbor.

waterman wrote on Jan 26^th, 2017 at 9:31pm:


If Nuesslein used the '03 he's holding to win his Offhand Championship, it must have been a little better than "sorta-competitive"! However, Crossman noted that even with these '03 modifications, US teams fared so badly against the Europeans in various Free Rifle matches that in '27, Martinis were purchased for use by American teams. 

I had meant to thank Joe for this picture. I like the way it ties the transition of the two eras of American target shooting. I grew up with a father who figured that the '03 was the epitome of target shooting. He was military, and a shooter- mostly of shotguns. So, I went through a stage where those were the rifles I had to own and shoot. Along comes a Model 70..................................
So, thanks Joe

Interesting that in the machine-rest test of barrels from many makers, including Pope, the Remingtons scored highest.  But none shot better than about 1 MOA, using Gov't Match ammo.

Bullets were the key.  The ISU & Olympic shooting was not any sort of "stand alone" effort.  WW1 taught the US military that the 150 grain 1906 load was out-ranged by the German, French & even British bullets.  Investigation into improved accuracy began in 1917, with Hatcher & Crossman in the middle of the research.  By 1919, they had seriously begun to study both bullet behavior at long range and the accuracy potential of jacketed bullets.

About 1919, the Army bought something like 100,000 Swiss 7.5 mm bullets.  They served as models for our 172 grain boattails, in final form about 1929.  The same guys doing some of the ISU shooting were at Daytona doing long range shooting, mostly with machine guns, throughout the early & mid-1920s.  At the same time, they were also working on both bullet and load development.   

The ISU matches were the proving ground for the most promising bullets & loads.

More on Sgt. Major Fisher.    (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
Fisher and his wife lost their son William after he comissioned in the Marines, where he died in combat at Okinawa in 1945. 
Semper Fi