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Disbandment of the old San Antonio Schützen club in 1919 marked the passing of an era of old-world sports and culture brought here by the German settlers of the 1850s. Even as late as 1919, all but two of the shooting members still hand-loaded their ammunition. The two more modern members, used factory-made cartridges. They were probably the first ones who in 1913 committed the heresy of using smokeless instead of black powder in their cartridges. Loading your own ammunition insured greater accuracy. These men who kept alive the customs of their forefathers said. They boasted that shot-for-shot, their scores were higher then those registered by gun clubs in the Eastern United States, where factory ammunition had first become popular.
When the first round was fired, the shell expanded to perfectly fit the chamber, from then on each shot was as accurate as the preceding one. The cartridge case was re-primed and then carefully filled with exactly the same amount of powder after each firing, a paper patched bullet was stuffed into the open end and the shooter was ready to go. Each shooter got 10 record shots at the target after practice. There were two positions, off-hand, and prone with a rest. A score of 230 out of a possible 250 was considered “good.” That meant that all ten shots at 200 yards had to be within a 4½ inch circle. The best score ever made at one of these matches was 243. When the San Antonio Schützen Verein was established in 1857, Raimond Neumann was named president by the following charter members; E. Dorsch, Frank Neumann, Anton Hannich, Anton Altmann Sr., Anton Altmann Jr., Felix Altmann, Andreas Braden, Edward Seffel, Alex Sarter, Anton Kemp, L. Ohde, H. Netwich, J.G. Muller, and Ed Froeboese. Some of these men not only made their own ammunition, they also made their own rifles. Ferdinand Topperwein, father of the famous shooter Ad Topperwein, was one of the early members of the club.
On Sundays, every little valley in Southwest Texas reverberated with the sound of target practice and the contests of these sportsmen and others like them. There were competing clubs at such places as Boerne, Cutoff, Green Valley, Helotes, Bulverde, New Braunfels and Vogel’s Valley. Large crowds, great woodland processions, balloon ascensions, songfests, dancing and presentation of medals to winners – a custom established in Germany as early as 1555 – were part of each shoot.
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San Antonio Schuetzen Verein (Read 7875 times)
