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The NMLRA was founded in 1933 and Bill Large was one of the founders. He also was a famous barrel maker, and " chunk gun " shooter. It was matches shot at 60 yards prone resting your gun on a chunk of wood. You'd make a X and hang a sighter next to it. You'd sight in on the sighter, but the gun would hit over a bit by the X. This way you didn't destroy your sight in piece. A friend would stand down near the target and move the sighter so you'd hit dead center on the X. Couldn't you just see today shooting with guys standing next to the targets ? Anyways, it was said when old Bill showed up a lot of guys wouldn't shoot because he always won. He and I use to camp close to each other on the national range. He said he take 10 big steps back and would sometimes win the first couple of places and give the choices of meat to second, third, fourth, and fifth places so they wouldn't complain too much. He made me a 54 cal 48" long barrel a 1 1/8 across the flats for chunk gun shooting. He cherried out a 535 mold to 542 and I had to beat it in with a hammer. That gun would shoot a RB better than I could hold. Being a pistol shooter I sold it after a number of years. Let's see, if he helped start the NMLRA in 33, and he was a famous chunk gun shooter, that means they were doing it still in 33 and up to today. It never did stop in some places. Percussion caps have always been used.
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