The New Jersey Arms Collector's Club Inc.

The Arms Collectors would like to publicly thank the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs for the use of their Cherry Ridge Range Facility, located near Vernon, NJ. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we could not hold this shoot without their greatly appreciated help.

On Sunday January 19, 2020, the New Jersey Arms Collectors Club (NJACC) sponsored its 24th annual Historical Winter Firearms Match in honor of the American men and women who endured the rigors of winter combat from Valley Forge to Korea and to allow participants to demonstrate their personal \ marksmanship skills using the relics of history.

A couple dozen stouthearted military arms collectors, reenactors, weaponologists, and friends came from the hinterlands of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York to brave the early morning bone chilling sub-arctic like temperatures in the 20s°F and coalesce at the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs' (ANJRPC) range at Highland Lakes, New Jersey for a day of friendly marksman competition and fine post match cuisine.

Weather reports indicated a clear, breezey weather in the high twenties. Photos show a clean blanket of snow on the range and in the shooting line. To stave off the cold, hot venison stew, coffee, and hot chocolate were served at the range, but were not allowed on the line.



Match participants brought prized examples of the now collectable rifles used by soldiers in long ago winter war confrontations to compete for trophies and the chance to become world famous in New Jersey by being mentioned in this report. With the exception of three events requiring the use of scoped rifles, contest rules required shooters fire 10 rounds in 2 minutes at a standard SR21-C target placed at the 50 yard line. Targets for the scoped rifle contests were placed at the 100 yard line.

This year there were a total of twenty (20) events in the course of fire consisting of fourteen (14) military battle themed rifle contests along with six (6) additional matches specifically designed to test the participant's skill in the cold hand use of civilian target or hunting rifles in typical winter survival like conditions.

A quick tour of the benches disclosed participants brought a gun show-like assortment of U.S, British, German, Finnish, Russian, Swiss, Swedish, and Yugoslav military rifles along with a respectable collection of civilian hunting and target firearms.

A nice collection of photos were provided by Jeff A. for this report. Unfortunately, I was unable to scan in the winning targets or have a complete list of scores shot, so your shoot report is not as thorough as in the past.

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The matches covered every era in US Military History from the Revolutionary War through the Present Era. Shooters were encouraged to particpate "in uniform" if possible.

The following photo illuminates the coverage of this event.

In the foreground are Rev War re-enactors
Army Regular Mark. H. (left)  and     Milita Man, Ed R. (Right)

In the background are examples of 21st Century Transportation!

The big winner of the day went to Jeff A. with 5 contest wins and a couple of scores in the high 90's. Jeff won Winter War & Eastern Front Semi Auto with his Suomi 9mm. He also won Balkan Front (Yugo M48), Battle of the Bulge Bolt (P14), and Alpine Defense (Mas 49/56) Great Shooting Jeff!

We had two near-perfect scores. George H. shot a 100-5X with his M96 Swede in the Scandanavian Defense. The Highest Score of the day went to John Y who shot a 100-9X with his M1 Garand!

Several of the trophies went unclaimed with no entries in the events. If you entered an event, but did not turn in a target you may have won, regardless of your score.

The following are the scores reported: