FEATURED AUTHOR
CHARLES STEPHENS
 Author
Charles (Charlie) Stephens, a descendant of legendary gunfighter
Robert Woodson (Wood) Hite of the infamous James Gang, made
his publishing debut in 1991 with The Thompson/Center
Contender Pistol: How to Tune, Time, Load, and Shoot for
Accuracy (Paladin Press). Since that time he has
written and had published five other books on pistol-shooting
sports. His latest work, Cowboy Action Silhouette
Rifle (Paladin Press, May 2001), is his first on
the subject of rifle shooting.
Born in the old territorial town of Fort Smith, Arkansas,
Charlie grew up in that area of western Arkansas and eastern
Oklahoma known in American history as Indian Territory and
the “Nation.” His interest in shooting began
at an early age, when his grandmother, Daisy Irene Hahn
Ainsworth (herself a child pioneer of the Old West who traveled
across the tall grass prairies from Illinois to Oklahoma
in a covered wagon) taught him to shoot a rifle.
After graduating from high school, Charlie initially pursued
his goal of becoming a carpenter and builder until a "kiddy
cruise" (so-called because of the number of navy enlistees
under age 18 aboard) as a U.S. Navy seaman first class (and
then as a petty officer and radioman) sent him around the
world several times, with stops in Spain, France, Italy,
Greece, Malaysia, Japan, and the Philippines, among other
places.
Charlie graduated from the University of New Mexico in
1970 with a BSEE degree, after which he was commissioned
an ensign in the regular navy. After serving in the combat
zone during two tours of duty in Vietnam and attaining the
rank of Lieutenant JG, he left the navy for the last time.
When he returned from the war in Vietnam, Charlie suffered
through a lengthy bout with Vietnam War Delayed Stress Syndrome
and a divorce that left him homeless. He found work as a
roughneck on an oil rig on the North Sea. When he had time
off, traveled to England and Scotland, touring ancient archaeological
sites such as Stonehenge.
Charlie returned to the United States in 1975 and spent
most of the next 20 years working as a U.S. Army civilian-employed
electrical engineer at White Sands Missile Test Range. The
largest overland rocket and missile test facility in the
free world, White Sands was also the location of the Trinity
Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded.
 After
a 30-year career serving his country, Charlie moved back
to the area where he was born. In 1994 he married Paula
Tanner, an ardent and accomplished artist.  Her
beautiful watercolor paintings of floral and aboriginal
Indian art can be found at the Desurmont Gallery in Taos,
New Mexico. Together, Charlie and Paula have six children
from previous marriages and nine grandchildren. (Another
grandchild is scheduled to arrive in late summer.)
Charlie's interest in guns and shooting began at the age
of around 10 when he received a new Daisy Red Ryder BB gun
from his grandmother. During his preteen years, under her
close scrutiny and guidance, Charlie became an expert  marksman
while picking off numerous sparrows from trees on the family
farm in an effort to reduce the birds' consumption of store-bought
chicken feed. He continued honing his marksmanship while
in the U.S. Navy, competing in bullseye target shooting
with the Colt service .45 auto. Much later, after leaving
naval service and moving to southern New Mexico, Charlie
was introduced to both the High Power Rifle Silhouette and
the Handgun Metallic Silhouette shooting sports.  He
distinguished himself by winning the NRA Long Range Pistol
Silhouette Standing Aggregate National Championship in 1990.
In 1992, he was introduced to the classic German rifle shooting
sport known as Schuetzen single-shot target shooting. Shooting
occasionally with the rifle while concentrating on the pistol
events over the next several years, Charlie further distinguished
himself by winning the coveted Pistol King Match in International/World
Class Schuetzen competition in 1998.
Throughout his more than 30 years of serious shooting sports
competition, Charlie spent many more hours shooting both
informal and formal combat pistol matches in IPSC and NRA
Action competition, lever-action cowboy silhouette rifle,
and Cowboy Action Shooting. Along with his wife, Paula,
who also enjoys informal gallery-style target shooting,
Charlie now avidly pursues the sports of cowboy-style shooting,
be it Cowboy Action Shooting or NRA Cowboy Rifle Silhouette
Shooting, and handgun metallic silhouette.
 On
their time off from shooting, Charlie and Paula travel the
byways and highways of the Southwest and Rocky Mountain
states. In addition to being amateur rockhounds and visiting
aboriginal Indian  archaeology
sites of the Southwest, they enjoy camping in the backcountry
and hiking the many trails along the lengthy Continental
Divide. They are also avid trout fishermen.
Q & A
Paladin: What is your favorite type of
shooting?
Stephens: My favorite is informal gallery-style
shooting of metallic silhouette targets with rimfire pump
and lever-action rifles.
Paladin: Why do you like this type of
shooting?
Stephens: Because it is stress-free shooting.
It's also fun to shoot guns that are near copies of the
old Winchester gallery pump rifles once found on the midways
of small carnivals and state fairs held in the many rural
towns of America during the 1950s when I was growing up.
Paladin: What are some of your favorite
gallery rifles?
Stephens: I would have a difficult time
choosing between the new lever guns from Marlin, such as
the new cowboy rimfire rifle with its long octagon barrel,
and the handy lightweight pump Model 62 and 72 rimfire rifles
recently offered by Taurus International, Inc. If I had
to choose between the Marlin and Taurus, I would give a
slight edge to the Taurus pump rifles because of their much
smoother actions. Target shooting, whether informal or formal,
absolutely requires a light, smooth trigger action to be
highly successful. I don't have to hit every single target
to enjoy the sport, but, then, it's nice when you do!
Paladin: What type of sport shooting has
been the most difficult for you to master?
Stephens: That's both easy and tough to
answer. First off, the Single-Shot Schuetzen sport wins,
hands down. However, when I was shooting this competition
I was also involved in a couple of other shooting sports,
and therefore I could only master the off-hand Schulte pistol
events. Perhaps if I had followed only the Schulte trail
at the time and stopped competing in all the other shooting
sports, I might have been able to become competitive with
the Schulte rifle and pistol benchrest matches. I'll never
know unless I return to that particular sport one day.
Paladin: What is it that makes the single-shot
Schulte rifle- and pistol-shooting sport so difficult?
Stephens: Your objective, as well as the
quality of champions who shoot and win at these matches.
The objective of this type of shooting is to take a single-shot
target rifle and place 50 shots inside a 1 1/2-inch X-Ring
at a distance of 200 yards. You must shoot 50 shots from
a benchrest position while shooting with iron sights and
then repeat the matches while also shooting with a rifle
scope mounted on your gun. Then you must repeat these two
matches while shooting from an off-hand unsupported standing
position. You must also fire only lead-alloy bullets in
such competition. You have to either mold your own lead-alloy
bullets to tightly and perfectly fit the chamber and bore
of your rifle and pistol or have a friend who is not only
very good at molding bullets but also a master of this ancient
art. You also must have a very good single-shot action for
your rifle and pistol that is designed to be consistently
fired accurately both from a benchrest and from the position
of standing off-hand. Both your rifle and pistol absolutely
must have barrels custom made and fitted to your actions.
Such barrels have to be premium target- grade quality to
have any chance of being successful at this sport. Even
if you can acquire the most accurate firearms, you must
then compete with rifle and pistol shooters who have already
demonstrated their ability to win national and world-class
events in the off-hand competition of other shooting sports
such as metallic silhouette. For example, the first three
Coors International Schuetzenfest rifle champions had long
ago won NRA Rifle Silhouette National Championships. These
same three individuals together won 14 of the first 15 Coors
International Schuetzenfest Championships. These men were
probably the world’s best at shooting the rifle from
an off-hand position. They proved that by winning so many
Schuetzenfest matches. These individuals could usually be
beaten by a few points while shooting off the bench, but
they would beat their competition quite handily while standing
and shooting. To have any chance at all of winning the International
Schuetzenfest, you must be a master at shooting from the
standing off-hand position. For example, take the year that
I won the only Coors International Schuetzenfest Pistol
King Match ever held. The match organizers had always scheduled
the traditional Rifle King Match before 1998 but had never
held a King Match for the pistol competitors. Most of the
pistol competitors were also rifle competitors who had excelled
whenever shooting from the benchrest. They preferred not
to get involved in yet another off-hand standing pistol
match, thinking that it would physically tire them beyond
their limits and thus have an overall bad effect on their
rifle match scores. Very few shooters had either the physical
stamina or the will to go up against that year's shooters
who were previous national champions of the standing disciplines
in the handgun metallic silhouette shooting sport. My winning
shot that year, made with a single-shot pistol that was
chambered for the .30 Ml Carbine round, measured a sparse
1 inch from the center of the X-Ring. That was a remarkable
shot with a 200-grain lead-alloy bullet fired from a standing
off-hand position at the standard distance of 200 yards.
Paladin: How much longer do you plan to
shoot competitively?
Stephens: I'll continue to shoot at the
national championship level for as long as I can place in
the top 20 or so. Most likely at some time I will disappear
into the large crowd that you now see at the Cowboy Action
Shooting and NRA Cowboy Rifle Silhouette matches. My wife
and I will just try to blend in with the crowd as we blast
away to our hearts' content with vintage guns while dressed
up like our grandparents and great-grandparents in America's
Old West. They're the largest and fastest-growing segments
of today's shooting sports.
Paladin: What has been your most memorable
shooting match?
Stephens: You're probably thinking that
you already know my answer from my responses to other questions.
You're not going to believe my answer, but I'll give it
anyway. My most memorable match was the one I shot informally
with my wife, Paula, when she shot her first practice match
in the NRA Hunter Pistol category. It wasn't my shooting
that was memorable; it was my wife's. She shot an absolutely
phenomenal score, which I still do not believe because it
was her very first.
ADVANCED MASTER
HANDGUNNING
Secrets and Surefire Techniques to Make You a Winner
COWBOY ACTION PISTOL SHOOTING
Secrets of Fast and Accurate Gunplay
COWBOY ACTION SILHOUETTE RIFLE
Winning Techniques for Western Competition
HOW TO BECOME A MASTER HANDGUNNER
The Mechanics of X-Count Shooting
SHARPSHOOTERS
How to Stand and Shoot Handgun Metallic Silhouettes
THOMPSON/CENTER CONTENDER
PISTOL
How to Tune, Time, Load, and Shoot for Accuracy
|