Were they really?

[Don McDowell]

Kevin, I don't know about the rifles being better now than then. Keeping in mind that the target rifles offered by Remington and most especially Sharps were what we would call "blue printed" rifles today. Those target rifles were built by the master craftsmen in the factory. Sharps assembled ammunition specifically for each target rifle, and spec'd it out, so that the new owner could order components specifically for that rifle. I will say that I do believe todays production rifles from Shiloh and Zimmerman, and C Sharps are the same hand assembled quality of the target rifles today.
I will concede the better quality brass. Another quite interesting read on that is HD Dodges articles he wrote about the work he and the Winchester and Springfield Armory did on making the Krag a viable long range rifle.
But I don't know if I would go so far as to better lead. Also keeping in mind that the bullets sold for target use were swaged from castings. Winchester and Remington both would supply bullets to the configuration and wrapped in the manner with the weight of paper that the customer requested.
Sights today are superior in that the soul sights we use are a much better option, than the limited wind adjustment on the rear sights, and the windguage fronts used back then.
One thing that really strikes me is the vertical those ODG's managed to keep with in just a few minutes. Their biggest bugaboo was the wind, and that shows in the horizontal plots of the targets. We can also credit that to the lack of a spotter. This is one of the things that really becomes apparent when you shoot in something like the Creedmoor Cup match at Lodi or the High Plains Challenge match at Byers. It will be interesting to see how many accept that challenge and compete in the Rifleman class of the BPTRA matches.
The use of cross sticks and wrist rests today is a definite advantage over the no artificial support rules of back in the day.
One of the things that might show how they were getting the good results of the day with the heavy/longer bullets, is the number of shooters that shot by muzzle loading their rifles. Perry's book indicates that those guys were basically using their rifle barrels for a drop tube, and that many that muzzle loaded did not use any sort of wad, due to them pouring more powder down the tube than the case would hold. It sort of took balls of steel or an almost death wish to put a primed case in the action close the breech and pour the powder charge down the muzzle. I can only imagine the hew and cry coming from every direction is someone tried that at one of today's matches.

Along with Dave, I can think of a handful of shooters today that would include names like Taylor, Schuenke, Gregg, Kluskens, Porter, Ahmer, Rix, and Moritz and more that all have the mind set and ability of those of Bodine, Gildersleeve and Hyde's ability.