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An interesting theory
Everyone’s missing what the Iran war is REALLY about – and it’s not Israel. This is the real reason America has chosen to strike now. But as HAVIV RETTIG GUR writes, once you understand, everything else makes sense…
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
The war in Iran is threatening to split the conservative movement, dividing it between those who see it as Donald Trump’s breaking of a promise against new wars and those who see it as a necessary confrontation long overdue.
Progressives, predictably, frame it as another Middle Eastern adventure driven by Israel. Anti-war libertarians call it regime change in a new dress.
And across the world, from Brazil to Beijing, London to Karachi, the argument is the same: America is fighting Israel’s war.
But this isn’t true. And the confusion matters, because if you misread what this war is actually about, you will misread everything that follows.
This is not a war about Israel. This is not a war for Israel’s sake. Israel is a beneficiary, a capable and willing local partner, but it is not the reason America is in this fight. America is playing a much bigger game, about more than what happens in the Middle East. The subtext, that Israel exercises outsize influence or ‘drags Americans into wars they don’t want’, borders on the conspiratorial.
This isn’t one war, but two.
There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis. All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighbourhood.
But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.
America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
America is in this fight because of China (pictured: President Donald Trump with Chinese president Xi Jinping in October 2025)
Haviv Rettig Gur, a top Middle East analyst, talks about the real reason America has chosen to strike now
Iran, for most of its history as an adversary of the United States, existed only on the smaller board. It was a headache. It was a regional destabiliser. It funded terrorism, harassed shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unpredictable.
But it was not, in any direct sense, a threat to American primacy on the global stage. It was Israel’s problem, the Gulf states’ problem, and only tangentially Washington’s.
That changed when Iran made one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of the century.
Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated, Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline. The relationship deepened rapidly.
Today, roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil exports go to China, processed through Chinese refineries that operate beyond the reach of American sanctions enforcement.
That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran’s budget, a huge portion of which is spent on its military forces. Without Beijing, the regime cannot pay its security forces, cannot subsidise basic goods, and would soon face the kind of internal collapse that its own ideology has spent 40 years trying to prevent.
In other words, Iran has become – has made itself – utterly dependent on China.
China, for its part, was not being charitable. It was being strategic. Iranian oil, sold cheaply because Tehran has no other buyers, has helped Beijing build a strategic petroleum reserve exceeding a billion barrels, enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly 100 days in the event of a naval blockade.
China’s single greatest vulnerability is the American Navy’s ability to interdict its energy imports, especially at vulnerable choke points like the Malacca Straits. Iranian oil, flowing outside American oversight, was a direct hedge against that vulnerability. (So, by the way, was Venezuela’s, another US operation that was ultimately about containing China.)
‘Iran has become – has made itself – utterly dependent on China,’ Haviv writes (pictured: Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, left, and Xi Jinping)
But the energy relationship was only part of the picture. China was also arming Iran with systems designed to threaten commercial and American military assets.
Reports emerged in February of a near-finalised deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the Aegis defence systems deployed on American carrier strike groups.
China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia, and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building real-time operational familiarity between the three navies.
Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system. And Iran was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s ‘string of pearls’ base system in the Indian Ocean.
The picture that emerges from all of this is, as I have said, of a Chinese forward base, a lynchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence programme – every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building – positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate American defences and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.
When Iran began to look like that, it stopped being Israel’s problem and became America’s.
The administration itself has struggled to explain this, and it’s not clear why. On March 2, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that the US had launched pre-emptive strikes against Iran because the administration knew an Israeli attack was imminent and wanted to prevent ‘automatic’ Iranian retaliation against American bases. He said intelligence showed Iran had pre-delegated orders to military commanders to strike US assets the moment the regime was attacked by any party.
How many have been killed in the war on Iran
United States
Six US service members killed
Eleven people killed, including nine in an Iranian
missile strike on Beit Shemesh on March 1
Israel
At least 77 people killed by Israeli attacks
since Monday
Lebanon
One person killed after a fire broke out in Bahrain’s
Salman Industrial City following a missile interception
Bahrain
Four people, including two Kuwaiti soldiers, killed
in Iranian attacks on the country
Kuwait
One person killed after a projectile hit a Marshall
Islands-flagged product tanker off its coast
Oman
Three people killed
UAE
At least 1,230 people killed
Iran
Reports emerged in February of a near-finalised deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3
Rubio emphasised that the US chose to destroy Iran’s offensive capabilities first rather than ‘sit there and absorb a blow’ that would have resulted in higher damage to American personnel.
It’s hard to take this explanation at face value. If the trigger was simply an Israeli strike, America could have told the Israelis to sit tight. It’s done it before, repeatedly and even recently.
And it doesn’t fit the nature of the war. For one thing, American media reports tell us that America, not Israel, chose the timing.
Reliable sources tell us the CIA, not Mossad, tracked Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to the Saturday meeting of Iranian military leaders struck by Israel, and Trump, not Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pulled the trigger on the joint attack.
The Americans went to war together with the Israelis because that’s the best way to fight a war like this.
Having a capable and loyal local ally willing to deal damage and absorb blowback lowers the costs to America and increases the chances of success. If America ever finds itself in a kinetic fight with China, it presumably expects Japan and Taiwan and South Korea to play a similar role in the fighting.
But American forces have used this operation to target Iranian military positions and assets that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Iranian face-off.
In the first 24 hours of the war, American strikes, as confirmed by US Central Command (CENTCOM), focused on Iranian naval vessels, submarines, ports, and anti-ship missile positions along the southern coast.
It was the CIA that tracked Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (R), and it was Trump who pulled the trigger on the joint attack
The port of Bandar Abbas, headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was hit. So was Jask, which China had hoped would become a permanent naval foothold on the Indian Ocean. Isfahan and Tabriz, hubs of ballistic missile production and drone assembly, were struck.
The goal, explicitly stated by US officials, was not merely to degrade stockpiles but to destroy the industrial base from which those weapons are produced, so China cannot spend the next few years quietly rebuilding it.
President Trump announced the operation in terms that could not have been more direct, explicitly mentioning elements of Iranian power – the navy, the missile production sites – that would serve as that second front in a war with China.
One of the more revealing subplots of this war has been the behaviour of Iran’s supposed allies. Russia signed a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran in January of last year. China has been Iran’s economic patron for years.
And yet when the bombs started falling, neither moved.
Russian radar systems in Syria went dark, transponders reportedly switched off, apparently to avoid accidentally drawing American or Israeli fire. China issued statements. Neither fired a shot in Iran’s defence.
This matters beyond the immediate moment. The entire architecture of the alternative world order that China has been constructing – BRICS (the Belt and Road Initiative), the network of partnerships meant to demonstrate there is a credible alternative to American-led institutions – rests on the assumption that China is a reliable partner.
Every government, from Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa to Latin America, is now watching China leave its closest Middle Eastern ally to burn. That is a blow to Chinese soft power that no diplomatic offensive can easily repair. It is an American success that will be felt for years, irrespective of how the Iran operation turns out.
America, meanwhile, has demonstrated something important: that it retains both the will and the capability to act decisively when its core interests are genuinely threatened. Not Israel’s interests. Not abstract liberal internationalist ideals. American interests, defined coldly and specifically.
None of this means the war is without risk. Strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure, Houthi threats to close the Bab el Mandeb Straits, the escalation in Lebanon: these are real dangers, and the costs of miscalculation are enormous.
Iran, aware that it is facing an existential moment, is doing what cornered regimes do, setting as many fires as possible in the hope that the pain forces a negotiated exit. And we cannot forget the risk shouldered by Israeli civilians.
But the logic of the American position is not difficult to follow once you’re looking at the right chessboard. Iran embedded itself so deeply in China’s strategic architecture over the past couple of years that removing it became a prerequisite for American freedom of action in East Asia.
This is also why President Trump seems to be pursuing a strange sort of regime change – something very different from what George W. Bush or the neocons meant by the term.
Trump doesn’t care one whit about democratisation, or, as Venezuela showed us, about changing any element of a regime that doesn’t stand in America’s way.
He’s interested in regime change in Iran only because it is, in its founding theology, unswervingly anti-American. It is thus not swayable from the Chinese orbit by any other means. He doesn’t need a democratic Iran, he just needs a not-anti-American Iran.
It must be said: Israel is also at war with Iran, and has focused its strikes on Iranian targets that specifically threaten Israel, such as the ballistic missile launchers.
But there are nevertheless two different wars underway in Iran, each taking place on very different strategic scales.
The best-case scenario that could emerge from this war is a stable, democratic-leaning, US-orientated Iran, a more secure Gulf, a weakened Hezbollah and thus a more stable and successful Lebanon, a more secure Israel – and above all, a China less able to threaten America’s Pacific allies.
None of that is nation-building. There is no Marshall Plan in the wings, no democratic project, no idealism of the kind that animated the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is colder and more coherent. So why can’t Secretary Rubio say it? Why hem and haw?
One obvious answer: they don’t want to push the Chinese to more overt responses. One should always give one’s enemy an excuse not to respond in kind. It’s a sensible ambiguity on the world stage, but it’s causing damage at home. It may be time for the administration to speak clearly on its strategy – in articulated statements that answer the good-faith questions of many Americans.
Once you understand the real reasons for America to strike now, everything else about this conflict clicks into place. The loudest voices in the debate are still arguing about the smaller chessboard. The war is being fought on the larger one.
Haviv Rettig Gur is The Free Press Middle East Analyst and host of the Ask Haviv Anything podcast. A version of this article appeared in The Free Press.
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A Victory! COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! If I was in Charge Interesting stuff Leadership of the highest kind Manly Stuff One Hell of a Good Fight Our Great Kids Paint me surprised by this Real men Soldiering Some Red Hot Gospel there! Stand & Deliver This great Nation & Its People War
Another, this man is one Hell of a stud!! William Frederick Harris
William Frederick Harris (March 6, 1918 – December 7, 1950) was a United States Marine Corps (USMC) lieutenant colonel during the Korean War. The son of USMC General Field Harris, he was a prisoner of war during World War II and a recipient of the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism during the breakout in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. He was last seen by American forces on December 7, 1950, was listed missing in action and is presumed to have been killed in action. Harris was featured in the book and film Unbroken.[1][2]
Biography
William Frederick Harris was born on March 6, 1918, at Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, to Field Harris (1895–1967) and Katherine Chinn-Harris (1899–1990).[1]
Harris graduated from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, in the class of 1939. He was in A Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines[3] and was captured by Japanese forces during the Battle of Corregidor in May 1942.
He escaped with Edgar Whitcomb, future governor of Indiana,[4] and on May 22, 1942, swam 8+1⁄2 hours across Manila Bay to Bataan, where he joined Filipino guerrillas fighting Japan just after the Battle of Bataan.[5] In the summer of 1942, Harris and two others left Whitcomb and attempted to sail to China in a motorboat, but the engine failed and the boat drifted for 29 days with little food or water. The monsoon blew them back to an island in the southern part of the Philippines where they split up and he joined another resistance group.[6] Harris headed towards Australia hoping to rejoin American forces he heard were fighting in Guadalcanal, but he was recaptured in June[7] or September 1943[8] by Japan on Morotai island, Indonesia, around 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Bataan.[9][10]
Harris was taken to Ōfuna POW camp, arriving February 13, 1944[11] and became acquainted with Louis Zamperini. Harris experienced malnutrition and brutal treatment at the hands of his jailers, notably by Sueharu Kitamura (later convicted of war crimes). Due to malnutrition, by mid-1944 the over 6 feet (180 cm) tall Harris weighed only 120 pounds (54 kg) and had beriberi.[12] In September and November 1944, Harris was beaten severely, to the point of unconsciousness, by Kitamura.[13][14] According to fellow captive, Pappy Boyington, Harris was knocked down 20 times with a baseball bat for reading a newspaper stolen from the trash.[15] Harris was near death when he arrived at a POW camp near Ōmori in early 1945. Zamperini provided Harris with additional rations and he recovered.[16] William Harris was chosen to represent prisoners of war during the surrender of Japan, aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
After World War II, Harris remained in the Marines. He married Jeanne Lejeune Glennon in 1946 and had two daughters.[1]
He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War.[2] He was the commanding officer of Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced) in the Korean War. During the breakout in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, his unit stayed behind as a rear guard to protect retreating forces. Despite heavy losses, Harris rallied his troops and personally went into harm’s way during the battle. Harris was last seen by American forces on December 7, 1950, walking and carrying two rifles on his shoulders. He was listed as missing in action, but after the war when former POWs had neither seen nor heard of him, Harris was declared to be dead. He was awarded the Navy Cross in 1951 for his actions at Chosin. Because of his penchant for escape and survival exhibited during World War II, his peers and family were reluctant to accept his death. A superior officer held on to his Navy Cross for a number of years, expecting to be able to give it to Harris personally.[17]
Remains thought to be his were eventually recovered. His family doubted the remains were his, and conclusive testing using DNA had not been attempted as of 2014.[1]
Awards
For his leadership and heroism on December 7, 1950, Harris was awarded the Navy Cross.
The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Lieutenant Colonel William Frederick Harris (MCSN: 0-5917), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United Nations while serving as Commanding Officer of the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, FIRST Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor forces in the Republic of Korea the early morning of 7 December 1950. Directing his Battalion in affording flank protection for the regimental vehicle train and the first echelon of the division trains proceeding from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri, Lieutenant Colonel Harris, despite numerous casualties suffered in the bitterly fought advance, promptly went into action when a vastly outnumbering, deeply entrenched hostile force suddenly attacked at point-blank range from commanding ground during the hours of darkness. With his column disposed on open, frozen terrain and in danger of being cut off from the convoy as the enemy laid down enfilade fire from a strong roadblock, he organized a group of men and personally led them in a bold attack to neutralize the position with heavy losses to the enemy, thereby enabling the convoy to move through the blockade. Consistently exposing himself to devastating hostile grenade, rifle and automatic weapons fire throughout repeated determined attempts by the enemy to break through, Lieutenant Colonel Harris fought gallantly with his men, offering words of encouragement and directing their heroic efforts in driving off the fanatic attackers. Stout-hearted and indomitable despite tremendous losses in dead and wounded, Lieutenant Colonel Harris, by his inspiring leadership, daring combat tactics and valiant devotion to duty, contributed to the successful accomplishment of a vital mission and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
— Board of Awards, Serial 1089, 17 October 1951[18]
Harris also received the Purple Heart, the Prisoner of War Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, the Korean War Service Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.[19]
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You’ve spent a lot of time and money to attend professional shooting classes. Why wouldn’t you listen to the instructors? Photo: B.T. Wheat
Every profession has “that guy” — the one who always must know the most, have the best experience, did it bigger and better and on and on and on.
It is my pleasure to greet each class on Training Day One (TD1) at Gunsite Academy. I consider it a great opportunity and honor and a highlight of my week. As we discuss the history of Gunsite, the highlights of their class, where the necessary amenities are located and more, I warn them about “that guy.”
Best Of The Best
Gunsite has some of the best instructors in the firearms training world. As our founder, the late Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper said: “They have seen the elephant.” One does not buy their way to being a Gunsite Instructor, they earn it. And it is a tough ticket to punch.
I ask the students on the first morning to keep an open mind when their instructors suggest methods of shooting to them differing from what the student currently uses. Try this stance, try this grip, let’s move your trigger finger a bit, have you considered a different firearm? The vast majority are open-minded and eager to listen to try to improve their gun handling, marksmanship and mindset.
However, we occasionally have “that guy or gal.” Gunsite Rangemaster to student: “Let’s modify your body position a bit.” Student looks at Rangemaster: “This is the way I’ve always done it.” Sigh … “Let’s modify your grip a bit.” Student: “This is the way my grandfather/dad/husband told me to do it.” Gunsite Rangemaster — How about you consider a different firearm that might fit your hand better?” “Student — “This is the gun my spouse told me to use and was best” or “This is the one the guy at the gun counter said would work well.”
As an aside — Never try to teach a family member or spouse to drive a stick shift, paddle a canoe or shoot.
Further, men should never try to purchase their lady’s gun purse, holster or firearm without them present. Find a suitable trainer and let them do it. Trust me on this …
You saved and saved your money, found the perfect firearm, picked your course, arranged for the vacation from work, purchased the plane ticket or fuel, rented a car, got the hotel, bought meals but now you want to do it “your way.” What is the point? Did you come to learn, or simply visit?
A shooting class might just puncture several of your long-held beliefs but in the spirit of learning, always try the instructor’s suggestions. You can always disregard them if they don’t work.
The Bottom Line
Let me make this simple — Why did you send us all the money? If you are going to do it the way you’ve always done it, why are you here? You could have stayed home and shot at soda cans out at grandpa’s farm. You really wouldn’t learn anything but you won’t here either, if you don’t let yourself.
What may have been cutting edge 15 years ago is no longer. Despite what inter web pundits say, The Modern Technique developed by Jeff Cooper 50 years ago has and continues to evolve. Techniques and technologies change, and good instructors know this and teach this.
Please heed the tried-and-true advice to “Listen and Do.”
Men — Put on your thick skin for what I am about to tell you. Women are better students than men as they truly “Listen and Do.” Us men folk tend to not ask directions, open the instruction manual or even look on YouTube.
We know all there is to know about everything. Ladies listen to our suggestions, do it, and discover it works. Some of the men require a switch to cut off the Juniper tree on the back of their calves.
More Than Words
I go to different schools. When I go, I pay my money to learn their way. Many years ago I returned to Bill Rogers School in rural Georgia. Bill shoots Isosceles and I prefer Weaver.
However, I tried to listen and do. Billy, the experienced Coach, kept coming up and adjusting my arm. The old Range master (God rest his soul, Ronnie Dodd) yelled at Billy: “Leave him alone. He’s hitting.” My response was for him to smack me on the side of the head as I came to learn the Rogers way.
All jesting aside, if you take nothing else from GUNS this month, whenever you go to that favorite class, heed their advice and try their methods. You might be surprised and find it works for you. If not, tuck it away in the tactical toolbox inside your brain as you might need it a later time. More simply put: Don’t be “That Guy!”
We rightfully assume that it takes months of intensive training to safely fly a Marine Corps attack jet.
LCPL Edward Foote pulled it off never having flown an A4 before. Public domain.
Top Gun was one of the most popular action movies of all time. Featuring a compelling story, aerial visuals that were life-changing for the era, uber-cool characters, and a pulsating musical score, Top Gun ensured that Naval Aviation recruiters could all retire early and get real jobs. Suddenly, everybody and their grandmother dreamt of strapping on an F14 and tearing across the skies.
I admit to having drunk a bit of that Kool-Aid myself. Flying an OH-58 aeroscout helicopter single pilot with the doors off is a bit like riding a 3-dimensional motorcycle. I do miss that so.
Additionally, several of our flight engineers got the avionics guys to splice boom boxes into the intercom systems of our military helicopters. I have actually flown NOE (nap of the earth) down remote Alaskan rivers at 170 knots and thirty feet while rocking to Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone. If you were paying taxes back in the 1990s, sincerely, thanks for that.
Serving as a military aviator was such an incredible privilege. I worked hard to earn that slot, but an awful lot of it was just unvarnished luck. The physical requirements were both stringent and relentless. Sometimes, the most trivial of things would crush a young man’s dreams. Such was the case with an enthusiastic Marine Lance Corporal named Howard Foote.
The A4 Skyhawk was an all-purpose workhorse of an aircraft
throughout the Vietnam War and beyond. Public domain.
The Guy
Lance Cpl. Foote was a born aviator. He served as a maintenance specialist on A6 Intruder strike aircraft and was, by all accounts, an exemplary Marine. He spent his free time flying gliders and made it clear to all who served with him that he aspired to Officer Candidate School and a career as a Marine fighter pilot. His chain of command thought that was a splendid idea and encouraged him at every opportunity.
One weekend, Foote was attempting to set a world altitude record in a civilian glider and suffered an aerial embolism. This is a potentially catastrophic variation on the bends, a condition wherein a nitrogen bubble forms in the bloodstream as a result of rapid pressure changes. Though LCPL Foote recovered, this injury disqualified him from Marine flight training. He was justifiably heartbroken.
The drive to fly high-performance aircraft can seem overwhelming. In Lance Cpt. Foote’s case, it overcame his otherwise sound judgment. Early in the morning on 4 July 1986 — Independence Day — Lance Cpl. Foote donned a flight suit, stole a crew truck, and motored out to a Marine A4 Skyhawk that was technically down for maintenance.
The ailerons were out of adjustment, and there was something amiss with the nose wheel. Regardless, Edward Foote, a young Marine who had previously only flown gliders, climbed aboard, ran through the startup procedure, and soon had the little jet turning and burning.
A left front view of a Marine Attack Squadron 322 (VMA-332) A-4M Skyhawk aircraft parked on the flight line.
The Crime
It was still dark when Foote angled the nimble little attack plane onto the blacked-out runway. Before anyone was the wiser, he firewalled the throttle and blasted off into the California skies. For the time being, at least, he was free.
Lance Cpl. Foote flew the plane for about 45 minutes. He angled out over the Pacific Ocean and entertained himself doing barrel rolls and loops, covering some 50 miles in the process. Eventually, he headed back to the airfield, made five separate passes over the runway, and then executed a perfect landing. Tragically, by then, somebody had noticed that an attack jet was missing.
Foote was charged in a General Court Martial with about a zillion different infractions and confined to the brig. After some vigorous negotiations between the Marine Corps and his attorney, the charges were dropped.
In quiet moments, I suspect all involved at least quietly sympathized with the kid’s plight. Foote was credited with 4.5 months served in confinement and separated with an Other-than-Honorable discharge. His parents were reportedly thrilled with the outcome.
The Rest of the Story
Curiously, our tale does not end there. I mentioned Edward Foote was a born aviator. Once the dust settled on his little attack plane larceny, Foote found another cockpit into which to climb.
Once he properly earned his pilot ratings, he attempted to fly for both Honduras and Israel. Failing at that, he did eventually qualify as a test pilot. Foote was ultimately rated in more than twenty military and civilian aircraft and served as a contract pilot for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Before he hung up his flight suit, Edward Foote had been awarded patents in both aviation design and engineering.
Disney tells us to follow our dreams. That’s a fine sentiment if somewhat impractical. If we all aspired to be princesses or princes, there would be no one left over to do the real work in society.
It is indeed OK to chase those dreams so long as we remain at least somewhat grounded in reality. However, there are some among us, like Edward Foote, who simply seem destined to bend the world to their will. When the flight surgeon told him he’d never fly a Marine attack jet, Foote just stole one and did it anyway.
The list of reasons why he should not have done that is long. It would have been awfully easy to have balled up that airplane and killed himself and others in the process. Only he didn’t. Edward Foote went on to a successful flying career as a test pilot for NASA. In so doing, this audacious young criminal served in some strange small way as a hero to us all.
Col. Townsend Whelen’s reflections on 60 years of experience with his single-shot rifles.
The dean of firearms writers and editors, Colonel Whelen, is the author of many valuable books, notably, The Hunting Rifle and Small Arms Ballistics and Design. His latest volume, Why Not Load Your Own?, is the least expensive and most practical book on handloading available. In this article, he shares with Gun Digest readers his longtime affection for single-shot rifles.
When I was just a little shaver, there was a Winchester single-shot rifle on exhibit in a gun store in my hometown. It was for the 40–82 cartridge, had a 30-inch, half-octagon No. 3 barrel, pistol grip stock of fancy walnut, checkered, Swiss buttplate, target sights, and was nicely engraved. It was my ideal of a fine rifle, and every day after school, while it remained on view, I tramped the 2 miles downtown to admire it. In some such manner are our tastes formed, and they are likely to remain with us always.
When I was 13, my father gave me my first rifle, a Remington rolling block for the .22 rimfire cartridge. Several months later I saw an advertisement of Lyman sights, and I fitted this rifle with a set.
I think I have to thank these sights for my becoming a real rifleman, for with them on this little rifle, I soon became quite a good shot, much better than any of my boy friends, and my interest was maintained and matured, as I do not believe it would have been if I had retained the open rear sight on this rifle.
All through my boyhood years I had a lot of fun and sport with this little rifle, and I shot a lot of stuff with it—English sparrows, squirrels, chipmunks, grouse, and one woodchuck. In 1892, I was lucky enough to win a “Fourth of July” rifle match with it in the Adirondack Mountains, and that year I also shot my first buck with it.
When I was 18, I enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard and had no trouble in qualifying as Sharpshooter with the old 45–70 Springfield single-shot rifle, a very sterling, accurate, and reliable arm.
The following year I was shooting on my company rifle team, and I also carried this rifle through the first few months of the Spanish-American War until I won my commission.
Following that war I “discovered” the magazine Shooting and Fishing, and became much interested in the work of Reuben Harwood with 25-caliber rifles. So I purchased a Stevens No. 44 Ideal single-shot rifle for the 25-20 S.S. cartridge, but it did not seem to shoot nearly as accurately as I was sure I held and aimed it.
I know now this was due to the blackpowder factory ammunition which in small calibers never was worth a hoot for accuracy. Anyhow, still following Harwood’s writings, I obtained a Winchester single-shot rifle (low sidewall) for the 25-20 cartridge, with 26-inch, No. 2 half-octagon barrel, pistol grip and shotgun butt, and I placed a gunsling on it.
I had John Sidle bush and rechamber this rifle for the 25-21 Stevens cartridge, which was Harwood’s favorite. Sidle also fitted it with his 5-power Snap-Shot scope, which was unique in its day, as it had a much larger field of view than any other scope and was a fine hunting scope for varmints.
With this outfit I got much better results but it never entirely satisfied me in accuracy until I had Harry Pope make me a mould for his 80-grain broad base-band bullet, and furnish me with one of his lubricating pumps.
Then, with King’s Semi-Smokeless powder the rifle shot as well as I could hold it. I had a lot of fine varmint shooting with this rifle in the hills on either side of the Shenandoah Valley, and when I was ordered to California for station, it proved just the medicine for the Western ground squirrels.
For Eastern shooters I will say that these are slightly larger than the gray squirrel, with a shorter and less bushy tail. They live in colonies like prairie dogs and are a great plague to farmers. I disposed of hundreds of them with this little 25-21 rifle. Then, one day, I expressed it to a gunsmith to have some work done on it, and it was lost in transit. I have ever since mourned it.
In the meantime one season I had a chance to go deer shooting in the North Woods and I got a Winchester single-shot rifle for the 38–55 cartridge and had it fitted with a Sidle scope.
Sidle was by far our best scope maker in those days. This gun was poorly balanced and too heavy for a handy hunting rifle, but the scope did save me the embarrassment of shooting a cow in mistake for a deer.
About this time I also had a Western hunt in view and I got a similar rifle for the 45–70 cartridge, fitted only with Lyman sights. But despite carefully handloaded ammunition it was not as accurate as the old 45–70 Springfield, and I soon disposed of both these rifles.
Then, in 1900, Horace Kephart published in Shooting and Fishing his celebrated article on the use of lead bullets in high-power rifles. He had used a Winchester single-shot rifle for the 30–40 Krag cartridge, and the accuracy he obtained with both jacketed and lead alloy bullets was better than anything I had been able to achieve to that date.
So an order went in to Winchester for one of these rifles with a 30-inch Number 3 nickel-steel barrel with .308-inch groove diameter, pistol grip, shotgun butt, and sling. This rifle started a long series of experiments with various loads, methods of resting the rifle, effect of rests on accuracy and location of center of impact, temperature, cleaning, etc., the results of which I gave to riflemen from time to time in the magazine Arms and the Man.
A little ignition difficulty was experienced, so I had Niedner fit a Mann-Niedner firing pin, .075 inch in diameter, round headed, with an .055-inch protrusion, and this trouble ceased. This is an absolutely necessary alteration with all our single-shot actions, which were designed in blackpowder days.
By this time I had been shooting for several years on the Army Infantry Rifle Team, and I felt quite sure that my results were fairly free from errors of aim and hold. By this time I had also discovered the bench rest.
In 1906, I got a 2 months leave and went on a hunt in British Columbia, taking this 30–40 along as my only rifle. It performed there as well as on the range, and I got mule deer, sheep, and goat with it.
One very cold day, in a foot of snow, I came on a band of sheep close to timberline. They evidently caught a glimpse of me for they banded together, and started off, but soon slowed down and resumed feeding.
I thought I had spotted a ram in the band, and I monkeyed around them for an hour, by which time I was nearly frozen and had to quit. As I left them, it occurred to me to see if I could unload and load my rifle with my hands badly numbed with cold. I was utterly unable to do so in any reasonable time.
To my mind this is the only disadvantage of a single-shot rifle as compared with a repeater. Certainly, the experience of our older sportsmen the world over with good single-shot rifles has been that they can be fired with all the necessary rapidity under normal conditions. However, I must add one other requirement—the single-shot rifle must extract its fired cases easily. Some don’t, due usually to poor chambering or excessive loads.
On a hunt a few days later I came on an enormous rock buttress with two peaks standing up like the ears of a great horned owl. The Chilcotin Indians call this rock “Salina,” which is their name for this owl.
On a ledge on the face of the cliff was a big goat. I guess the range was about 500 yards, and I could see no way to get closer, so I lay down and took the shot, holding 2 feet above the goat’s back. Of course I missed that, and two other shots I pulled, and the goat leisurely climbed up and disappeared between the two pinnacles.
After a lot of climbing and scrambling, I found my way to the back of this rock mass where it was equally precipitous, and while working around at the base of the cliff I heard something above me, and looking upward I saw the goat or one just like it.
At the shot it loosened all holds and, in a shower of small rocks, landed close to me. Then and there I named this rifle “Salina.” I continued to use it as a testing piece for many years, and I also hunted a lot with it in Panama from 1915 to 1917. In 1911, I fitted it with a Winchester 5A scope, and thereafter all my dope was recorded in minutes of angle, from which it was easy to determine elevations, trajectory, and bullet drop.
About this time the NRA was developing interest in outdoor shooting with the smallbore rifle at 50, 100 and 200 yards. Before this scarcely anyone had shot the 22 at longer distances than 25 yards and little was known of the capabilities of the .22 Long Rifle cartridge at longer distances.
So I got another Winchester single-shot for this cartridge, with 26-inch No. 3 barrel, set triggers, and sling. I fitted it with my 5A scope and proceeded to give it a good trial at all distances up to 200 yards. I soon found that various makes of ammunition have quite different results in accuracy.
With the makes that proved best it would just about group in 2½ inches at 100 yards. This has proved to be about the best that can be expected of this rifle with this cartridge, and this limitation was what finally caused Winchester to develop their celebrated Model 52 rifle for smallbore match shooting.
Generally speaking, the old Ballard is the only American single-shot action that has given fine accuracy with the .22 Long Rifle cartridge. However, with this Winchester, I did determine the angles of elevation for all distances, which had not been known or at least never published before I published my table.
Also, before I did this shooting, it was not known that there was so much difference in the accuracy of various makes of cartridges in a certain individual rifle.
Following the loss of my old 25-21 rifle by the express company, I had to have another varmint rifle, so I procured still another Winchester single-shot for the 25-20 S. S. cartridge, and proceeded to develop smokeless powder loads for it.
I finally found that the best was the 86-grain, soft-point, jacketed bullet with a charge of du Pont Schuetzen powder that filled the case to the base of the bullet. This load shot like nobody’s business, and it gave the finest accuracy up to 200 yards that I had obtained up to that time or heard of anyone else obtaining except with Pope muzzle-breechloading rifles. But my elation was short-lived, for the barrel began to pit, and in less than 500 rounds it was ruined.
About this time we had been devoting much study to the cleaning of rifles. It seemed to us that stronger ammonia was the only satisfactory cleaning solution, so I had a new barrel fitted to this rifle and cleaned it immediately after firing with this ammonia.
This did not do a particle of good, and again the barrel was ruined in 500 rounds. The same thing occurred with a Winchester Model 92 rifle for the 25-20 W.C.F. smokeless cartridge of Winchester make. When I wrote them a letter of complaint, they stated that I should not blame the rifle for what was evidently the fault of the powder (which they used)!
However, I excuse them for no one knew much about such things in those days. Of course we now know that the old potassium chlorate primer was the devil in the woodshed. With that primer, in small bores like .25 caliber the relatively small charge of powder did not dilute the primer fouling as it did in larger bores like the .30 caliber, and the primer got in its hellish work at once and fast.
For a while there seemed to be no solution for this problem of smokeless powder in small bores. Then, Winchester came out with stainless steel barrels made to order, so I had them build me still another rifle with this barrel, and modeled almost exactly like the fine old 25-21 that I had lost, only it was chambered for the 25-20 W.C.F. repeater cartridge, because I had an idea that the single-shot cartridge would soon be obsolete, which it was.
Clyde Baker stocked this rifle, and fitted it with a finger lever that hugged the pistol grip. But before I had time to do much with it, the Kleanbore primer was developed, and this solved all our cleaning and rusting problems.
Also at this time the development of the .22 Hornet cartridge shifted our work from the older cartridges to the modern high-intensity types. Later, however, I found that I could obtain splendid results with my 25-20 W.C.F. rifle with a load consisting of the 87-grain, soft point, spitzer bullet made for the 250–3000 Savage cartridge, bullet seated far enough out of the case to touch the lands, and a charge of 11 grains of du Pont No. 4227 powder.
The trajectory seems to indicate that the velocity is about 2,000 fps.; evidently, a fine wild turkey load. Of course, the overall length of the load is too great for 25-20 repeater rifles.
Up to this time you will note that I had been using Winchester actions exclusively on all my single shots, both because of their strength and durability, and because they were the only new actions that could be procured at that time.
After working for some years with the .22 Hornet cartridge in bolt-action rifles, a friend gave me a good Sharps-Borchardt action, so I had Frank Hyde obtain a 22-caliber Remington high-pressure steel barrel with a 15-inch twist, and fit it to this action and chamber it for the 22–3000 Lovell R2 cartridge.
Frank also worked over the firing pin, and made the pin retract with the first down movement of the lever, two very necessary alterations with this action. This rifle, fitted with a 10X Unertl Varmint scope, is a fine, accurate varmint rifle. With good 50-grain bullets and 15.5 grains of 4227 powder it will group reliably, day after day, in about a minute of angle, which is the best that can be expected from this cartridge and a single-shot action.
Occasionally, a five-shot group as small as half an inch turns up at 100 yards, but such is a lucky group. This rifle, however, has one peculiarity. Almost invariably the first shot fired from a clean, cold bore strikes from half an inch to an inch above the succeeding group at 100 yards.
I think this is because the groove diameter of the barrel is 0.2235 inch, while all the bullets I have used so far have measured .224. This is no drawback because, knowing it I can allow for it, or can fire a fouling shot before starting on the day’s hunt.
It has quite generally been proven that with equal barrels and loads, a single-shot action will not give as fine accuracy as a modern bolt action.
There are apparently only two exceptions, the Ballard action for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge, and the Hauck single-shot action, which is a horse of a different color with its better bedding, ignition, and breeching up.
I do not mean to imply that there have not been any single-shot rifles that would give gilt-edge accuracy. There have been quite a few, but I would think that any custom riflemaker who guaranteed to produce a single-shot rifle that would average groups under a minute would soon go broke.
So far as we have been able to determine, the difficulties with the single-shot action seem to be in the two-piece stock, the breeching up and the ignition. The single-shot rifle also seems to have a greater jump and barrel vibration than the bolt action.
The difference in elevation required between full charges and reduced loads is much greater with it. In this connection it has long been my experience that to get the best accuracy from a single-shot rifle the forearm should not touch the receiver. It should be possible to pass a thin sheet of paper between the two.
The most accurate single-shot rifle that I have owned is one for the 219 Improved Zipper cartridge. I traded Bill Humphrey out of a fine Winchester rifle with 26-inch, No. 3 Diller barrel, .224-inch groove diameter and 16-inch twist, double set triggers, and a fine stock made by him.
I had this chambered for the Improved Zipper cartridge with a very perfect reamer made by Red Elliott. This cartridge is simply the 219 Winchester Zipper case fireformed to a 30-degree shoulder angle. You simply fire the factory cartridge in the rifle and it comes out improved.
The best load I have found for this rifle has been 32 grains of du Pont No. 3031 powder with the 50-grain Sierra bullet. M.V. is probably around 3,900 fps. After working up this load and sighting in, it gave three five-shot groups at 100 yards measuring .65, .80 and .80 inch.
For 3 years, I have used this rifle almost exclusively for all my chuck shooting. Its accuracy and very flat trajectory have given a high percentage of hits at long ranges. With it I made the longest first-shot hit I have ever pulled off on a chuck; difficult to pace because it was up and down hill over rough ground, but it was certainly considerably in excess of 300 yards.
The Stevens No. 44½ action is another on which a most excellent and accurate rifle can be built, particularly for cartridges not to exceed the 219 Donaldson in power. My old friend Jim Garland, who has been my companion on many chuck hunts over the past fifteen years, has a glorious piece built on this action.
The Diller barrel was chambered and fitted for the R2 Lovell cartridge, and the lock work done by C. C. Johnson. Bill Humphrey made the stock and the scope is a superb 6X Bear Cub Double. With each lot of cartridges that Jim loads for it, usually with 15.5 grains of 4227 powder, he tests it on the bench, and it has never failed to average under an inch, and with some lots of bullets it gives around ¾ inch.
He regards it as his best varmint rifle, and its bag numbers in excess of 300 chucks and hawks. I remember one afternoon 2 years ago when we were separated by a range of hills. Every 2 or 3 minutes I would hear Jim shoot, and toward sundown I wandered over to see what in thunder he had been shooting at.
He had a stand on a hill above a creek bottom that was honeycombed with holes, and toward dusk the chucks began to come out. When we went down, we picked up 36 of them shot at distances from 150 to 250 yards. Both Jim and I are rather of the opinion that a first-rate riflemaker will turn out a larger proportion of gilt-edge shooting rifles when he uses the Stevens 44½ action than with any other.
Jim also has a superb engraved Ballard for the 25 Rimfire cartridge, the work of Niedner, Shelhammer and Kornbrath. With Remington or Peters cartridges, it groups the first 10 shots at 50 yards in about ¾ inch, and the second 10 when it is warmed up a little, in about half an inch, and is his favorite squirrel rifle.
My latest venture in the realm of single shots has been one of the most interesting. Three years ago I took Salina, my old 30–40 Winchester Single Shot, out of the box where it had been in store for several years, well covered in and out with Rig [Editor’s note: Rig is wonderfully effective gun grease, which I have used since childhood], with the intention of trying some new bullets in it.
To my consternation, when I put a patch through the bore it came out with red rust and many bodies of big, black ants. Ants had nested in the bore and their acid had ruined it. One day last year, looking at the old piece that had served me so well for half a century, I decided it was entitled to have something done to rejuvenate it. I had on hand a fine 25-caliber Douglas barrel, .257-inch groove diameter and 13-inch twist.
So I had H. L. Culver, my metal gunsmith, fit this barrel to the action, and I asked him to chamber it for the Krag case necked down to .25 caliber with a 30-degree shoulder angle. As it turned out, this case is very similar in shape and capacity to the 25 Donaldson Ace. We called it the 25 Culver-Krag.
Then, Bill Humphrey made a beautiful new stock and forearm to my exact dimensions, and Mark Stith fitted one of his 4X Bear Cub Double scopes, and I had just about the finest appearing, best balanced and fitting, and steadiest holding rifle I have ever had in my hands.
The intention had been to produce an all-around hunting rifle rather than one for varmint or target shooting, and it has turned out to be just that. I have only worked up one load for it so far—the 100-grain Sierra soft point spitzer bullet and 40 grains of 4350 powder. After sighting in I fired five, five-shot groups with it at 100 yards, measuring 1.75, 1.12, .88, 1.85 and 1.98 inches.
Before you criticize these groups, consider that they were fired with a rather light-barreled single-shot rifle aimed with a low-power scope having a flat top post reticle, and that the charge was quite a powerful one. It is much more difficult to get a fine grouping with a heavy load than with a light one.
Last summer and fall I carried Salina in her new garb for probably a total of 350 miles afoot in my wanderings over the mountains adjacent to my summer home,occasionally gathering in a chuck, crow, hawk or porcupine, and always hoping for a bear or bobcat which never materialized. I have never carried a rifle that seemed as friendly.
All this pernicious activity with single-shot rifles, covering a period of 60 years, started with that rifle in the gun store window when I was a little boy, and that is the way with most of our preference for single shots.
It is not their superiority that causes us to select and work with them, but rather some romantic or historic association. An urge to acquire and experiment, not always wise, but usually one that gives deep satisfaction.
It seems to many of us that the highly efficient bolt action is but a remodeled musket in a way, that the lever action is a product of America’s unrivaled quantity-production industry, but that the single shot constructed on fine and beautiful lines by a master riflemaker is a gentleman’s piece.
Editor’s note: This article appeared in the 1953 7th Edition of Gun Digest, and, keenly aware that we tread on sacred ground, we have only lightly edited it.
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