The sport of rifle shooting at Cambridge University has been practised since at least the early 19th century. Beginning as part of the military training of the Cambridge University Rifle Volunteers, it has since been conducted by a number of student clubs, and is currently carried out predominantly by the Cambridge University Rifle Association and Cambridge University Small Bore Club, with some participation by the Cambridge University Revolver and Pistol Club for the discipline of gallery rifle.
Cambridge shooters compete in a number of Varsity matches against the University of Oxford, which constitute one of the longest-running Oxbridge sporting rivalries. The oldest of these is the Chancellors', currently contested in the discipline of target rifle, which dates to 1862. In 1869, an inter-university long range fixture was set up, which later became the match-rifle Varsity match known as the Humphry. Other Varsity matches include several smallbore fixtures and a gallery rifle match, which replaced the former revolver match in 1997.
Shooting is generally a Half Blue sport at Cambridge, though shooters can be awarded Full Blues for exceptional shooting success. Several Cambridge shooters have become notable in the sport during and after their time at the university, including several winners of the Sovereign's Prize, the most prestigious contest in British target shooting.
Disciplines and clubs
Target rifle shooting in the United Kingdom is traditionally divided into smallbore and fullbore shooting. Smallbore shooting is conducted at shorter ranges, generally between , with .22 calibre rifles. As smallbore ranges are often indoors, the competition season runs throughout the year. Fullbore shooting is carried out with larger-calibre rifles (in the modern era, usually .308 calibre) at ranges in the hundreds of yards. The fullbore season runs from March until October, which corresponds approximately to the Easter term of Cambridge University. The discipline of fullbore shooting includes target rifle, shot at shorter ranges — in the modern era — with open sights and strict rules on the positions and equipment permitted, and match rifle, shot at longer ranges — — with fewer restrictions on equipment and positions, which include allowing the use of telescopic sights.
Smallbore shooting at Cambridge is conducted by Cambridge University Small-Bore Club, which predominantly operates in the Michaelmas and Lent terms. Fullbore shooting is conducted by the Cambridge University Rifle Association, which largely trains and competes during the Easter term and the 'long vacation' between July and October.
The discipline of gallery rifle, which historically evolved from pistol shooting, is conducted by Cambridge University Revolver and Pistol Club.
Cambridge fullbore shooting, particularly match rifle, maintains close links with the English Eight Club, which administers the England national match rifle team. In 1954, Cambridge undergraduates (along with those of other shooting universities) were granted honorary membership of the English Eight; since 1960, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities have maintained a gun room in the English Eight's clubhouse at Bisley, and have used it as their base on the camp.
History
The first formal shooting club at Cambridge University was formed in 1859, shortly before the 1860 raising of the Cambridge University Rifle Volunteers, a militia unit recruited from the student body. According to a Cambridge rumour, Horatio Ross, one of the great rifle shooters of the nineteenth century, whose son Edward was a member of CURV, once fired from the top of the tower of the Cambridge University Press building at a target 2000 yards away, thereby setting the record for the longest range at which shooting had been conducted in Cambridge.
The CURV, initially part of the Cambridge Rifle Club (which included units from the town's non-student population), first shot on a range on Mill Road, but became an independent organisation on 7 February 1861 and acquired its own range on Grange Road (immediately north of where Leckhampton House was constructed in the 1880s, and opposite what would become Selwyn College) on 30 October. The new range allowed firing at up to . It is unclear precisely when the range fell out of use: it was noted on an Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1950, by which part of the range had been built upon, but is absent from maps from the 1960s.