5th Annual River Bend Handgun Championships
Atlanta, Georgia

River Bend Draws Firers

The nation's best pistol shooters — and none of them play “quick draw” with loaded weapons — converge on Atlanta this weekend for the 5th annual River Bend Gun Club Handgun championships.

Olympic pistol champ, William W. McMillan heads a 25-team delegation form the Quantico Marines.

And national pistol champion Jim Clark of Shreveport, La., is the star civilian in the field of 240 shooters.

There will be 52 shooters from the U.S. Army's advanced marksmanship unit at Fort Benning.

The shoot will be held Saturday and Sunday at the River Bend Club near Norcross.

The Atlanta Constitution, Georgia, Thursday, July 2, 1959

RIVER BEND HOLDING PISTOL CHAMPIONSHIP

They'll be fireworks aplenty Saturday morning as elite of the nation's pistol corps match shooting eyes at the fifth annual River Bend Gun Club's Handgun Championships on the club range near Norcross.

The two-day shoot brings together a field of 240 shooters including Olympic center-fire champion Bill McMillan, a Marine, national civilian champion Jim Clark of Shreveport and U.S. Army ace David Cartes.

It's a shoot that River Bend Club officials are hoping will become a regular warmup stop for shooters enroute to the National Championships.

Such is the caliber of comptitors on hand for this week-end's affair.

Head the Marine team in addition to crack shot McMillan is Lt. Col. Walter R. Walsh, a ontime FBI agen who now heads the small arms training program for the Marine Corps. Walsh is a paster international and Olympic team coach.

While Cartes is current star of Army pistol teams, a 52-man unit from Fort Benning includes other sharpshooting GIs.

Top outfit among police entries for the matches is the team from Atlanta's Federal Penitentiary (they're guards).

Georgia civilian shooters will rest their case on the River Bend team of John Pettigrew, Ed Bradley and Dr. and Mrs. Guy Davis.

This quartet established a national indoor match record last year for the .22 caliber pistol.

The handgun matches include .22, .38 and .45 caliber pistols.

The Atlanta Constitution, Georgia, Saturday, July 4, 1959

Stineman Hits 2642 In State Pistol Meet

Army M-Sgt. Richard Stineman, 26-year-old member of the Advanced Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, fired a sizzling 2642-123x grand aggregate score to win the 1959 Georgia State Pistol Championship at the River Bend Rod and Gun Club near Atlanta last Sunday.

In compiling his score, Stineman defeated some of the best pistol shooters in the country, including Marine Corps Capt. William McMillan, 1958 Olympic centerfire champion, and James clark, Shreveport, La., winner of last year's National Matches. McMillan scored 2641-129x for second place in the match standings.

In all, 17 shooters broke the "2600" mark during the Georgia State contest.

LT. COL. William A. Hancock, AMU Pistol Team officer in charge, reported that this is the highest number of individual shooters to score over 2600 points in any one match.

Hancock was fourth in the final count with a 2623-111x aggregate. Third place match honors went to Army Lt. David Cartes, AMU, with a 2628-118x total.

High civilian shooter was James Clark, with 2614-103x, Leonard Robinson, Columbus, scored 2541-74x for third high civilian standing.

The Army Pistol Team will participate in the 1959 South Eastern Atlantic Regional Pistol Championships at Tampa, Fla., over the coming weekend. This is the last open match scheduled before the team leaves to compete in the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, in early August.

The Bayonet, Fort Benning, Georgia., July 9, 1959

Local Pistol Team Derailed; Sets Sights For Comeback

The heavy hitting Marine Corps Pistol Team, charged up by successive overwhelming victories in the Maryland State Championships and the MCS Spring Annual Tournament, was derailed over the holiday weekend in the River Bend Championship Matches at Atlanta, Ga.

The Marines met the big Army Team head on and came out on the losing end in 15 individual matches while winning only two.

Capt. W. W. McMillan maintained the Marine reputation with the .45 pistol by winning the slow fire match with 194 and the aggregate with a score of 879.

In the four-man team matches, the Marines could not find the right combination as the U.S. Army Blue Team swept all three team matches with scores of 1179 in the .22 team match; 1166 in the center fire team match and 1155 in the .45 team match.

In the Grand Aggregate, Capt. McMillan lost to Cpl. R. Stineman, USA, by a single point, 2641 to 2642. Capt. McMillan, 13 points behind Cpl. Stineman as the .45 caliber matches began, came very close as he picked up 12 points with the .45 - firing 879 to Stineman's 867.

Excerpt from the Quantico Sentry, July 10, 1959