The ‘Deadliest Recruit on Parris Island’
Pfc. Austin Ferrell
Jeff LPH sends us a story that’s sure to warm the hearts of Marines everywhere. Marines have no heart you say? Au contraire, a Master Guns I worked with had one- in a jar on his desk. Without further ado,
Philip Athey
When Pfc. Austin Ferrell transitioned from a recruit to a Marine his senior drill instructor gave him one simple piece of advice.
“Stay humble,” Staff Sgt. Joshua Gerde told Ferrell as he handed him his Eagle, Globe and Anchor ? the sign that he was finally a Marine after three months of grueling recruit training.
Remaining humble after Marine Corps boot camp is a challenge for any new Marine.
But for Ferrell, who was declared the “deadliest recruit on Parris Island” when he beat the rifle range record, the challenge might be even greater.
The new Marine scored 248 out of a possible 250 on Table 1 of the Marine Corps Rifle Qualification and followed it by a perfect 100 on Table 2, earning him the recruit record at Parris Island, South Carolina, under the modern scoring system.
Table 2, which consists of close range fire at multiple targets and moving targets, was added to Marine Corps rifle qualifications in 2005.
Prior to that change only Table 1, which consists of shooting from the prone, kneeling, standing and sitting position from 200 yards, 300 yards and 500 yards, counted toward the score for Marine recruits.
Ferrell garnered the attention of his drill instructors early during his time at boot camp, being appointed guide during his second week of training and holding onto that position through graduation, he told Marine Corps Times.
But it was on the range where he knew his skills would shine, Ferrell told Marine Corps Times in a phone interview on Tuesday.
“I have been shooting since I was five or six,” Ferrell said.
It started “as just a .22 with my father, but it has drastically changed since then,” Ferrell added.
Ferrell said he had heard plenty of recruits bragging about how good of a shot they were before his platoon’s time on the range, but he opted to remain quiet.
But when he saw that the rifle range displayed the name of the record-holding recruit for platoons to see as they marched by, he had to speak up.
“I was joking with my PMI (Primary Marksmanship Instructor) the day before pr-qual that if I broke the record, how long it would take to get my name on the board,” Ferrell said.
The instructor just smirked, thinking Ferrell was just another over-confident kid.
Not hardly. Read the rest of the article here: Marine Corps Times
Thanks Jeff.
Category: Bravo Zulu, Guest Link, Marine Corps
You sure that wasn’t a Sergeant Major? As the son of a Master Gunnery Sergeant, that doesn’t sound quite right to me. I’m prettu sure my father kept a jar of miscreant testicles in his desk drawer.
Impressive shooting by the young man.
Did you see the link on the bottom of the page where arson is being suspected on the Bon Homme Richard fire?
Thanks, saw it. Standing by for further details.
Navy Times Link
A man’s got to know his limitations….
Further incentive for me to score more .22LR to teach the grandkids how to shoot.
As .22LR can’t be reloaded unlike the rest of what I shoot I try to keep a fair amount on hand. I never let the shelf get below 5000 rounds and am somewhere north of 8500 right now. I think that means I am not getting to the range enough.
True, but with 9 grandkids it is cheaper to teach them with .22LR or, for bolt-action work, .22Short
And the .22LR leaves more edible meat on the squirrel.
I don’t disagree that 22 is the way to go. I just keep a large inventory as I am dependent on others for its manufacture. As I live in a subdivision where shooting firearms is frowned upon I have a pump pellet gun for squirrels.
I also have a 96 pound German Shepherd that seems to take it as a personal insult if a squirrel should set foot in his back yard.
Another option is a lever action in .38 special. Reloading .38s is rather easy and low cost.
The single-action in 38 is also a decent training arm.
Most such arms are actually .357, allowing double duty as defensive arms.
And Cowboy guns are cool.
You need to be careful with lever action .38 due to the tubular magazine. .38/.357 bullets tend to be flatnosed so that isn’t the issue, but you need to make sure you have a good crimp on them. I owned a model 94 in 44 mag and what i dsicovered over time with factory ammo and a full magazine was some rounds the bullet recessed into the case under tension from the tubular magazine spring. This can result in very increased chamber pressures when the rounds are fired.
I think it was my fault as I kept the magazine fully loaded and would leave it that way all hunting season. At the time I was hunting at my grandfather’s in the mountains of NW Pennsylvania and after a day in the woods we left the rifles in the unheated garage so as to not risk condensation forming by taking a warm gun out into the cold and having it freexe up. Having done most of my hunting prior to that along the coast of SC I’d never given it any thought.
Well, that just goes to prove what I’ve always known: Marines aren’t just chest-thumpers.
This one’s smart, good shot, low-key, and he’s cute, too.
“Cute”. Maybe if he smiled. Maybe.
Ex, I think ya might wanna rephrase that…
THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE!!
(with tears of joy trailing down my cheeks – and I ain’t even a jarhead)
And all of that using only iron sights!
If you don’t know how to use iron sights, you’re not much of a shooter. Like being a chef who only knows how to microwave food.
Iron Sights are the stick shift of the shooting world!
“Ferrell said he had heard plenty of recruits bragging about how good of a shot they were before his platoon’s time on the range, but he opted to remain quiet.”
And he’s smart, too!
BZ Marine! Job well done! It is young folks such as yourself that give me a glimmer of hope for our future.
Smart kid, signed an Intelligence contract and wants to get a degree in something worth while!
We had several Marines in Our Basic Course at Fort Huachuca, AZ when I went through. They were all top of the class, no slackers like the Army lets through. I remember being worried about them in Honor Graduate competition since they all ran better than me. I knew that if I could at least run 11:56 (back in the day when everyone did the 18-21 scale) I had them, because they could not do push-ups and sit-ups. On the extended scale I could do 10 extra push-ups and sit-ups and they would need to beat me by a minute on the run to do better (I wasn’t that much slower)! As it was, this little female blew us all away and took honor Grad!
Still had fun 4wheeling in the mountains with them too, wish I had bought my winch earlier. Could have gotten past all the downed trees.