Mad minute

Mad minute was a pre-World War I term used by British riflemen during training to describe scoring 15 hits onto a 12" round target at 300 yd within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle). It was not uncommon during the First World War for riflemen to greatly exceed this score. Many riflemen could average 30+ shots, while the record, set in 1914 by Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall was 38 hits. It was rumored that a company of assaulting German soldiers reported that they had faced machine gun fire, while in fact it was a rifle squad of ten men firing at this rate. Annually, a group of British owners meet for a mad minute competition.^{[citation needed]}

In the Vietnam War, the term was used to describe a drill involving intense automatic weapons fire, intended to flush out infiltrators or ambushes.

"Mad Minute" has remained in military parlance as a term to describe any short period of intense weapons fire.

References

• From Musket to Breech Loader, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/weapons/musket_to_breech_10.shtml 
• Urban Dictionary: mad minute, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mad%20minute