10/10/2026
Annie Oakley once watched a Texas woman shoot and reportedly declared her the greatest shot she had ever seen.
Her name was Elizabeth Servaty Toepperwein, better known as Plinky Toepperwein, and her story is one of the most remarkable chapters in American shooting history.
Elizabeth began working at a Wi******er am******on factory as a young woman. There, she met Adolph Toepperwein, a professional exhibition shooter whose extraordinary skills had already earned him recognition. They married in 1903 and settled in San Antonio, Texas.
Her journey toward greatness began with a simple tin can.
During one of her earliest shooting lessons, Adolph tossed a can into the air. Elizabeth fired, struck her target, and heard the distinctive sound of the bullet hitting metal. Her response was simple: “I plinked it.”
According to the Texas State Historical Association, this may have been the earliest use of the word “plink” in this context. A casual remark from a young woman learning to shoot would become connected to a word now familiar to generations of recreational shooters.
But Elizabeth was far more than the woman behind a memorable expression. She possessed extraordinary talent.
At the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, she shattered 967 out of 1,000 clay targets. Two years later, she traveled to Sea Girt, New Jersey, where she became the first woman in the United States to qualify as a national marksman with the military r***e.
Her achievements continued. She became the first woman to break 100 consecutive targets in trapshooting, repeating the feat more than 200 times. Her weapon of choice was a 12-gauge Wi******er pump-action sh***un, which she handled with remarkable precision.
In 1916, she took on an extraordinary endurance challenge in Montgomery, Alabama. Her goal was to shoot 2,000 clay targets. Over five hours and twenty minutes, she hit 1,952 of them—a remarkable demonstration of concentration, consistency, and physical endurance.
Elizabeth and Adolph performed together for approximately four decades, entertaining audiences with feats that demanded exceptional coordination and control. Among their most astonishing acts were mirror shooting, in which Elizabeth aimed backward using a hand mirror, and demonstrations performed while hanging upside down.
Even during World War II, she continued demonstrating her famous mirror-shooting technique for American soldiers.
In recognition of her achievements, Elizabeth was inducted into the Trapshooting Hall of Fame in 1969.
Yet perhaps the most enduring part of her legacy began long before the records, the performances, or the honors.
It began with a young woman, a tin can tossed into the air, and a shot that made a little metallic sound.
“ I plinked it.”
A simple phrase, spoken almost a century ago, became part of a much larger story—one about a woman whose remarkable skill helped her earn a lasting place in American history.
Her name deserves to be remembered not only for the records she set, but also for the extraordinary talent behind them.
