Mad minute was a pre-World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 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

Lee-Enfield

The Lee-Enfield bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle was the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century...

 or Lee-Metford

Lee-Metford

The Lee-Metford rifle was a bolt action British army service rifle, combining James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system and ten-round magazine with a seven groove rifled barrel designed by William Ellis Metford...

 rifle). It was not uncommon during the First World War for riflemen to greatly exceed this score. Many riflemen could average 25 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.

In the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, 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.