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Show 1 I Modern Rifle Shooting ff I Explained by an Expert. it",! By Walter a. Hudson, 2I. D., I .j Of New York City, prerrtdcnt of the i 1 ' Manhattan Rifle and Revolver asaocla-J asaocla-J j Hon, and recognized as one of (he lilglt- 1 est authorities on Uie subject. t . Target shooting ;is a sport has been j i more or less- sharply divided Into match , rifle shooting and military rifle shoot- tf , lug. The points In which th match dlf- V fer from the rifle are Its lighter trlg- ri(,l ger pull, finer Fights and better finish; H and, In addition, various departures from military styles are allowed In the i -J way of special attachments, butt plates, ' '-a heavier weight of barrel, etc". ! ; The match rllle al la developed with j accuracy Its chief aim, and accuracy 1 nt the particular distance it is to be I I O 4- -M-4 O 5 OOO uied; while the military rifle has to be adapted to all ranges, and be strongly built and serviceable under adverse conditions, con-ditions, eyen if at the expense of some accuracy. In view of these considerations, it Is scarcely to be wondered at that the target, tar-get, rllle developed with the sole object o Phootlng from the off-hand position at 200 yardsi as in vogue by the Gorman-American (schuetzen) clubs, should differ eo much from the long range match and military riilc. Modern. Schuetzen Hifles. The schuetzen rifle has changed but little In many years, and In ita preeent form Is probably as near perfection for its purpose as it Is possible to got. Most of the modern srhuetzon rifles still use black powder, and In the finest American makes the bullet is pushed down from the muzzle as in the old muzzle-loading rifles. They are extremely ex-tremely accurate, and the shooting Is generally done on rheltered ranges; eo that this kind of shooting brings the game down to merely one of skilful holding On the. other hand, the long range match rifle has of late years approached more and more closely to the military, so much so that most of the match rllles now in use In England are merely mere-ly military riflea fitted with fine target sights. Skill In shooting at the long ranges, whether with military or match rllles. involves not only good holding, but also a knowledge of the effects of disturbing factors, such as changes of light, Avind, barometric pressure, temperature, tem-perature, etc. It must not be srupposed, however, that schuetzen rifle shooting is of no value to riflemen who aspire to honors with the military or long range rifle. It has the advantage of using very cheap ammunition; it is generally done on ranges provided with facilities? that In-suro In-suro comfort to the shooter during even the coldest and most difiagreeabie weather, and It la the best possible training for fine holding. Let Up in Cold Weather. It Is far better for tho rifleman who would keep In practice to shoot fifty or 100 phots at 200 yards, say once a week or two weekp, during the winter with a schuetzen rllle than to abandon the game altogether during cold weather. There are a large number of civilian riflemen who confine themselves almost entirely to this kind of shooting, and who are nevertheless very well Informed and skillful riflemen, able to tako up other branches of rifle shooting at short notice, and their skill in holding. Intimate Inti-mate knowledge of many of the technicalities techni-calities of the rifle learned by long and careful practice with their own weapons certainly put them far in the lead of the novice, no matter what other branch of rifle shooting they adopt. But It Is In longe range shooting, undoubtedly, un-doubtedly, that the rifleman finds the highest development of the sport. And In late year?, since the advent of the modern smokeless powder rifle of high power and small caliber, it Is gratifying to note, In our American as well as in the British weapons, that the military match rifle have approached very near to each other. Modern Rifle Different. In the old black powder days, the match rifle, with its paper patched bullet, bul-let, heavy charge of powder, and necessity neces-sity of cleaning after each shot, waa a far different weapon than the military rifle. In those days, to attempt to shoot 1000 yards with a military rifle would have been considered the height of folly. But now there Is little difference in the scores made with match and military rlfley at these long ranges. Indeed, our Krag, when a good barrel can be selected, select-ed, and when the frag is removed from the trigger pull, Is. In the opinion of many expert riflemen, fully capablo at the mid and long ranges of holding Its own against the finest match rifles that can be produced. There nre few target sights that afford af-ford belter aiming than the 1901 model Krag sight, and while It is true that the target sights as a rule are further apart and adapted to the back position, the modern high power rifle yaoms to shoot so much hotter from the prone poBltlon as to more than compensate for any slight advantage the target sights might thus gain over our military sight A glance over the records f those long range matches of recent years that have been open to both military and match rifles will show that in 90 per cent of the matches the Krag has come out victorious. victori-ous. Improvement In Bullets. Indeed, tho remarkable development of accuracy In the American high pow- er rifle within tho post few years has not been due to any particular refinement refine-ment In the weapon or sights, but eolc-lv eolc-lv to the improvement In tho bullet and In tho more uniform measuring of powder pow-der charge. To deal understandingly with tho differences dif-ferences that have taken place In rifles since tho adoption of the high power principle, it will bo necessary to look a little Into the principles governing all rifles. A rifle may be regarded aa nn Implement embodying all the resources of science and art Jn the effort to throw a propectllo far, pwlftly and accurately. The propectllo Is acted upon by the natural nat-ural forces precisely as Is a t'tone when thrown from the' hand, the differences, due to the higher velocity of tho bullet, being in degree and not in kind. The mystery that In the minds of. tho uninitiated Is supposed to attend tho flight of a bullet Is chiefly due to the fact that the bullet cannot under ordinary ordi-nary circumstances be observed In Its flight and Its motion watched, like the stone. Pall When There Is No Support. The first thing that may be taken as true of all projectiles, no matter how thrown, Is that they fall toward the earth as soon as the support Is removed from them. Just the same as though pon, however powerful I lllat no jet so fast that U wnfr 2", M llne-lt Immedlateiy'U.4"1 soon as It leaves the btffS 10 falV latter has been directed uni UtW extent; In which bKLd ward motion, It will r fSS lu ward force also Impart i expended, and then bri? lBhl cording to the wcll-knm i 0 lng bodleslowly flnrA, the further it falls. Th"nLf let, therefore, is ahay , FhlofM line. "aj3 & cui It does not seem as thourh aIr J offer much res stance to n5, alr a body thxoush T t JrV1 has ridden a bicycle 'if? Moreover, the resistance It ihi11. creases much more than proportta-with proportta-with the speed of the moving & if the speed be doubled tKfr-wlll tKfr-wlll be more than quadruped , Air Retards the Bullet J Tho air. therefore, bToms J more potent factor in retarding tZ. gresB of a bullet thnn of th9 (Continued on Pago j MODERN RIFLE SHOOTING (Continued from Pago 12.) thrown from the hand, even though, weight for weight, the bullet presents less sectional area. The forward motion of tho projectile, therefore, will become slower the further It travels, while Its falling speed is continually Increasing owlnc to tho laws of gravity; and for this reason the further It goes, the more curved will be its flight, until at last it drops to the ground. It ls evident that the greater weight a bullet has In proportion to its sectional section-al area, the leas will be the degree of the resistance opposed to It by the air. other things being equal. An athlete could not throw a cork as far as a boy could a piece of lead of the same size and shape. Therefore, the heaviest available material ma-terial lead 13 used in the manufacturo of the rillc bullets. For the same reason, rea-son, the modern long bullet maintains its velocity much better than the old round bullet used ln the muBket and early muzzle-loading rifle. Object of Spiral Grooves. But when a bullet 1b made longer than its diameter, some means must be takon to Insure Its flying In the direction of its long axis point on. This is the object of the spiral crrooves that are cut on tho Inside of a rlllo barrel, for it ls ' found that if the bullet be caused to rotate with RUtliclcnt rapidity on its long axis, It will not turn sideways during- its flight. The degree of this twist ln tho rifling Is called Its ''pitch." The longer the bullet in proportion to Its diameter, the quicker the pitch of the rilling must be; if the bullet is too long for a given pitch Of rifling to hand, this will be shown by the bullet going through the target in a sideways or tipping tip-ping position; in the parlance of the rifleman, it "keyholes." It ls necessary for tho bullet to be kept point on from consideration of accuracy, as well as to maintain Its velocity. When we increase the proportionate length of our bullets and use a quicker twist of rifling, it becomen necessary to harden tho bullet by the addition of tin or antimony, so that it will hold on to the rlllincr and not be blown straight throuch tho barrel without following tho grooves stripping, riflemen call It. 5 But when we reach a certain point In lencthenlng the bullet and increasing the pitch of the rilling, no alloy of lead is sufllclent to give good results, k Made of Coro Lead. Therefore, ln the modern high power 'f, rifle, tho bullet is made up of a core of t lead, with a Jacket of very tough metal, 5, generally an alloy of copper and nickel: I and the tough jacket holds on to the rifling 30 well that we are enabled to fire charges of highly explosive com- pounds behind the bullet, giving nearly Y double the velocity that It was possl- ble to obtain with the old black powder J rifle. The modern high power rifle ls, therefore, one which fires a jacketed $ bullet very loni; In proportion to Its diameter, by means of a charge of a smokeless powder several times as f Btroni: as black powder, with nearly $ double the velocity obtained with lead d bullets and black powder; and as a re- f suit of the long bullet and high and $ well sustained velocity, the curve de- tl scribed by the bullet 19 much nearer a K straight line "Its trajectory Is flatter" ff Its penetration greater, and Its range H longer. There ls another deviation laterally rs from the straight line shown by a rifle & bullet and more pronounced in rifles having a quick twist; this is called fl "drift" It ls a lateral movement duo & to tho spin of the bullet on Its long axis. K As the bullet ls constantly falling ln its t flight, the tinder surface meets with g more air resistance than the upper, and the bullet therefore tends to roll later- B ally on this denner air; so that a rifle t having a right hand direction to its fj pitch of rifling will cause a bullet to k drift lo tho right, while one with a left - hand twist will drift to the left. Cor- : rectlon of this drift needs to be made on the sights of match rifles, but on the $ military sieht of our National Arm fj the Krag the correction Is made auto- c matlcally when the elevation Is changed. |