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892 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
slightest errors of the eyes are corrected.
Out of fifty husky young chaps, using
their eyes but little and leading an outdoor
life, the oculist finds about forty
whose vision for
rifle shooting can be
aided by glasses.
Rifle shooting is the
test of the human eye.
The wise rifleman
"dopes" his eyes
morning and night
with a lukewarm solution
of boracic
acid and water, say
a tablespoon to the
half-glass, and with
an eye-cup for applying
it.
I am persuaded at
the end of ten years'
critical observation of the developing
rifleman that of all men who have trouble
learning how to shoot the military rifle,
the chap of obese architecture and the
usual soft muscles has the worst time
of it.
He's too fat to get flat on the ground
in the prone position, he's so heavy that
he holds up an agonized and protesting
shoulder against the recoil of the rifle
where the slighter man would "give",
and the perspiration oozes from every
pore from the effort necessary. Wherefore,
envy not the whale and if you run
to the whale variety yourself, consider
every pound of weight that is not hard
muscle as a pound of very much excess
baggage.
Many expert riflemen go through a
regular course
of gymnasium
training before
Dig in the Heels!
This position is used by many
of the crack shots of the
country, but it is unreliable
unless two points are ob­
served carefully. The heels
must sink firmly into the
ground and the elbow must
rest inside the patella (knee­
cap), not upon it. Then the
rifle is held nearly as steadily
as in a machine rest.
the rifle season, and keep in trim
by the same means. Plenty of sleep,
plenty of exercise in the open air or in
the gym, plenty of water—but little other
liquid—to drink, and as good a digestive
system as Nature will allow you—that's
the preliminary stuff. Smoking never
helped any rifleman, but far better a
smoker than the grouchy, snappy,
drawn-faced wretch who has given up
an established and a mighty comforting
habit in the delusion that he is helping
his shooting thereby. "Wind" has little
to do with successful rifle shooting, save
the skirmish run, which is little used,
and the man used to smoking had better
continue to smoke at least a little.
Coffee has without question a deleterious
effect on both eyes and nerves,
and many team captains
frown on its use
Freakish, but Approved by Some
This method of aiming makes it difficult for the beginner to
obtain the proper alignment of sights and eye, but several
good men use it habitually.
save by the addicts to this form of drug
habit who cannot break away from it.
The man who is unused to it, and who
drinks it at night or before a shoot where
nerve is required comes under the heading
of common or garden variety of