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HOW TO BECOME A SHARPSHOOTER 893
idiot. So much for the physical side of
the sharpshooter.
Now with our sharpshooter in full
possession of his rifle and some ammunition,
his first desire is to make tracks
for the target range. He feels that the
way to learn to shoot is to shoot.
But alas, it isn't, save as a hard and a
costly, and a former-of-bad-habits way.
Not in the American, the German, the
British, or in any other army is the
embryo rifleman allowed to fire his rifle
until he has gone through a course of
sprouts with weapon guiltless of cartridge,
and then with the humble .22 or
else lightly loaded "tcilmunition", as the
Teutons call their preliminary practice
cartridges for the Mauser.
hirst, the mark you must set for yourself.
Ammunition companies and the Government
arsenals use the machine rest
for testing the accuracy of rifles and
ammunition. This is a contrivance of
solid concrete base, heavy steel plate,
heavy clamps to fit the rifle, and accurate
ways on which the clamps may slide in
recoil and return to the firing position.
It merely enables the delivery of a series
of shots from a rifle, absolutely uniform
in pointing and support for each shot.
So fixed, it will shoot the Government
cartridge repeatedly into a circle six
inches at 500 yards.
That's your model, the machine rest.
The good shot merely has learned to
hold his rifle in the same way each time,
with the same pressure against the shoulder
and the same pull on the sling, with
the sights accurately aligned on the same
WAIT THREE MONTHS BEFORE YOU TRY THIS!
The amateur invariably tries to learn to shoot by shooting; he goes to a target range and blows up many pounds of
good ammunition trying to pink the pasteboard deer, when he should be practicing nothing but aiming and triggerpulling.
spot, and with the trigger pull so smooth
and so devoid of tendency to move the
rifle the least bit, that he's made a machine
rest of himself! "Wind doping"
and light judgment are merely higher
mathematics, the differential calculus to
your present desire to learn the multiplication
table.
So, snugly beyond the reach of embarrassing
stares and fear of the kick
of the rifle, you lay yourself down to
learn the first and most important position
in shooting the fighting rifle, the
prone. First you pin up on the wall
under a good light, a little white card
with a little black ink spot on it for a
bullseye, so it will look roughly the
width of the front sight from where you