Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
A very good form of backsight is a modification of the style frequently used in German rifles, viz. a wide shallow V having a small rounded nick and a fine line down the centre (see fig. 21).
A sloping standard has the advantage of showing up the silver line, but in a bright light this has a tendency to ‘blurr’ and prevent a fine bead being taken. It is as well under these circumstances to black the standard, and upon occasions the foresight; this may be done very simply by smoking them with a wax match. Foresights should be let in from the front and fixed with a small screw, so that they can easily be removed and a different form of sight inserted when required.
A spare iron foresight and two or three ivory ones should be fitted to each rifle.
A very useful and convenient form of night sight is an ordinary iron one having at the rear end a small disc covered with white enamel or luminous paint (see fig. 22), and so arranged that this disc can, when required, be raised in front of the ordinary bead. If properly constructed and placed at the correct angle, it can be seen well when the ordinary sight would be quite invisible.
Telescope sights are now made with elevating screws, which enable the necessary elevations to be quickly obtained. For stalking and deliberate shots the telescope is most useful, but it is necessary to have the eye-piece fitted on a spring slide and made sufficiently large to prevent injury to the shooter’s eye in case of the recoil being heavy; but these sights for rifles firing heavy charges cannot be recommended.
Many sportsmen complain that with Express rifles (in particular), and not infrequently with other rifles, they shoot over their game at short ranges, an error which they attribute to the ‘high sighting’ of their rifles. Sometimes this explanation of their shooting over their game is the correct one; but frequently the error is caused by the shooter, when firing a snap-shot at an animal moving across him at a short range, taking a very full foresight, not having sufficient time to get his eye down to the level of the backsight, and draw as fine a bead as he would have done had he taken a deliberate shot.
But no doubt some rifles are ‘over-sighted,’ and if so it is partly the fault of the gunmakers and partly the fault of the sportsmen themselves, who insist upon gunmakers trying for the impossible. It is not an uncommon thing to hear a sportsman say, ‘Oh, my rifle has a flat trajectory up to 200 yards,’ the truth being that the rifle in question has been sighted to shoot correctly at 200 yards, but the bullet at the highest point in its trajectory (i.e. at about 110 yards from the muzzle) will probably have risen from four to eight inches (according to the velocity of the bullet) above the line of aim.