To prevent accidents, four or five bells should be hung on pillars at intervals on the side of the line of practice, with short flag-staffs above them, for the hoisting of signals.
The size of the paper targets should be calculated to include the widest ordinary variations of the bullets. Three feet might be sufficient for the furthest from the butt, the width gradually increasing to twelve feet, at the nearest station to the wooden target. The height must rise and fall, as far as it might be practicable, with the line of the ordinary highest flight of the bullet.
Fifty yards have been given as the proper interval between the paper targets, because that distance suited the round ball and regulation musquet. The very elongated parabola of the course of the conical bullet may admit of that course being sufficiently shown in paper targets one hundred yards apart.
It did not appear, in the experiments made, that the resistance of the paper had any effect of consequence on the flight of the ball. This of course would depend much upon the texture of the covering material. In calm weather, a little water sprinkled on the paper targets would really make resistance nominal.
The foregoing preparations being completed, and the instructor having, by means of them, made himself well acquainted with the powers of his rifle—that rifle, moreover, being of the kind which his recruits or pupils are to bring with them—the squad takes post at the longest effectual range station,—we will say, for the ordinary infantry rifle, at eight hundred yards.
The paper targets are left open, and the wooden target with its “bull’s eye,” seen. The wooden rest is placed in the centre, and a rifle laid steadily in it, at the elevation given by the instructor as necessary for hitting the distant “bull’s eye.”
To prevent accidents, this rifle is not cocked. At a signal given the paper targets are shut, beginning with the nearest to the butt, the recruits being made to remark, as they are successively closed, that the “Bulls’ eyes” are in a perfect line. The nearest bell is rung; two minutes are allowed for persons on the line to run into the ball-proof sentry-boxes, and the shot is steadily fired.
The distance and elevation of the rifle being carefully entered in the firing-book, which every pupil should possess, the squad proceeds to trace, by the paper targets, the course of the ball to its ultimate destination. At every target, the height or depression of the shot in inches from the central line of the “bull’s eye,” is carefully observed, and noted down—the point blank distance is especially entered. The shot-holes, in the meantime, are covered with the smallest possible patches of fresh paper, or, in the wooden target, plugged.
The squad then returns to the next nearest, or seven hundred yards’ station, repeats the same process of levelling a rifle at the elevation ordered by the instructor, and of tracing and noting down the course of the ball; and so on, diminishing each time a hundred yards, and at last to fifty from the target.
By a systematic course of this kind, for which four hours, or half a day, would be sufficient, about twelve men might attain a permanent ocular knowledge of the power of their rifles on level ground at every possible range. It would, of course, be necessary that the rifles and charges should be uniform in size, weight, and quality. The effect of strong side winds upon the bullet (which is considerable) might also sometimes be shown, and rifles accurately proved one against another.