It is very possible to make a rest in which the discharge will only occasion a direct recoil, and it would therefore seem that, with due attention, this mode of proof, and this instruction in what the rifle will do, might be carried very near to perfection.
The next step is to make the soldier do for himself what he has seen his rifle, if properly managed, will do.
For this purpose, the paper targets and frames must be cleared away and stowed in the lockers, the rests wheeled off the line, and half the squad (six men) assembled, rifles not loaded, at the fifty yards from the wooden target station.
The first man is placed in the line of the “bull’s eye,” the rest of the squad lodging their arms in a rack under the shed, and returning to watch the practice attentively.
The man to fire, having loaded very carefully, is asked by the instructor—
Q. What is your distance from the mark?
A. ... yards.
Q. What must be the elevation, or depression?
A. ... inches above, or below, the bull’s eye.
If he should forget, or be incorrect, he is not to be set right by the instructor, but made to refer to his own firing-book for information. Of course, if the rifle be provided with carefully-proved sights, he should be taught to make use of them.