Shooters of big game abroad found a white front sight best, and hunting rifles are now made in England with silver or ivory front sights, but no English pistol has any but a black front sight.
Military rifles of every nation have this conventional black front sight.
Professional experts test military rifles but they test them on white targets with black bull’s-eyes, therefore a black front sight is necessary for this purpose, and as the experts are merely expert target shots and not big game shots, this black front sight is retained.
It being customary not to look on a rifle or pistol as of any use except to hit a stationary target, all English rifle and pistol clubs have been formed on this supposition.
At the English National Rifle Association Meetings at Wimbledon and later at Bisley, the “Running Deer” target has been in use from the beginning, but only a very few of us shoot at it.
The bulk of rifle shots have always fought most desperately against any but stationary targets. This is natural. A man who has worked hard all his life to become a “crack shot” at a stationary target is not going to risk his reputation by being beaten by a school boy at a moving target.
At the revolver ranges, moving, disappearing, and rapid-firing competitions were instituted but had very little support; a few men shot, but half a dozen men do not constitute a big enough crowd to warrant the keeping up of competitions which the bulk of shooters do not want.
On the Continent, shooting under practical conditions has always marked the shooting at rifle and pistol clubs.
Numerous Continental sportsmen, even in humble circumstances, are able to shoot bears, wolves, lynx, reindeer, elk, moufflon, chamois, wild boar, etc., and above all roe deer.
It is the roebuck who trains men to be practical rifle shots on the Continent.