s;^MiiMBfii|4i|^l. GV 1177 .W74 Copy 1 HOW TO SHOOT BY GENERAL GEORGE W. WINGATE LIBRARY of CONaWESS Two Copies ReceiveC DEC 20 i90f CopyrigRt Entry *• iOLASSA- XXc, m I * €OPY b/ _ J •^?m. Gr V I 77 ^*^. ^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^7 //^7- GV M77 Published by permission. SUB -TARGET GUN CO. Office and Works BOSTON Branch Office NEW YORK Copyrighted 1907 11-07-10. Form 19. LC Control Niomber Oxford-Print Boston tmp96 026376 How to Shoot. ADDRESS BY GENERAL GEORGE W. WINGATE, President of the PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATHLETIC LEAGUE TO HIGH SCHOOL BOYS OF NEW YORK CITY. 10 be able to shoot accurately with a rifle is not only interesting to anyone who learns to do it, but is important to the commu- nity as adding an important factor to our resources for national defense. It is not the policy of the United States to maintain a large standing army in time of peace; it always has, and always must look for protection to sudden levies of volunteers. When they are called for, no difficulty is experienced in getting all the men that may be desired, and, if we have a proper system, not much trouble in uniforming and equipping them. They can be taught a certain amount of mili- tary drill in a comparatively short period, and if they know how to shoot, they then become quite an efficient force. But as Napoleon once said, " Shooting is every- thing and the rest is nothing." This may be a little exaggerated, but, in the main, it is true, and without the knowledge of how to use a rifle accurately, and until they are taught to do it (which takes a good deal of time) an army of vol- unteers is but little better than a mob. It can no more withstand the attack of a trained force of disciplined veteran soldiers than an ordinary class in a high school, without athletic training, could keep back the rush of a crack college football team. If, therefore, the thousands of young men like yourselves who are growing into manhood, can be taught while in our schools to become good shots, they would be able in case of war, to do as the Boers did in South Africa — to with- stand a large force of disciplined soldiers. The difference between the success attained by the Boers in repelling the attacks of the British regular troops at odds of ten to one, and the failure of the Russians to hold their field fortifications against an equal force of Japanese, demonstrates most forcibly the difference between the efficiency of an undisci- plined military force that can shoot and that of a disciplined one that cannot. It is for these reasons that President Roosevelt has in his recent letter, pub- licly commended the attempts which the Public Schools Athletic League are making to teach you and our other high school boys how to shoot with a mili- tary rifle. I have been somewhat puzzled in accepting the invitation to address you on the subject of rifle shooting, to decide upon what is best to say. The book which I wrote on that subject a number of years ago contains several hundred pages, and it is not easy to condense within the limits to which I must confine myself to anything more than the general principles which are applicable to the use of the rifle. These principles, however, are all that you need at the present time, and probably are all which you will be likely to remember so as to keep them in mind ; and it is necessary that you should have considerable practical experience to be able to apply some of them. The gun with which you are to do your shooting, which is the rifle with which the army and the National Guard are equipped, is usually known as the " Krag." The army has adopted an improved model of this rifle, which is known as the " New Springfield." This is somewhat shorter, a little lighter, and is somewhat more powerful. It will be a long time before it will be issued to the National Guard. For this reason, all that I say to you is to be considered as being only applicable to the " Krag." Rules for Handling the Rifle The first thing you must bear in mind in undertaking to do anything with a rifle, shot-gun or pistol, is never, under any circumstances, to allow its muzzle to be pointed at yourself or at anyone else, whether it is loaded or unloaded. It is an old maxim that, " It is the empty gun that kills. " One never can tell when he takes up a gun whether it is loaded or not. It may be that you laid it down five minutes before, and knew that it was empty. But some one may have taken it up and put a cartridge in it. Consequently, whenever you are carrying a gun you should always open the breech-block and see that the chamber is empty. Whenever you are shooting and have occasion to leave the firing point, you should always remove the cartridge from your rifle. You should always do the same whenever you get into a wagon or into a boat. In pigeon shooting clubs they fine a man heavily if he turns to leave the firing point without opening his gun, even though he may have just discharged both barrels. In walking always keep the muzzle of your gun pointed away from your companions. You must always remember that, notwithstanding the fact that firearms now all have safety catches and various devices, which apparently render it impossible for them to go off accidentally, yet every once in a while these do not work. Anyone who has had long experience in shooting under various conditions can recount to you many instances where he has seen guns discharged without any apparent reason. If in the hands of a careful man, who does not allow the muz- zle to be pointed at anybody, nothing happens in such an event, but in the hands of one who is not careful, accidents are far too common. This is a matter of so much importance that it may be well to give you a few personal experiences. Once during the Civil War there was a circle of men, of whom I was one, sitting in a tent, there being an opening of about a yard in diameter between their feet. An officer handed me a Colt's revolver, and asked my opinion of it. It was one of the old muzzle loading kind. I asked him " if it was loaded," and he said " no." I half cocked it, ran the cylinder around and saw that the nipples were black, from which I assumed that he was correct in stating it was not loaded. 1 balanced it in my hand as a man does in testing a pistol, and aimed it at a blue bottle fly, which was in the centre of the open space, pulled the trigger and — killed the fly stone dead. It seems that somebody else had loaded the pistol, and that the owner had carried it in his belt, not knowing it to be loaded, until the caps had become so corroded that they had become the color of the nipples. Another time I was shooting at Creedmoor with the American Rifle Team of which I was then captain, and had laid my gun, which was a Remington, across a camp chair with the muzzle directed at the target. When my turn came to fire, I got up, put a cartridge in the barrel, closed the breech-block — as I had done a thousand times before — and the gun went off, nearly dislocating my thumb, but doing no harm, as the muzzle was pointed to the front. Why it went off 1 never knew. On another occasion I was sitting on a stump in the Adirondacks with a Bal- lard rifle between my knees, which was on half-cock, and was supposed in that condition to be perfectly safe. A friend took it up, and in a joke pointed it in the direction of a man who was walking away. It went off in his hands, the bullet going right over the man's head, but, fortunately, did not hit him. My friend who did it, was so overcome that he turned green, and had to sit down on the stump of a tree, saying as he did so, " That is a lesson for me to never point a gun at anybody again." I hope that each of you will always keep this lesson in mind. Anyone who points a gun or pistol at another, whether empty or not, in earnest or in sport, should have his weapon taken from him, and be pounded over the head with the butt by the man at whom it has been pointed. The above injunctions apply with peculiar force to pistols. The barrel of a pistol is so short that the least movement of it makes a tremendous angle so that it will point at a person who is far to one side. The thumb is also very liable to slip off from the hammer in uncocking it. I myself have had the ham- mer of a revolver slip so as to discharge it on several occasions, once in my bed- room, and yet I considered myself careful. The Rifle In order to be a rifleman, a knowledge of certain simple elementary princi- ples is essential. These I will state briefly. The first guns that were made were an iron cylinder, smooth on the inside and used round bullets. As it is almost impossible to make the inside of such a cylinder accurate, and slill more difficult to cast a bullet perfectly round, when fired out of a smooth barrel such a bullet deviates toward its heaviest side, and its course is consequently very inaccurate. The range of such a bullet is not over one hun- dred yards, and it could not be depended upon to hit a mark the size of a man at that distance. About one hundred and fifty years ago it was discovered that if the inside of a barrel of a gun was cut with spiral grooves, so that a bullet passing through the barrel would be made to revolve on its centre, it would go straight forward in the same way that a rapidly revolving top stands upon its point. These grooves make what is termed a "rifle." Other guns are called " smooth bores." The first settlers in this country being constantly in conflict with Indians and with the beasts of the forest, found the rifle to be so superior to the old smooth bore that its use among them became universal. The armies of the world, how- ever, with that conservatism which is characteristic of them, were very slow to change. Thus, although rifles were used to a very great extent in the Revo- lutionary War, our army, with the exception of a few bodies of riflemen, used the old-fashioned smooth bore as late as the Mexican War in 1 848. The old army musket carried a very large bullet, and was loaded with a round ball and three buckshot. Up to about sixty yards it was very deadly, but beyond that was ineffective. It is related that a British general offered to bet one hundred pounds that he would stand at a distance of one hundred yards and allow a man to fire at him with a British rifle of this kind (which was then known as " Brown Bess"), provided the man took careful aim at him every time. It seems very singular that this condition of affairs was allowed to exist, when we recall the tremendously effective work that Jackson's riflemen did in the Battle of New Orleans. Nevertheless, it did for many years. About the middle of the last century, a Frenchman named Minie discovered that by using in a rifle a pointed buUet, the resistance of the atmosphere was so much decreased that the range of the projectile was increased tenfold. His idea was adopted by the French army, and its use soon became universal. The army people rapidly adopted it, not so much because of its increased accuracy, but because the increase of range placed the troops who did not have it at an enormous disadvantage. Until the close of our Civil War military rifles were all muzzle loaders. The charge of powder was contained in a cylinder made of brown paper, at the front end of which the bullet was inserted. The soldier tore off the other end of the cartridge with his teeth, poured the powder into the barrel of his gun, put the bullet on top of it, rammed it down, put a percussion cap on the nipple and fired it. Not only were these paper cartridges apt to get wet (in which case they were useless), but in rapid firing the barrel became dirty, so that it was almost impossible to ram the bullets down. It was a common thing after a battle to pick up rifles which had five or six loads in them, their owners in their excitement not having observed that the first charge had failed to explode, and put charge after charge on top of it. I was once in a regiment which had been lying out in the rain for several days, and which was finally formed into line by the colonel, and ordered to fire a volley for the purpose of emptying the guns. Out of 750 rifles I doubt if there were 25 that went off the first time, on account of the charges having be- come wet. This has been cured by the introduction of the breech-loader, which permits of an exact charge and keeps the powder dry. It also enables a man to look through his gun barrel and see that it is clean. It also immensely increases the rapidity of fire. It seems singular that during the Civil War, when all hunters were using breech-loading rifles, that they were so slow in introducing them in the army. The Ordnance Department, however, were apparently afraid that their introduction would use up more ammunition than they were able to supply, and had a large number of mare's nests of a similar description, which prevented them from in- troducing the breech-loader to any considerable extent. Some of the cavalry were given them, and a few regiments of infantry towards the last. But al- though it was demonstrated that the efficiency of these organizations was more than trebled by having the breech-loader, no general change was attempted, until after the close of the Civil War. The "calibre" of a rifle means the diameter of the bullet, and this is spoken of in decimals; that is to say, .50 means one-half of an inch in diameter, and .33 one-third of an inch. The first military rifles carried very large bullets, some being .60 and even .75. At short ranges these made a terrible wound but their flight was extremely short. To obtain a longer range, the tendency has been to reduce the diameter of the bullet, and to lengthen it. Thus, the army rifle of .50 calibre used in the Civil War, and which after the war was converted into a breech-loader, was reduced to .45 and now is .30. The bul- let, consequently, is about the size of a small lead pencil, and is nearly an inch and a half long. Its small diameter and great weight (caused by its length) gives our present Krag a range of 4000 yards. It takes the bullet 34.6 seconds to pass this distance (nearly two and a half miles) and requires the rifle to be raised to an angle of 44 degrees. The projectile has a steel jacket (which ensures its tak- ing the grooves of the barrel) and this will penetrate 45 inches of wood at a distance of 53 feet, and 1 1 Vt, inches at 1 000 yards. It is, however, much more humane than the old bullets, inasmuch as the wound makes a small clean aperture which soon heals, the bullet not carrying into the wound any dirt or particles of clothing, as was the case with the big bullet. Sights The shooting of a rifle is controlled by a front and a rear sight. The front sight is almost universally a fixed one. The rear sight is arranged with a slide which moves up and down, and most of them have a wind gauge, which is an arrangement by which the sight can be moved to the right or left. The front sight is usually in the shape of a wedge placed upon a small block, which is mortised into the front end of the rifle barrel. The slide of the rear sight is a cross-bar, in the centre, on the top of which is a cut usually in the shape of a " V." In the Krag, which is the rifle you have, there is a peep-hole underneath this notch. In aiming, the barrel of a rifle is held in such a way that the point of the wedge in the fore sight is seen in the opening of the " V," or through the peep sight, and is then placed upon the point which it is desired to hit. This ensures that the rifle barrel is pointed at the object on which the wedge of the foresight is aligned. If it is desired to shoot above the object, the slide of the rear sight is raised (the effect of which is to raise the muzzle). If to shoot below it, it is lowered, or aim is taken underneath it. If it is desired to shoot to the right, the wind gauge is moved to the right, and if to the left it is moved in that direction. In doing this, however, it is necessary to keep in mind certain simple prin- ciples which control the flight of a bullet. As soon as a bullet leaves the muzzle of a rifle, the action of gravity causes it to begin to drop. It falls sixteen feet in the first second of its flight, and forty-eight feet in the second, making a total of sixty-eight feet in two seconds and its speed increases about 30 feet each addi- tional second, the rate of fall being in these proportions for each fraction of a second. This fall takes place exactly the same whether the bullet is going forward or standing still. In other words, if the barrel of a rifle should be held perfectly horizontal, and a bullet should be tied by a string at the muzzle, so that the siring will be cut by a bullet firing out of the barrel, the two balls will strike the ground at exactly the same time, the only difference being that the one which is fired out of the barrel before it reaches the ground will go a certain distance in the direction in which the barrel is pointed, depending on its velocity. Assuming, therefore, that if the gun barrel is held horizontally four feet from the ground, and that a bullet fired from it is going at the rate of 1 800 feet a second, it will strike the ground at a distance of 450 feet. In order to enable a bullet to go farther than this distance, it is necessary to raise the muzzle so that the bullet will describe an arc like water out of a hose pipe. In other words, just as one of you when throwing a base-ball at a long distance, throws it high in a curve, to have a rifle carry a long distance, it is necessary to raise the muzzle so that the bullet will make a corresponding curve. This raising of the muzzle is accomplished by raising the rear sight, and is called the "elevation." Thus, assuming that the distance between the sights of the rifle is three feet, if the rear sight is raised one inch, and aim is taken, so that the front and rear sights are in the same line, the muzzle would thereby be raised one inch. Con- sequently, the bullet would be raised one inch to every three feet of its flight, which at the rate of thirty yards would raise it thirty inches. The time of flight for the bullet from the Krag is as follows : 100 yards, , .159 seconds 200 " . .337 " 300 " . .537 " 1000 '* . 2.587 " The bullet takes 34.6 seconds to pass over its extreme range of 4000 yards, from which you can estimate the tremendous curve it has to make in its flight, the angle being 44 degrees. Almost all rifles are made with their rear sights slightly raised, so as to have them shoot true at a certain specified distance, which is called " Point Blank." On ordinary rifles this is about sixty yards. In the army military rifles this with the open sight is fixed for three hundred yards. This makes it necessary in shooting at shorter distances, to aim with that sight under the object which is desired to be hit. The official figures state that in shooting at 300 yards, the trajectory, or line of flight of bullet at one hundred yards is nearly a foot above the line of sight, and 3.16 feet above at 200. In addition to the question of distances as affecting the matter of the eleva- tion, which is required to be given a rifle to make its bullet carry to the desired point, the flight of the bullet is affected by the atmosphere, and particularly by the wind. A head wind retards a bullet ; a rear wind makes it go faster. It is, therefore, in the first case necessary to raise the elevation of the rear sight, and in the latter to reduce it. A side wind blows the bullet out of its course. This is particularly the case with the small calibre bullets now in use. With them a side wind of twelve miles an hour will make a deviation at five hundred yards of over four feet. This can be allowed for upon our military rifles by moving the rear sight sideways in the direction of the wind, and such rear sight is marked with a scale for that purpose. That is to say, if the velocity of the wind is high, the sight wind gauge is moved to that side which turns the barrel in that direction, each point on the scale of the wind gauge making a deviation of 6 inches on the target at 1 00 yards, the deviation or angular value increasing with the increase of range, so that at 1 000 yards range, a movement of I point on the rear sight wind-guage would cause a deviation of the bullet of 5 feet on the target. The "drift" of a rifle is a thing which must also be considered. This means the tendency of the bullet when it comes out of the barrel to diverge or " drift " in the direction in which it is revolving, a bullet coming out of a barrel which has a right-handed twist, going to the right ; and one with a left-handed twist going to the left. This, however, is affected a great deal by the way in which the rifle is stocked, so that each gun has a rule to itself in this respect. Thus, in the Krag, the drift is first to the left. This continues up to a dis- tance of I 1 00 yards, and then the bullet begins to curve to the right. Thus, it is 2^ inches at 100 yards, 8 inches at 500 and ^^ at 1000. However, this element of drift is automatically compensated for in the rear sight of our present military arms, and requires no attention on the part of the shooter. There are many fine points connected with shooting in the field to which it is not necessary for me at the present time to refer. In fact, they can only be learned by actual practice in the open air. I may say, however, that at the longer ranges the correct estimation of distance is extremely important. In our present military rifle the velocity of the bullet is so great, and consequently the trajectory is so flat, that if a standing man is anywhere between the gun and a distance of 400 yards, and aim is taken at his head, he will be hit somewhere; but as the distance and the time of the flight of the bullet increases, the latter drops so rapidly, that the bullet describes such a curve that the space within which a man could be hit, or "dangerous distance" decreases very rapidly. So that in firing at a distance of a thousand yards, if a mistake of 37 feet is made in estimating the distance, a standing man fired at would be missed. In other words, if the distance estimated was 1 8 feet too little, a bullet would strike at his feet. If it was 1 9 feet too much, the bullet would go over his head. To learn, however, to guess distance correctly requires a great deal of prac- tice in the field, and, therefore, it is not worth your while giving any consider- ation to the subject. So also the effect of front winds, side winds and diagonal winds, can only be learned by experience. The result of the varying condition of the atmosphere upon shooting is another matter that you will have to bear in mind when you come to shoot in a rifle range. I will simply say upon this point, that the idea that damp air is heavy, is a mistake. It is really lighter than dry air. There is, therefore, less resistance in the atmosphere when it is damp, than when it is hot and dry, and in the latter case there is always an increase in the friction of the rifle. It is, therefore, necessary to use a higher elevation on a hot dry day than on a damp cool one. The sunlight also makes quite a difference, when you are shooting with open sights, but not much when you are using the peep. When a target is bright, you shoot high with open sights. When it is obscure, you shoot low. The aim should consequently be lowered slightly in the former case and elevated in the latter. The temperature must also be considered as a factor. In shooting at a thousand yards a difference of ten degrees would make a difference of two feet in the elevation on the target. When a rifle becomes heated the barrel expands. Therefore, after the first two shots, the bullet will drop, making it necessary to slightly increase the elevation. This is particularly noticeable in cold weather. Aiming When I first became interested in rifle shooting, it was considered in this country that the only way in which a man could learn to shoot a rifle was to take aim and shoot at a mark, and to do this unaided. If he hit the mark, it was good, and if he did not hit it, it was a dispensation of Providence, which nobody could remove except the man himself by constant practice. This theory has been entirely done away with, and it is now recognized that a man can be taught to shoot just as he can be taught to write. There ha'be been many iribentions designed to accomplish this object* I myself in'vented one a number of years ago of 'which I 'was 'very proud* ^ut the SUB- TARGET RIFLE MACHINE, %>ith