Vee aim at za belt buckle und schiessen
SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS
Why is it that people today do not understand the PURPOSE of military rifle sights and the distances to zero them? A military rifle was designed for a special type of VERTICAL target----enemy soldiers. With the advent of the spitzer bullet and thus flatter bullet trajectories, the usual distance to zero a rifle was at 200 or 300 yards (or meters--take your pick, deepending upon which army you are in.)
The idea was to take out your opponents --kill or wound them so that they were no longer effective on the battlefield ---not see how good of a group you could get on them. And, with the mass attacks of a Century or more ago, there was usually no time to adjust sights under the zero sight distance ---you were too busy trying to keep ammo in the rifle and stay alive. In most cases, the shooting was to the center of mass of a human body --- not precision shooting to hit him in the third button down on his overcoat.
Soldiers were taught to adjust their sights when the Enemy was farther than the zero distance, but when that Enemy closed to under the zero distance, the Soldier was trained to aim at the belt buckle so that their bullet would hit above that point of aim ---the stomach and chest area ---which is the largest mass of the body. In fact, some Armies, (like the Japanese,) were trained to shoot a bit low when the Enemy was in trenches or on the ground as the bullet would ricochet into the enemy soldier if the aim was off a bit.
Therefore, if someone wants to zero a rifle today at 100 yards or meters, then the original sights really do not allow for that. The simplest way if you want to keep the resale value of the rifle is to replace the front sight with an aftermarket taller one, or modify a surplus sight by adding height to it, while saving the original front sight blade for the future. However, when you do this, the sight markings on the sight leaf for longer ranges are no longer accurate so you will find yourself shooting way low at the longer targets.
An alternative method is to put a second target about 12 inches below your impact target, and use the bottom one as an aiming point. Back in the 1800s when target shooting was an Art, this aiming point target was known as a "Bud" and was an accepted practice amongst shooters. It does not have to be another target, just a well defined aiming point.
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