214 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May, 1921 
THE TARGET SHOOTER ON GAME 
WHEN PROPERLY INDULGED IN, TARGET SHOOTING IS A MOST EXCELLENT 
MEANS OF DEVELOPING PROFICIENCY IN GAME SHOOTING IN THE FIELD 
By MAJOR JOHN A. CONSIDINE, GUN Editor of FOREST AND STREAM 
A FEW of our excellent field shots 
have advanced the theory that 
the game-shot should commence 
his rifle practice on moving targets be- 
cause practice on the range at station- 
ary targets makes a slow, pottering 
shot on game. With this theory, I can- 
not agree, for once you grant that they 
are correct the whole foundation of 
even our daily advancement comes tum- 
bling down about our ears and we are 
submerged in the wreckage of our own 
errors. When you start in school, you 
commence with the fundamentals; 
when you learn a trade you start at 
the bottom as an apprentice; and, when 
you study the arts and sciences, you 
begin with the simple and gradually 
proceed to the complex. No one will 
question these steps in our daily prog- 
ress, yet when we come to an absolute 
parallel, the rifle shooting game, we 
find certain people advocating that we 
learn to run before we are able to 
walk — yes, even before we are able to 
crawl. 
Since a few of our best shots advo- 
cate this fallacy, I can only say that it 
is due to their superior natural ability, 
or perhaps to the fact that time has 
erased from their memories the lowly 
rungs of the ladder whereby they 
ascended to the top. This may be a 
good system for men exceptionally gift- 
ed, but it cannot be advocated as a 
workable system for the average man. 
To Correct a Fallacy. 
I T is often asserted that the expert 
rifle shot is the product of natural 
aptitude and of environment, and 
that training can do but little to im- 
prove men who are by nature fit, while 
it is wasted on those who are not spe- 
cially gifted. This opinion, which is 
by no means restricted to those who 
have had no experience in rifle shoot- 
ing, is misleading, for it implies that 
there is some peculiar virtue or natural 
gift possessed by the born rifleman, 
without which success is impossible, 
whereas it is by a combination of ordi- 
nary qualities that success is achieved. 
One indispensable attribute is good 
eyesight: you cannot make a rifleman 
out of a man who cannot see. But 
given good eyesight, and average phys- 
ical makeup, combined with the will to 
work, and work hard, and you have the 
necessary qualities from which train- 
ing can turn out the expert rifleman. 
There is no royal road to success as a 
rifleman, no short cut, only hard work 
and plenty of it till you achieve your 
end. In the last war we had examples 
without number in our army that 
should make us forget any idea that 
genius is a necessary requisite in order 
to become an expert rifleman. 
That Basement Target Range. 
A N easy and excellent way to keep 
your hand in between seasons is 
to have a little daily practice 
with a twenty-two rifle or pistol or one 
of the better air rifles. The time and 
effort spent at this practice will stand 
you in good stead when you leave on 
that annual two weeks hunt, because 
you will have so adjusted your muscles 
and eye that after a few shots with the 
big rifle you are ready for whatever 
comes your way. 
All that you need for a target outfit 
is a board on which to nail your target, 
a piece of sheetiron two feet by four 
feet and a small box full of dirt or 
sand. 
Set up the target and backstop (as 
Diagram of basement target 
per diagram) so that you always fire 
directly at the bullseye and so that 
your rifle is always horizontal. You 
can insure this last being true by rais- 
ing or lowering the target and back- 
stop to suit your varying shooting posi- 
tions. 
The ideal distance for an indoor 
range is twenty-five feet, but conditions 
may make this impossible. I would sug- 
gest, however, that you do not shoot at 
distances shorter than fifteen feet. 
You can keep expenses down to a 
minimum by making your own targets. 
Take a compass and draw in the bulls- 
eye and then blacken it with dull black 
paint. Until experience tells you differ- 
ently use a one-inch bullseye at twen- 
ty-five feet and a one-half inch bullseye 
at fifteen feet. If you fire from any 
distance between fifteen and twenty-five 
feet vary the size of the bullseye to 
suit the distance. 
To assist you in getting the proper 
lighting effect for accurate shooting I 
shall describe the lighting system of a 
very successful indoor range now in 
daily operation: 
About four feet above the bullseye 
and in front of it there is an electric 
globe that shines directly on the tar- 
get and at the same time is shaded 
from shining toward the firing point. 
At the firing point the best success was 
had with overhead indirect lighting. 
Under no circumstances should you 
have any other lights burning during 
your practice. 
The Target Shot on Game. 
T AKING all the time that you desire 
before firing, as in target shoot- 
ing, is not always possible in game 
shooting. In the hunting field your time 
is limited, you figure no windage, you 
don’t know the exact range, and numer- 
ous other points arise which demand in- 
stantaneous solution and all by the in- 
exact method of estimation. But the 
benefits derived from target practice 
can be applied to game shooting. If a 
shooter progresses no farther in his tar- 
get shoooting than firing against a 
stationary bullseye without a time limit 
on his shots he has gained some knowl- 
edge which he can use in field shooting, 
but it is a question if these advantages 
are not far outweighed by certain 
points which he has failed to touch upon. 
This type of shot has his counterpart 
in the boy who has not progressed be- 
yond the third grade in school. He 
knows a few of the fundamentals of 
shooting which he uses as a basis for 
the solution of all his game shooting 
problems, with the result that he often 
arrives at an erroneous conclusion. He 
is no more in a position to solve an ad- 
vanced problem than the third grade 
boy. Some critics go no farther and con- 
demn target shooting as a whole mere- 
ly because of the way some target shoot- 
ers apply their knowledge in the hunt- 
ing afield. 
But there is another point to be con- 
sidered. I grant that if all a man does 
is to lie down and shoot at a bullseye, 
taking three or four minutes to the shot, 
he will be a slow, pottering shot on 
game. The man who has only progressed 
this far in his target shooting has but 
touched the outer circle in its application 
to game shooting. 
Target shooting when properly in- 
dulged in is a most excellent means of 
developing proficiency in game shooting 
in the field. In other words, the course 
of shooting against the target should be 
such that it will make shooting in the 
field better. 
This can be accomplished by the in- 
troduction of the time element, that is, 
by having the man shooting at the tar- 
get fire a certain number of shots in a 
limited period. By doing this we take 
a step in the right direction and simu- 
late one of the conditions found in shoot- 
ing in the field. 
First, however, the man using the rifle 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 229) 
