FIRING TECHNIQUES—RIFLEThe most important factors for you to rememberabout firing a rifle are sight alignment and achieving acorrect aiming point. Together they make up the sightpicture.Sight AlignmentSight alignment involves looking through the rearsight aperture, focusing the eye on the front sight post(or blade), and centering the front sight post exactly inthe rear sight aperture, both vertically and horizontally.The top of the front sight is level with the horizontalcenter line of the rear sight, and the body of the frontsight is centered between the rear sight aperture(fig. 11-21).REAR SIGHT.—When you are in different firingpositions (standing, kneeling, or sitting), your aimingeye is at a slightly different distance from the rear sight.This distance is referred to as eye relief. Eye reliefmakes the opening (peep) of the rear sight appear largeror smaller, depending on the firing position. Regardlessof the apparent size of the rear sight opening, youmust align the front sight in the center of theopening.It is important to keep your eye the same distancefrom the peep sight in any particular firing position. Toensure this distance is always the same, you must holdthe rifle in the same exact location for each shot. Thislocation is commonly called the spot weld or anchor.There are several tricks shooters use to help maintainthis distance. For example, you can place a small pieceof tape on the stock of the rifle where it touches thecheek. In this way, you can feel whether your cheek hasthe proper eye relief.FRONT SIGHT.—The front sight always appearsto be the same size. However, depending on the distanceyour eye is from the rear sight, more or less of the frontsight may be visible in the sight picture. The front sight,not the target, is the point of focus for the eye. As such,the front sight will be sharp and distinct in outline. Forthis reason, keep the front sight square, level, andblackened.AIMING POINT.—The aiming point is the pointon the target where the sights of the weapon are broughtto bear. The correct aiming point is at 6 o’clock; that is,the bottom of the bull’s-eye of a type “A” target (fig.11-22) or the silhouette of a type “D” target (fig. 11-23).Any location on the target face is always given relativeto a similar position on a clock face regardless of thetarget shape. Therefore, a vertical line in the exact centerof the target would be described as running from 12o’clock (top) to 6 o’clock (bottom).SIGHT PICTURE.—To obtain the correct sightpicture, you need to align the rear sight, the frontsight, and the bull’s-eye (figs. 11-22 and 11-23). Eachof these three elements affects the sight picture. Asyou can see from figure 11-24, any error in sightalignment will increase as the range increases. Anerror in the aiming point remains constant as therange increases.At close ranges, the bull’s-eye or silhouette appearslarger in relation to the front sight than it will at longer11-16Student Notes:Figure 11-21.—Proper sight alignment.Figure 11-22.—6 o’clock sight picture held on “A” targetat a range of 200 yards.
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