EYESIGHT

The back sight of a revolver is held further from the eye, as compared with a rifle back sight, and the object to be hit is under fifty yards’ distance. The eyes best suited for pistol shooting therefore are those of moderately long sight, the normal eye in fact.

A near-sighted man, without glasses, has difficulty in seeing the back sight although the range, twenty to fifty yards, would suit his eyes better than rifle shooting at long ranges of eight hundred and one thousand yards.

If a near-sighted man wears glasses the difficulty of seeing equally well at varying distances comes in.

Men who have worn glasses all their lives cannot be made to realize that they cannot adjust their focus.

They, unfortunately, have never experienced the blessing of being able to see a thing close and at a distance with equal distinctness.

Most of them can read without glasses, in fact they take off their glasses if they want to examine anything minutely which they hold in their hands.

For seeing anything further off they wear glasses (but glasses are only a compromise). The glasses are made to enable them to see objects clearly across the street, or to see a motor car before it runs them down.

Anything further is more or less blurred, the further it is the more blurred it looks.

If their glasses were correct for one thousand yards they would butt their heads into everything at fifteen yards off.

It is always best when driving to treat any one wearing glasses very carefully, to remember he can only see in front of him; sideways of his direct vision he may be as blind as a bat or a horse with blinkers on.

It is on account of this that so many people wearing glasses are run over.

When in addition to this they cross a road holding an umbrella well before their glasses, it is best to stop the horse and wait till they are across.

This adjusting of a glass for a fixed distance can be seen with deer-stalking telescopes and Zeiss glasses.

When spying for a deer one makes a mark on the draw tube to suit one’s usual spying distance, which is about one thousand yards.

One can see deer clearly with this adjustment from the one thousand back to about three hundred yards, but for a closer view you have to readjust the focus.If with the focus correct for the one thousand yards you attempt to look at an object only as far off as your back sight or even your front sight, you will see only an indistinct blur.

A near-sighted man, shooting a pistol full arm stretch, without his glasses, sees his back sight a blur and his front probably not at all, and the target like a post impressionist picture.

If he puts on glasses to see his hind sight properly, his front sight will not be distinct, and the target still more indistinct.

I think for a near-sighted man it is best to have glasses made so that he can see his front sight very clearly.

Then he would see the man target at twenty-five meters quite well enough to be able to hit it. It is not necessary for him to see his back sight distinctly.

A good pistol-shot does not focus his eyes on his back sight. That comes in line by itself when he gets into the mechanical lift of his arm.

As I have already mentioned a long-sighted man can continue pistol shooting without wearing glasses after he needs them for reading. But a long-sighted man is apt, when he finds he begins to see the hind sight of his rifle not as clearly as formerly, to use glasses. Then he has all the insurmountable imperfections of a glass which cannot accommodate itself to varying distances like the eye can.

Instead of wearing glasses all he needs to do is to shift his hind sight forward on the barrel till he can see it distinctly.

The long-sighted pistol-shot does not have this difficulty. He holds his pistol so far from the eye that the back sight is right for his long sight.

It is a most extraordinary thing that men who have such bad eyesight that they have to wear very strong glasses and even then blink and are half-blind in the sunlight, can shoot very well in those dark coal cellar shooting galleries.

A clerk who, when writing, puts his nose right down on the paper, holding his head on one side, in fact a man semi-blind and suffering with extreme myopia made extraordinary good scores with a miniature rifle in a coal cellar shooting gallery, at a minute stationary bull’s-eye.

A cellar in which a normal-eyed man would not be able to shoot or to see his sights!

He is longing to get to the open air ranges with a full charge rifle, but I discourage him all I can as I know he will be painfully disillusioned of his skill in rifle shooting.

It is the abnormal conditions of a coal cellar gallery which suits his abnormal vision. A normal sighted person would only blind himself by trying to imitate him.