THE PERFECT TARGET
Most targets are very imperfect, not only from the bull’s-eye being a
wrong size, but the scoring on them is very rudimentary, and does not show
the real value of the hits. For instance, take the usual English five
hundred yards’ target.
If a few hundred men have fired at these, there are a quantity of highest
possible scores made which have to be shot off and much time wasted
thereby.
Seven lucky shots just touching the extreme edge of the bull’s-eye counts
a highest possible. A score consisting of six shots into the very centre
of the bull’s-eye and one shot just grazing the edge of the bull’s-eye
counts one point less than the former, though a much better score.
No target except the one I am about to describe enables one to know if a
bullet has hit the absolute centre of the target. In other targets you
have a bull’s-eye more or less small, and any shot in the absolute centre
counts no better than one on the edge of the bull’s-eye.
A perfect target should fulfil the following conditions:
Bull’s-eye right size for aiming at.
Possibility of judging an absolutely central shot.
Certainty and ease with which the scoring value of a shot can be
ascertained.
Such a target exists and is illustrated herewith (see Plate 8).
It is the target in use at Gastinne-Renette’s Pistol Gallery, Paris, and
is the invention, I believe, of the Founder of the firm, the grandfather
of the present proprietor.
A perfectly placed bullet is one in the absolute centre of the bull’s-eye.
Apart from the impossibility of aiming at it, the mathematical “point”
would be of no use as a bull’s-eye. If the bullet hits it, or hits a pin’s
point (which is the smallest practical substitute for the mathematical
point), the point disappears and there is no means of telling if the
centre of the bullet struck that point or not.
M. Gastinne-Renette’s solution of this problem is extremely simple. It is
to make the bull’s-eye of _exactly the diameter of the bullet fired at
it_.
If a bullet hits a bull’s-eye which is exactly of the same diameter as
itself, and no part of the bull’s-eye remains visible at an edge of the
bullet hole, then that bullet has hit absolutely central in the
bull’s-eye.
The next difficulty was that such a small bull’s-eye is difficult to aim
at with a pistol.
This was overcome by enclosing this absolute bull’s-eye called the
carton, in a larger bull’s-eye, called the aiming bull’s-eye.
The carton is left white and the aiming bull’s-eye printed black.
[Illustration: PLATE 8. THE GASTINNE-RENETTE 16 METRES TARGET
This target has a 1-3/16 black. The ring is to facilitate judging]
This aiming bull’s-eye is of the diameter of three bullet widths.
The target in question was designed for the .44 bullet. The carton is
therefore .44 of an inch diameter, the black bull’s-eye 1.32 in diameter
leaving a ring of black round the carton of exactly a bullet width, _i.
e._, .44.
The reason for having the black bull’s-eye three bullet diameters in width
is because this leaves a space of exactly one bullet width between the
edge of the white carton and the outer edge of the black bull’s-eye.
This gives a black ring, a bullet width, surrounding the bullet diameter
carton.
Therefore when a bullet strikes the black of the bull’s-eye it can do one
of three things.
It can cut partly into the white of the carton, it can cut partly into the
white of the target outside the black bull’s-eye, or cut the black without
touching the white on either side of it.
To decide if the carton is cut into (which would score one point higher
than if the black of the bull’s-eye only was cut) examine first the edge
of the bullet hole nearest the carton.
If this is uncertain, examine the opposite edge of the bullet hole, next
to the white of the rest of the target.
If this is cut, then you know the carton cannot be cut, as the bullet hole
is the exact width of the black.
To make assurance doubly sure, there is a thin line on the target, just
clear of the outer black of the bull’s-eye.
If the bullet hole touches this thin line, then it is an absolute
certainty that it cannot _also_ cut into the carton.
The rest of the target is divided into concentric rings exactly the width
of a bullet hole.
The same bullet hole therefore cannot cut into two rings, and if it is
doubtful that a certain ring is cut into, the opposite side of the bullet
hole is examined, and if it cuts into the ring on that side, then the
first ring cannot have been cut into.
The whole idea is merely having no divisions of the target either further
apart or closer than the exact width of a bullet.
Then, given a target of thin, good cardboard, in which a bullet makes a
clean cut hole, scoring is an absolutely simple and accurate matter.
From the above long, but necessary, explanation it will be seen that the
Gastinne-Renette target fulfils all that a perfect target should.
The highest possible score which can be made on it is absolute perfection,
and as such is not attainable either by man or the pistol (even if it is
shot from a vise) the target never can “get beaten” as is the case in any
other target.
The man who can make a highest possible on the Gastinne-Renette target,
even when shooting at a range of one yard, does not and cannot ever exist.
The target is made on the .44 calibre measurements because the .44 bullet
is the standard for pistol and revolver at the Gastinne-Renette Gallery in
competing for the Grand Medaille d’Or but this system can be applied to
any size bore, for pistol or rifle or even cannon. I do not know if it was
patented, but if so, the patent must have run out years ago.