Aiming a Rifle - Where to Focus Your Eye?

I recently noticed a discrepancy in some of my shooting references that took me down a historical rabbit hole and provided an interesting glimpse into the history of marksmanship instruction.  Before I get into detail, some context:

For many years I have been an avid rifle shooter and volunteer marksmanship instructor.  I am an instructor for Project Appleseed, and also a certified instructor for both the National Rifle Association and the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Project Appleseed is where I spend my volunteer time, both because I believe the instruction is of superior quality and also because of its focus on American colonial-era history and our mission to reignite the spirit of the American Revolution.  I am an avid student of history, especially military history and historical military firearms.  I like to collect the reference books and manuals that go along with the vintage military rifles I collect and shoot, and these were the source of the observation that inspired this little voyage of discovery.

Among the fundamentals of rifle shooting that we teach in Project Appleseed are the "Six Steps of Firing the Shot". Step four is "focus", by which we mean to focus the eye on the front sight, and focus the mind on keeping the front sight on the target.  This principle of focusing on the front sight is consistent with every other modern firearms training reference that I have, insofar as they even mention the concept of where to focus (several, notably the NRA, do not mention it at all).

Each participant in a Project Appleseed rifle clinic receives a copy of this “Guidebook to Rifle Marksmanship”.  It is the best concise reference I have ever seen.

“Focus your eye on the front sight…”

I recently acquired a copy of the U.S. Army Small Arms Firing Manual of 1913.  My copy includes changes 1-20, so it was current as of 15 March, 1918.   This would have been the training received by the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) who fought in World War I. 

This manual is very small, with tiny print! It was probably intended to fit in the shirt pocket of the uniform of that period.

I was quite surprised to read the guidance in this manual which instructed the soldier to focus on the target, and not on the front sight: 

“The eye can be focused accurately upon objects at but one distance at a time; all other objects in the field of view will appear more or less blurred…”

“Whatever sight is used, the eye must be focused on the bull’s-eye, or mark, and not on the front or rear sight.”

The Soldier’s Handbook for the U.S. Rifle, Model of 1917 gives the same guidance: 

This is both a manual for the rifle and also a scorebook.  This soldier had many scores recorded in the scorebook section, but only two of the pages were properly filled out with dates: September 2, 1918 and October 15, 1918. I cannot read the names of the Army camps, but they are different from each other.

“Always focus your eyes on the target, never on the sights.”

“Focus the eyes on the target only.”

This led me to consult some WWII-era references, including Field Manual 23-5, U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 (30 July 1943).   It contains the opposite advice, consistent with modern instruction, to focus the eye on the front sight.  FM 23-7, U.S. Carbine, Caliber .30, M1 and M1A1 (23 April, 1944) contains the identical verbiage.

This manual is also pocket-sized, with tiny print.

“…in aiming, the rifleman’s eye should first be focused on the target, in order to ascertain that he is firing on his own target. His eye is then focused on the top of the front sight…”

My copy of FM 23-9, M16A1 and M16A2 Rifle Marksmanship (July 1989) emphasizes the point repeatedly across two pages and several paragraphs.  This is not the most current version of the field manual, but it is one of the last versions before the Army began to emphasize optics over iron sights. The principle of focusing the eye on the front sight is clearly well-established as the correct approach to precise aiming.

“…the eye must be focused on the tip of the front sight post…”

So: sometime between WWI and WWII, this crucial aspect of marksmanship training was fundamentally changed.  The questions now in my mind were: how and when did this change occur, and why?  I consulted a number of other references in my library, and was quite surprised at how little I was able to find on the subject.  

The first book I consulted was "Rifles and Rifle Shooting" by Major Charles Askins.  He was one of the most prolific and authoritative gun writers of his day, and this book went through several editions and printings between 1912 and 1932.  But although it contains a wealth of information and advice, I was unable to find a single reference as to where the eye should focus while aiming. Similarly, ".22 Caliber Rifle Shooting" by C.S. Landis (1932) went into excruciating detail about the various types of sights and their uses, but I couldn't find a single word about where the shooter should focus the eye.

Finally, I consulted Captain Edward Crossman's "Military and Sporting Rifle Shooting" (1932), and hit the jackpot!  In fact, it contains so much information, in so much technical detail, that it was challenging to sort through it and find the simple facts I was looking for. I think it answers the “why?” and points towards the “how and when”.

The chapter on "Aiming" had nothing to say about where to focus, so I was initially disappointed.  But there is another chapter towards the end of the book entitled "The Rifleman's Eyes".  It goes into great detail about the nature of the eye and vision, the effects of light, different colored glasses, optical aids to shooting (e.g. diopters), and quite a discussion about the effects of aging and different types and degrees of visual acuity.  He includes a lot of detail from a study conducted by the War Department in which they had men with normal vision shoot while wearing glasses that artificially impaired their vision, and measured the effects on their shooting scores.  The objective was to determine what level of visual acuity should be required in order for a man to be eligible to serve in the Army and be able to shoot effectively.   The pages in which Crossman describes this study are included below.  While somewhat dense, they make for fascinating reading:

“Some 23 years ago…officers of the Army Medical Corps…conducted a test…to determine whether a sharp image of front sight, or a sharp image of target was necessary for good rifle shooting.”

“If…the essential condition being a clear image of the sights…it will follow as a corollary that the present standards of vision are unnecessarily high.”

(Some details of the testing)

“…we are forced to the conclusion that a clear image of the bull’s-eye, or object aimed at, is not necessary to good shooting.”

“Upon well-defined optical principles the marksman with normal vision will not be able to distinctly see the bull’s-eye and focus his front and rear sight at the same time…a blurred target and a sharply-defined front sight…is…invariably chosen by riflemen…”

“Conclusions: 1. That a perfectly sharp image of the target or bull’s-eye is not necessary for good shooting…”

The study and its conclusions were published as War Department Circular No. 5, January 25th, 1908.   (Historical Note: What was then the War Department is now the Department of the Army. There was no Department of Defense until after WWII). It is quite clear from this study that the Army knew at the time that bringing the target into clear focus was not necessary for good results.  It is also clear that the riflemen preferred to focus on the front sight, regardless of how they had been instructed.  Nonetheless, the War Department's 1913 Small Arms Firing Manual recommended focusing on the target.  Why?   

I do not have any earlier marksmanship manuals, nor any manuals or other training materials from the interwar years, so don't know for sure and I cannot answer the question definitively.  But having had a total of 28 years' service in the Army, I can venture an educated guess.  The Army is a very conservative (some would say "hidebound") organization, and the bureaucracy is often very resistant to change.  Ordnance in particular was very conservative, and even resisted the adoption of repeating rifles for decades on the grounds that soldiers would waste ammunition by firing too fast (!)  When the Army finally did adopt a repeating rifle, the first few models (1892, 1896, 1898, and 1903) included a magazine cutoff switch to permit single loading. Soldiers were instructed to fire single shot, and to conserve the rounds in the magazine for emergencies when rapid fire was necessary.  As a rule, things in the Army did not change rapidly!

It is apparent that Army doctrine at the time of the study was to focus the eye on the target when aiming.  It is easy for me to imagine that it took years to get the knowledge from this study (even though it had been produced and published by the War Department) to penetrate the bureaucracy and be translated into a change in training doctrine. That is most likely the explanation for the two-stage instruction to first focus on the target to ensure proper identification, then focus on the front sight for greater accuracy. I suspect this represents a compromise between those who thought it most important to keep the enemy in clear focus during battle and those striving for the most precise aim. One finding of the study was that even soldiers who were somewhat nearsighted could still get good shooting results by focusing on the front sight, despite the fact that they were unable to bring the target into clear focus. Because the study seems to have been motivated primarily by the desire to ensure that the vision requirements for enlistment did not unnecessarily restrict the pool of potential soldiers, the experiences recruiting and training the AEF in WWI may have finally pushed the Army to adopt the change.

There are many other interesting differences from our current marksmanship practices contained in these manuals (firing positions, breath control, training methods, etc), but this one just jumped out at me and I needed to dig in a little.  At our Project Appleseed shoot last weekend, one of the more experienced instructors told the students that if they focus on the target rather than the front sight, their shot group will be likely to expand and form a “shotgun” pattern around their aiming point.  He encouraged them to try it as an exercise to validate the need to focus on the front sight.  I think it will be interesting to try it, especially after reading this.

One final thought:  we notice that the majority of our students show up on the line with some sort of optics on their rifles - either a scope or a “red dot” type.  But if you really want to get to know your rifle and understand shooting fundamentals, take off the scope and learn to shoot with iron sights!

 

Mood: Happy

Music: Jäger & Schützenlieder (Folge 2)