🚀 go-pugleaf

On 17 Aug 1996, ironman wrote:

>William Bailer wrote to Thorsten:
>>The change in position of any light beam over a distance, is very great
>>in realation to slight changes in angle.  Over large distances, a
>>shaking hand could not be steady enough to hold a spot steady enough to
>>be noticed...

Ironman wrote:
>With regards to the statement that someone cannot hold a beam on a target at 
>around 100 meters  steady enough for the beam to be noticed is not true.  I 
>know from experience that it is possible that an experienced shooter could 
>hold a rifle steady enough to hit a target 6" in diameter at up to 1000 yards. 
> 100 meters is nothing.

To Ironman, Point #1:
I must agree with your point about the steadiness of a marksman's hands.
I was responding to the suggestion of Thorsten that it could be a
hand-held pointing device of the sort that is used to point at a map in
a class-room, etc.  The individual using such a device is not a
marksman, and is not aided by the shoulder support and the stability of
the mass of a heavy piece of steel (rifle).

>When you use a laser sight with a rifle over long 
>ranges (too far to see the dot) you have to use some sort of a magnifing sight 
>to be able to tell where exactly you are aiming.  However if the window was 
>closed then the light would have been defracted out of the shooters scopes' 
>sight picture.  This would not have allowed them to get the dot to the persons 
>head, since they couldn't see it themselves unless they had a wide-field scope 
>which would let them see the dot even though that was not where they were 
>aiming the gun itself!

To Ironman, Point #2
Sometimes even educated people forget what it is they are trying to
visualize.  I think you confused the path of a bullet with the paths of
light, and in this case, it is only the paths of light that concern us.
The path of the light from the laser would be exactly the same as that
to the scope.  Even if the window were a thick prism, a foot thicker
thicker on one edge than the other, it would make no difference, and the
laser spot would always be in the same place in the view-finder scope--
the refraction of the glass window is exactly the same for both light
paths, and you would have no way of knowing that the refraction had
occurred.  If you fired the gun, only THEN would you discover the visual
shift, for the bullet would not hit the spot--  but unfortunately, this
is irrelevant!  Now go ahead, slap your forehead, and yell at yourself!
:=)

Bill Bailer

\\\  William Bailer ("Bill")
\\\  Rochester, NY, USA;  Phone (voice): 716-473-9556
\\\  wbailer@concentric.net (same mailbox as wbailer@cris.com)
\\\  Some interests: acoustics, JS Bach, anthropology, & education.