Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1877 — Watching a Rifle Ball’s Flight. [ARTICLE]

Watching a Rifle Ball’s Flight.

Three gentlemen, members of the Amateur Rifle Club, yesterday afternoon were in the town of Brighton targetshooting. The distanoe was 200 yards; all three were shooting Creedmoor rifles. From the firing point to the target the ground gradually ascended, so that a small telesoope, but a good one, firmly fixed in true bounds on a tree, at a distance of perhaps thirty feet, made a fine point for observation. One of the shooters, while looking through a glass to mark a shot of one of his companions, exclaimed that he saw the ball as it sped on its mission. The announcement was received with incredulity; but one of the other shooters went to the glass, and he also saw the ball almost as it left the gun, and through its whole flight, nearly the whole line of its trajectory, until it struck the target. So interesting and beautiful was the sight that every shot was watched by one or the other of the gentlemen; and it is an actual fact that the point at which the ball would strike \ the target could be seen before the ball struck. It was even insisted upon that the rotary motion of the ball Gould be