Chadburn’s Rifle Distance Gauge

[DuncaninFrance]

A neat little gismo from John Huggett https://www.facebook.com/groups/6577369 ... /541456314

Mine is one of the first sold and came highly polished.......

https://www.curiouscasper.co.uk/product ... nce-gauge/

[Niner]

Right-handed. Ensure the string is securely fastened through the right-hand hole on the gauge and the string length between the washer and the gauge is 25 inches. With your right hand, hold the metal washer on the end of the string to the tip of your nose (as shown in the above picture). With your left hand, move the gauge away from the face until the sting is taut. When this is done, close your left eye and look through the tool. You are now ready to look through the gauge and accurately judge the distance of a person up to 900 yards away.
Reverse the above if left handed.
To calculate the distance of the target, (assumed to be about six foot), set up as described above. View the person through the part of the aperture that fits him most accurately. Observe the number it relates to above that point on the aperture. This is the distance that they are away from you, (in hundreds of yards).

There isn't much difference in the slot between 400 yards and 900 yards seems to me to be actually useful. Probably be more interesting in the under 200 yard range. That has more possibility. However, try it out and tell us what you think of it. If anybody laughs seeing you holding a string to the end of your nose give them a good talking to.

[Niner Delta]

Yards?? What happened to all the metric crap you guys love over there?? .......

.

[DuncaninFrance]

In 1860 when this was Patented we still ruled the world
Having been brought up with feet and inches I much prefer the metric system now, it is so much easier to use.
I still have my old Imperial measuring devices and one digital caliper that can move between Imperial and Metric at the touch of a button.

[Niner]

Vern, remember Vietnam? Nice 1000 by1000 meter map grids? We both had more experience than we wanted at the time reading maps and calling in arty for infantry guys. Militaries couldn't operate in the last 100 or so years without metrics. Maps in miles and yards weren't friendly for such things as artillery fire or other such precision things when it all was a map game.

Once I was in the company TOC and the captain came in and says that he wants to insert by air a platoon but doesn't know where the arty would come from to support them. I asked, so where are you inserting them? He goes to the map on the wall and points out a spot. I take a page of legal paper and put it up against the map. I mark a tick with a pencil at each grid line from the map starting an equivalent grid up from the bottom. I put the bottom edge of the paper on the approximate location of the firebase arty. I swing the edge of the paper around to the location in question. I read the tick marks on the edge of the paper. "7300 meters from the battery, give or take 20 or 30 yards," I say. "Good to go with the half battery here. No problem with support from here". The infantry captain was astonished. Captain never knew you could do that kind of figuring with a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Couldn't have done what I did with a miles and yards map. Artillery FDC units did what I did all the time as a first step in computing fire data, only instead of a piece of paper, they used a Range Defection Protractor to measure the distance.

Oh, and Duncan, if Britain hadn't owned Palestine and given it to the European Jews, that were left after WWII, things might be a bit calmer in the present time. Certainly the Palestinian goat farmers aren't appreciative of Great Britain's largess.

[Niner Delta]

"By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area." ..... Although that would be more than the 1860 figure.
Seems that a more correct statement would be, "We ruled almost ¼ of the world."
Today the size of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland falls somewhere between #10 Oregon and #11 Idaho in square miles.

Yes Robert, I remember well those metric grid maps. But you know I like to razz Duncan. ...

.

[Niner]

Yep Vern. I've noticed.

[DuncaninFrance]

So did I