There was an old guy in the camp next to ours whose only gun was a disreputable looking M94 .30-30. Pop and I were hanging out there one day and the conversation came around to how and at what distance we sighted in our deer rifles. He had a smirk on his face when he stated he had never in 50 years sighted in his rifle- a complete waste of good shells, so he said. I picked up the rifle and noticed the rear sight was catty-wampus and the front sight definitely bent. Being the smartass I was I said "howinhell can you possibly hit anything with this?" He said if I gave him a cartridge or two he would show me, but again he wasn't about to waste ammo to prove a point. I went back to camp and scrounged up a handful of .30-30 shells and bade him to show us. I set up a couple empty beer cans over by the woods and he said "no good, make them move." Well, we couldn't get sustained movement on the cans so we scrounged a couple of old wooden croquet balls from under the porch and I heaved one out across the yard. Bang! Bang! Two shots and splinters flew. Two shots at an improvised cardboard target proved the sights to be off about a foot and a half at 50 feet. The geezer would've been just as well off without any sights- as long as the target was moving I guess. Oh, and there was always meat hanging off his game pole.
Dad and I went back to camp with our tails between our legs.
