Quoted: Then why did the 300M target equal the width of the front sight post the last time I was on the QualRange?
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No it wasn't at least not the stand E type target the US Army uses (about 20" wide).
I'll guess you are a Marine, cause I know their manual indicates the front sight is the width of a man at 300M. The Marine NCOs will teach from their manual.
However last time I was shooting on a Marine range (last Dec) the plastic Ivans (which are a bit smaller then the E-Type) were the width of the front sight at 150M or so. And when I did a Army Alt Course 'C' qual last month (at our MD AR-15 shoot) I could verify 300M was much less than the width of the front sight.
Using simple math you can determine what range the target is. You need to know the width of the target, the width of the front sight, and the distance from the front sight to your eye.
I did the 'proof' for D. Scott Griffin (he also used the Marine 300M value in his book).
In order for a standard 20" target to be the width of the front sight at 300M you need 2 things to occure:
1) you need to be using a Match .052" width front sight post (standard width is .07").
2) You need to have a cheek weld where your is about 3-4" behind where the typical nose-to-charging handle eye's position is (IIRC that is about 26" from the front sight post). This would be the type of sight picture a very small person or large child would use.
Now you could use a thinner front sight post (heck I don't think its likely the Marines are using a .052" match post so something thinner is not likely) or you could significantly enlarge the size of the target (say you only wanted to shoot at giants) I don't think the Marines are 'dumbing' down marksmanship tests by enlarging the targets.
I'm thinking the person who wrote that did the checking with one of the Match rifles and was of shorter stature.
BTW I did run the calculations to verify the Army's 150-175M values. With the standard .07" front sight post and a nose to charging handle cheek weld (and E-type target) I calculated the front sight was the width of a man in the 173Meter range IIRC.