Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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Breech Sight

the hinder sight of a gun. In conjunction with the front sight, it serves to aim the gun at an object. It is graduated to degrees and fractions, their length on the scale being equal to the tangents of an arc having a radius equal to the distance between the front and rear sights. The front sight is merely a short piece of metal screwed into the gun, usually at the muzzle, but sometimes between the trunnions, or on one of the rimbases, with its upper edge parallel to the bore of the gun. The rear sight may be detached, having a circular base fitting the base of the gun, BREHON LAWS or may slide through a slotted lug, and be retained at any given height by a set screw. The breech sight, the tangent scale and the pendulum are merely different forms of this device. BREEDE (bra-dā'), a river in Cape Colony, rises in the Warm-Bokkeveld, and flows chiefly in a S. E. direction through the district of Zwellendam, entering the Indian Ocean at St. Sebastian's Bay, about 60 miles N. E. of Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point of Africa.

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