[fabsroman]

The parascope with its tick marks is the same thing used in scopes a while ago and today. They are termed ballistic plex. On some of them, you could tell how away a deer was based upon how many tick marks the deer's shoulders filled in the scope. The tick marks on the bottom would be the required elevation. Nowadays, they sell these scopes for particular cartridges at particular speeds. It helps the shooter, even if he/she has a laser range finder.

I would assume that before all this technology came about, hunters spent a lot more time in the woods (i.e., we depended on hunting a lot more) and they were good at estimating range because dinner depended on it.