TRAVERSING TARGET

Target Moving Across the Line of Fire at Twenty Yards

This is not so difficult as rapid-firing. The chief difficulty is that when your aim is right horizontally, you may be wrong vertically, and vice versa.

When first practising, have a target made with a black band two inches wide running down the middle of the target, instead of the usual bull’s-eye. Begin your practice at this, having it first put up with the black band vertical, and then with it horizontal. Shooting at it vertical will show you if you are getting the right allowance in front in your aim. When it is horizontal, it will show you if your elevation is correct. This can be elaborated by having black bands painted or pasted on the back of an ordinary target, and, with its back towards you, shooting at them. Then, by turning it over after the six shots have been fired, you will see what score you would have made on a regulation target. The reason for this practice is that there are two things to attend to. One is the “allowance” in front, the other is the “elevation”; and if a beginner tries to think of both at once, it will confuse him.

If, after you have got pretty certain of your “allowance,” you go to “elevation,” you will most likely lose your “allowance,” and have to go back to the vertical band; and so on, alternately, till you can trust yourself at the regulation bull.

Most people, unless they use alternate hands, find the “run” one way easier than the other.

I prefer higher elevation in sights for this competition. Instead of aiming to touch the “bull” at “VI o’clock” to get a central “bull,” the aim should be at the actual elevation you want the bullet to go, so as to enable you to aim off at “III o’clock” and “IX o’clock” for right and left runs respectively.

Some people who are slower on the trigger—that is, who take longer to give the order to the trigger-finger when their eye says the aim is right—may need more allowance.

There is in astronomical work a technical term (“reaction time”) for the process of timing first contact in eclipses, and each observer deducts his own personal error, which seems constant to him. This allowance varies in revolver shooting with different men.

Some men aim at a spot, and wait for the target to come up to it; but this is useless, as any one knows who has shot moving game with a gun.

Stand absolutely square to the front, or perhaps a little more toward the side on which you find it most difficult to follow the target. Plant the feet slightly farther apart than for other competitions, and swing the whole of the upper part of the body from the hips. Do not swing your right arm, keeping the rest of the body still. The shoulder-joint does not give so smooth a horizontal swing as swinging from the hips. Moreover, if you swing the arm, you have to turn the head, or else have to look out of the corners of your eyes, instead of straight before you.

Let the whole of the upper part of your body be held rigid, and swing only on the hips. Lift your pistol from the table as the target appears, and swing with the target, bringing up the pistol on a diagonal line (this is the resultant of the vertical rise from the shoulder and the horizontal swing of the hips). Let the sights come horizontal to the eyes a little in front of the proposed allowance; and, as you keep your arm moving in front of the bull, gradually let the bull overtake you, till it is the right allowance behind your sight; and still keep on swinging. All this time be gradually squeezing the trigger, so that it squeezes off just when the aim is right. Be sure not to stop swinging before the pistol goes off.

I do not think there is any advantage in keeping your arm up between runs of the target; it tires the arm, and you cannot make the diagonal swing up to your spot in front of the bull.

I do not think it is of any use deciding to fire upon a certain part of the “run”: it is best to fire when you feel you are aiming right, and you may get this feeling sooner in the “run” on some days than on others.

There is a tendency to “follow” too long, and then, owing to lack of time, to jerk off just as the target disappears. I have made “bulls” when the target was almost out of sight, in fact, I did so in my record shoot, at Bisley, where there used to be such a competition: but this is a bad habit to contract, and a risky sort of shot, as it is almost sure to be too far behind, or even to be fired into the shield in front of the target; though, of course, if you have not a good aim, it is better to delay as long as possible, rather than to shoot earlier with a bad aim.

Be sure in your range that your shield is bulletproof, or you may get into the habit of making “bulls” when the target is “sitting” behind the shield, by shooting through it. To economize space, you can have this target run in front of your disappearing-target apparatus, putting the latter out of the way when not needed; this latter will also serve for stationary-target purposes, and to hold the fifty-yards target. Do not have a target which runs by gravitation, as shooting at a target which is running downhill requires quite different sighting from that needed with one running horizontally.