STAGE SHOOTING

This subject can be subdivided into two parts: real, expert, very accurate work, requiring great skill and nerve; and conjuring tricks, that is to say, shooting assisted by apparatus and the arts of the conjurer. The greatest insult that can be offered to a professional shot is to call him a conjurer.

To begin with the unaided shooting: You must have a safe background to shoot against. The best, in my opinion, is a steel plate, leaning towards you at an angle of forty-five degrees, and below it a shallow tray, filled with sand, to catch the bullets, which flatten on the steel and drop into the tray. As only very light powder-charges are used, and as the bullets for this purpose are round, or semi-round, this is sufficient.

It is usual to have something for the bullets to go through before striking the steel plate. Green baize is good for the eyes as a background; but it is dangerous, being very inflammable; it gives off fluff, some of which stands out from the baize, and the rest falls to the ground. This is like tinder and is liable to catch fire from burning particles of powder. Some fabric dipped in a non-inflammable mixture should be used; either green, white, or black, whichever you find suits your eyesight best. The butt is either put “prompt” side of the stage (so that the shooter’s right arm is nearest the audience), and at a slight angle, in order that people may see the target; or it is placed at the back of the stage, the shooter standing with his back to the audience. In either case, the shooter keeps his “tools” on a side-table, and when he shoots he stands quite clear of any table, so as to afford an uninterrupted view of all his proceedings.

The range is about fifteen feet. This may seem very short, but it looks a long shot on a stage; and it must be remembered that the shooting is at very small objects and no misses are allowable. The golden rule to be borne in mind in stage shooting is: Never hazard a shot that is not very easy to you, and which you cannot be practically sure of successfully accomplishing. If you try a difficult shot and succeed once in three times—such as hitting a cork thrown into the air—hardly any of the audience will think of you as aught but a bad shot; whereas, if you hit six stationary glass balls—each as big as an orange—in rapid succession, they will think you wonderful! Several professional self-styled champion pistol shots, use both hands to hold their pistols which is never allowed in any pistol competition, and stamps them as no pistol champion.

WEAPONS

One or more .44 Russian Model Smith & Wesson target revolvers; Ira Paine target sights; hair-trigger; Union Metallic Cartridge Co.’s gallery ammunition. I use the revolvers which formerly belonged to Ira Paine; several front sights, the finest about the size of the head of a small pin, the stalks as fine as a needle; hind sight adjustable, both laterally and vertically, with screw adjustment; trigger-pull so light that laying the finger on the trigger almost sets it off. With such a revolver, of course, extreme care must be taken never, for an instant, to have the barrel pointed in any direction except that in which it would be safe for the bullet to travel, and also to keep the finger off the trigger till you actually want the bullet to go.

Ira Paine when shooting at objects on the head of an assistant, used to “come down” from above, instead of “coming up” in the usual way; so that if the pistol went off by accident there would be no danger to the assistant, as there would be if the muzzle travelled up his body to his head in sighting from below.

I do not approve of shooting at objects on the head or in the hands of an assistant; it is not, in my opinion, justifiable to risk life in this way.

The other weapon is a Stevens, or Smith & Wesson, single-shot .22 pistol. Some people use this to give variety to the show; but I prefer a duelling pistol.

See that a narrow plank of wood—metal would, if struck, make a bullet glance—is put in front of the butt with slits and clips in it for holding objects. As mentioned before, I do not like assistants holding them in the fingers, though, for this purpose, steel thimbles are generally worn over the thumb and forefinger, and are concealed by a glove.

Professionals sometimes shoot objects on the heads of assistants—generally a lady with her hair piled up very high, or wearing a steel skull-cap under a wig. Devilliers bullets make such shooting practically safe in case of the assistant being hit.

The following shots I recommend to amateurs as safe. Beginning with the easiest, we have:

Six stationary balls in a row or else the French rubber balloons. (The balls are cast from a mixture of resin and whiting; they are very brittle and break at a graze.) Take them as quickly as you can be sure of them. With practice, you can “snap” the six off in about four seconds.

Next extract the used cartridges, and have them put in a row on the edge of the board, standing them on their bases. Hit them in quick succession. This requires a little more care, as they are small; but their height prevents your being likely to miss vertically, and you have merely to pay attention to keeping your horizontal aim correct. Be sure not to shoot too low; for if you do, and hit the plank, you will jar all of them off it.

This can be varied, if you are a really good shot, by placing the spent cartridges on their sides with the cap end towards yourself; but it requires good shooting.

Shooting at an object with a wine glass on each side without breaking the glasses is a trick in which the difficulty varies according to how close the glasses are.

Put up a piece of paper with a black pencil line ruled vertically on it; hit this line. This requires care not to “pull off” to one side.

A similar line horizontal. This is more difficult, as the elevation must be absolutely correct if you want to hit the line.Hit a swinging ball. Take the shot on a turn; do not follow, but aim at an imaginary spot just inside of where the ball is at one end of its swing, aiming at “IX o’clock,” as the ball is momentarily stationary at its farthest swing to the right, or vice versa.

Put six balls in a row; hit one with the revolver in the right hand, a second with the revolver in the left; a third and fourth with the revolver upside down, pulling the trigger with the little finger and using alternate hands. The remaining two shots to be made with the revolver held half canted to the right, and then half canted to the left. After a little practice, none of these positions are difficult.

The upside-down shot, as soon as you get used to aiming at the top edge of the ball instead of the bottom, is a very steady, easy position. For the two side ones, you aim at “IX” and at “III o’clock,” respectively.

Hang your watch on a hook on the board, and place a ball resting on this hook. Break the ball. This is easy, as the ball is, comparatively, a big mark. Aim at the top edge of the ball, so as to break it by a grazing shot near the top; this is less risky for the watch.

Do the same with any watches lent by the audience. A man once kept lending me his watch for this trick; I found out afterwards that it would not go, and he had hoped that I would hit it and thus be compelled to give him another!

Borrow small objects from the audience, and hit them. Stamps on envelopes, visiting cards, bits of pencil, etc., are suitable; but do not shoot at anything which will make a bullet glance, or you may hit some of your audience. Thus a walnut is very dangerous, causing bullets to glance. An orange or an egg explodes beautifully when hit, but both are rather messy. The coloured balls for Christmas trees are nice to shoot at; but a bullet sometimes makes a hole without breaking them.

Put up the ace of hearts and hit it. It is usual to have a pack composed of only aces of hearts. Have several ace cards placed on top of each other, and when the bullet goes through the group, have the cards “dealt” among the audience; or, if at a Charity Bazaar, sold singly.

Put up the six of hearts, and hit the six pips. This requires some doing to get all six shots neatly in the separate pips.

Put a card edgeways towards you and cut it in half. This is a pretty trick and brings down the house when well done. It requires the same skill as hitting the vertical pencil lines. If you are not very sure of yourself, and you succeed on the first shot, do not risk a second try. This rule applies to all the difficult shots. My best score at this game was five cards out of six shots, the cards being placed edgewise at a range of fifteen feet.

Hit a string from which an object is hanging. Get string which is weak, and have the object pretty heavy, or else you may “nick” the string without its breaking. Berlin wool, with a weight so heavy that it strains the wool to nearly breaking-point, breaks with more certainty than string or twine. There is an ingenious, though scarcely legitimate, way of making this shot very easy. You merely double a piece of string and tie a knot, hanging it over two nails, the distance between which is a fraction under .44 inch. Two hooks on the ball are the same distance apart, so that the ball is thus hung by a double string. If you hit between these, both strings are necessarily cut by a .44 bullet, if your aim be true, while one is cut even if you hit half an inch out.

Put a rubber balloon filled with red fluid on top of an empty claret glass; break the ball, and the glass will be filled with the fluid. Take care the ball fits very loosely, and rests only slightly in the glass, or the latter will break also.

Knock a cork off a bottle; an ordinary wine bottle or a wooden or metal one is dangerous if hit, as causing the bullet to glance; it is better to have a plaster of Paris bottle, painted black.

Put up a bunch of six grapes, and take them off one at a time.

Put up candles and snuff them.

Hit two balls simultaneously, one swinging past a stationary one, or both swinging from opposite ways. You have to take them just as one is about to cover the other.

Have a ball swung round horizontally at great speed centrifugally from a small wheel spun by clockwork. This requires very good “timing,” you aiming at a side and pulling when the ball is at the opposite side, or you will be too late. Stand two balls with a steel knife-edge between them, vertically towards you and rather nearer to you than the balls. Hit the knife-edge in such a manner as to split the bullet in two pieces, which fly off and break the balls. The knife must be securely fastened, and the precise distance between the back of it and the balls (which varies according to the distance they are apart) must be determined by experiment. Trick shooters use shot for this instead of a bullet.

Hitting an object with a paper on the muzzle hiding the mark. Cut a round hole, just big enough to slip over the muzzle, in a piece of thick paper the size of an ordinary envelope. Slip this over the muzzle, up against the front sight. When taking aim, it will be found that with the left eye closed the paper hides the object. By keeping both eyes open, however, shooting is easy, the right eye working the sights and the left seeing the object. The paper must not project much to the left, or it would hide your view with the left eye.

Fix a nail slightly in a block of soft wood and drive it home with a shot.