INTRODUCTION

There is now no use learning revolver shooting. That form of pistol is obsolete except in the few instances where it survives for target shooting, or is carried for self-defence; just as flintlock muskets even now survive in out-of-the-way parts of the world.

If a man tries to defend himself with a revolver against another armed with an automatic pistol he is at a great disadvantage.

The automatic is more accurate than a revolver, as the “blow-back” does not vary as much as does the escape of gas past the cylinder in a revolver.

The bullet in the revolver has to jump into the cylinder, whereas in the automatic it is already fitted up against the rifling, before being fired.The single-shot pistol is the most accurate of any, there being no escape of gas.

The automatic has not only a much longer range than the revolver (although the popular idea that it can be shot accurately at a thousand yards or more is nonsense) but it cocks itself instead of having to be cocked by the thumb, or trigger finger.

Cocking by trigger-pull is such a strain on, not only the trigger finger, but the whole hand, that, after a few shots, good shooting cannot be made.

I won all my rapid-firing revolver competitions using the single action and cocking with the thumb, as this rested my trigger finger.

With the automatic, cocking is unnecessary and, with its lighter recoil, good scores in rapid-firing are very much easier to make.

The penetration of the nickel-coated automatic bullet propelled by its big charge of nitro powder is very great.

A man brought me a “pistol-proof” cuirass to test; I put a bullet at twelve yards clean through it and then through two “bullet proof” ones, placed one behind the other. (I used a regulation U. S. .45 Automatic pistol.)

This was before the war. The inventor was disappointed. He had experimented only with revolvers shooting soft leaden bullets and these his cuirass had stopped.

Unfortunately, in its present comparatively imperfect development, the automatic is the most dangerous firearm of all pistols for a novice to handle.

The long barrel of a rifle can be struck aside if a beginner swings it round and points it at the instructor or a nearby spectator, but the short barrel of a pistol is easily pointed at and with difficulty brushed aside by the unfortunate person standing near a “brandishing” and “flourishing” man who is learning to shoot.

In spite of all warnings even those who ought to know better do this swinging about. In fact, it is the recognized way of handling a pistol; according to reporters, they always say So and So “was brandishing a pistol” if he happens to be armed.

You can test the truth of the above remark by asking any one to show how he would shoot a pistol.

He will raise his hand above his head and then jerk it down. It is very difficult to get any one to understand the danger and the futility of doing this.

Euclid tells us the shortest way from one point to another is a straight line. Why then, in order to get the muzzle of your pistol on an object, move it towards the stars first?

Never let the muzzle of any firearm, either loaded or unloaded, point in the direction where it would do harm unintentionally if discharged.

I, once only, in all my experience, found a beginner who did not do this, and the beginner was a lady!After a few shots with a duelling pistol the wind blew the target down, the pistol was loaded and at full-cock in her hands. I had seen enough of how she handled a pistol, to know she had grasped the necessity of never pointing where there is danger.

The target blew down as she was beginning to aim at it; she raised the muzzle vertically and put the pistol at half-cock, I at the same moment going forward to put the target back in place.

With any other beginner I would have taken the pistol with me when I went up to the target.

Smoking is one of the greatest enemies to good shooting, even more so than alcohol.

A drinking man may, for a time, shoot well, till his nerves are destroyed, but smoking, long before it kills, makes a man unable to shoot well. He has too much twitch in his muscles.

It is curious how heavy smokers deceive themselves, and think it does them no harm.

At a dinner, a man told me that smoking could not possibly interfere with a man’s shooting.

He said: “I can lift a tumbler full of water without spilling a drop.”

There were plenty of tumblers and a decanter before him, but he took very good care not to demonstrate his contention.

I looked for his hands; he had one carefully out of sight, behind him; the other, with the eternal cigarette between the fingers, he was pressing tightly to his waistcoat, but not tightly enough to prevent my seeing that his hand was trembling as if with the palsy.

Then, he added, to clinch his argument:

It is all nonsense to pretend that smokers cannot stop smoking if they want to; I stopped for a whole week and the only thing was that I did not sleep and had no appetite; it was not worth it, so I began smoking again.

This is an extreme case, but all smoking, from the first whiff, is cumulative poison, deteriorating the nerves.

If a man gives up smoking and takes to pistol shooting in the open air, he will find his nerves enormously strengthened and, as long as he guards his ears from the concussion (which I will deal with later), his health much improved.

For elderly men also there is not the strain on the heart as in golf or tennis.