THE GASTINNE-RENETTE GALLERY

This gallery has been in existence for some seventy years and is constantly improved and it is the best gallery I know of in any country. In describing it I will be describing what an ideal shooting gallery should be like.

The entrance is through a well-lighted daylight passage past the gunmaker’s shop of the proprietor. A pistol can be bought or hired, or alteration made to the sights or trigger-pull of one’s own pistol, on the spot.

One then comes to a long, well-lighted gallery, with cupboards containing the pistols of the members and very accurate, well-kept pistols, for lending to shooters who have not brought their own (see Plates 2 and 10.)

Several pistol clubs, such as the “Le Pistolet” and the “St. George,” shoot here on certain days, at which times the range is closed to the outside public.

The gallery is heated by hot water pipes in winter.

The secretary sits at a desk and sells the entry tickets, gives the prizes (gold, silver, and bronze medals and plaques), and also keeps an accurate record of all winning scores made.

PLATE 15. GASTINNE-RENETTE GALLERY

The walls are hung with the framed targets which have won the Grand Medaille d’Or and other prizes.

Two marble slabs, engraved with the names of the winners of the championship of each year, are by the mantelpiece where hangs the stuffed head of a Sika stag I shot with a duelling pistol.One of the long sides of the gallery faces a blank wall in the open air about thirty yards distant.

Along that side there are cubicles with glass doors facing this wall, and glass sliding doors opening into the gallery.

Each cubicle has a loading table with drawers for cartridges, etc.

These cubicles have transverse walls in pairs leading to this wall, so as to enable pairs of shooters, if they so desire, to shoot, without being disturbed by the rest of the shooters.

The shooter goes with an attendant into one of the cubicles; the door leading to the gallery is shut and the door on to the range is opened.

The shooter can be seen from the gallery but he is not disturbed by people talking or coming near him.

The assistant loads the pistols, works the metronome, keeps the score, etc.

If the score is good enough to win a prize the assistant calls the secretary to see the target and verify the score and record it in his book before the shots are painted out.

Paper targets shot at are brought to the secretary for verification and signed and kept by him.

Over the top of these open-air passages down which the shooting takes place, wires are stretched to break the sound, so as not to annoy the neighbours.

There are also sloping boards at intervals above, so that a shot let off by accident cannot do any harm—the boards catch all wide bullets.

PLATE 16. GASTINNE-RENETTE GALLERY—FIRING POINTS

The prizes are given on a gradually increasing scale of difficulty, so that nobody need be discouraged.The bronze medal for shooting at plaster figures at sixteen metres is easy enough for the most moderate pistol shot to win, he is thus encouraged to try for the silver medal at these figures, which is a little more difficult, and so on.

No medal in any of the series can be won more than once.

If a man wins the gold medal at that series at the first attempt he can still go in for the silver and bronze medals of that series, but, when he has won all three medals of a series, he can never compete in that series again, but of course can shoot for practice at them.

Some series call for extreme accuracy and some for endurance, as that for breaking a hundred small plates in succession—rapid-firing—under duelling conditions.

In Chapter XXXIII, I described the target used at Gastinne-Renette’s Gallery for the three series for the Grand Medaille d’Or.

There are no second prizes in these series.

One gold medal is for twelve shots deliberate shooting with the .44 calibre duelling pistol.

A similar one for the .44 calibre revolver, and also a similar one for the duelling pistol, shot under duelling conditions.

All are shot at sixteen metres range (seventeen yards one foot).

To win either of the first two gold medals all the twelve shots must be inside the first ring round the bull’s-eye, that is inside (not cutting a ring of five bullets’ diameter (2? inches).

To win the third gold medal all the twelve shots must be inside, not cutting, the second ring round the bull’s-eye, that is to say inside seven bullets’ diameter (3.08 inches).

This latter appears the most easy competition, but on the contrary whilst some forty or more have won the first two medals, only five have won the latter, during the seventy years.

Chevalier Ira Paine is the only man who won both the first named gold medals. I do not think he tried for the third. In fact I have not seen or heard of any score of his shot under duelling conditions.

I am the only one during the seventy years the competitions have been in existence who has won both the gold medals for rifle shooting at moving objects at this gallery, the Running Rabbit and the Running Man, about five have won either one or the other of these medals.