PRACTICAL TARGETS

The pistol being, primarily, a man-shooting weapon, the target for practice should be the shape of a full-sized man.

The man target we used at the Olympic Games at Stockholm in 1912, was a coloured paper target of a soldier standing at attention, full face. This was pasted on a wooden board cut to the same shape.

The bull’s-eye was an upright oval on the breast, surrounded by concentric upright ovals.

The divisions could be seen from the firing point. Competition at it was permitted with .22 pistols, which was ridiculous as they are not duelling pistols, or suitable for war or self-defence.

The regulation French Duelling Target is made in several ways, but in all cases it is the figure of a man painted black, standing in absolute profile (see Plate 3).

This can be had, either printed on paper, to paste on a board cut out to its shape, in cast iron with a base so that it stands up of itself, or of steel with an electrical device for registering the shots. The figure is in profile, which is not correct.

A proficient duellist stands as full face as a man shooting a gun. This position is easier to shoot in, but it is also easier to hit.

In the absolute profile target, the places where misses are usually made are past the small of the waist and under the chin. These would not occur on a man standing full face, or nearly so.

The target of paper pasted on wood has the bullet holes covered by white and black paper pasters.

The bullet hole is first pasted over with a white paster, so as to show its place from the firing point. After the next shot a white paster is put on this fresh shot and the former shot obliterated by a black paster.

On this target there is no bull’s-eye and all hits, anywhere, have an equal value.

In competitions, a row of these figures stand in the field and the marker, after a shot at each has been fired, goes down the line and pastes white pasters over the bullet holes and black patches over where he finds a white patch. He need not say anything, when he has finished, it is at once seen from the firing point which targets have been hit and where, and what targets have been missed.

The iron target is divided by incised lines into an oblong bull’s-eye with various subdivisions as shown in the diagram (see Plate 3).

The bull’s-eye counts four, the space on each side three, the space below two, and the head and the bottom of the frock coat one each. These divisions are invisible from the firing point.

When these are painted with soot and water, or distemper black and water, the bullet knocks off the black and leaves a distinct lead-coloured mark.

When shot at in the open this is all that is necessary, but if, instead of a bank behind the figure there is a wall, this wall is painted white and a second lot of paint (this time whitewash) is kept for whitening the wall, if a shot hits that, to obliterate it so as to show where misses go.

An inexperienced marker is apt to put his brush into the wrong pot, so that the result is a grey colour.

The electric marking target looks exactly like this last and is painted after shots in the same way, but the various divisions are separate plates which stand on rods with springs behind.

When a shot strikes any plate it drives it back, and the spring returns it to place.

The act of driving back makes electric connection, transmitted by wires, to a small copy of the target, like the indicator inside a hotel lift, and rings a bell. It shows the value of the shot and approximately the place it has struck. The actual spot struck is not indicated.