RECOIL

When buying a pistol the amount of recoil you are able to stand plays an important part.

This is not entirely a matter of physique.

A slight, wiry man, whose hands and muscles are in hard condition, and who “gives” to the recoil will be able to shoot a pistol having a recoil which would knock all the shooting out of a man who was in a flabby condition, or not accustomed to manual work, even if that man were much heavier and stronger.

Some men can bear punishment better than others.

The duelling pistol has not only no appreciable recoil, but the recoil is distributed by the big stock over the whole of the hand.

The duelling pistol has the longest stock of any pistol and also has no projections to hurt the hand.

The pistol most people would imagine has no recoil is the small .32 pocket revolver and this is the very one whose recoil hurts more than almost any other pistol.Recoil depends on the proportion between the cartridge charge and the weight of the pistol.

A pistol weighing 2½ lbs. would shoot the .32 cartridge with hardly any appreciable recoil.

But this same cartridge in a small pocket revolver weighing only a few ounces kicks very viciously.

Besides it has a very small stock made the same shape as a full-sized stock.

The result is that, whereas in a full-sized stock the top of the comb is designed to project over the thumb and forefinger, in the little vest-pocket pistol this comb comes against the tender part of the palm and the recoil drives it into the hand.

I have had my hand cut and bleeding after a few rounds with a pistol intended for ladies’ use!

The surest way to make a beginner flinch is to let him begin with a little pocket revolver.

I mention revolver because an automatic pocket pistol generally does not have a stock with projections which can drive into the hand by the recoil.

The makers know that if the slide of an automatic pistol did drive back into the hand it would do very serious damage. They therefore make the stock so that it cannot be held with the comb against the palm of the hand.

Men accustomed to shoot a pistol having a heavy recoil get so used to bracing against that recoil that they bob forward with an empty pistol to a recoil which does not come.A heavily loaded gun, if it misses fire, makes the shooter bob forward involuntarily to meet the recoil he expects.

An automatic pistol can be used with a heavier loaded cartridge than would be possible with a revolver.

Not only is some of the recoil taken up in working the mechanism in the former pistol but the recoil is softer.

The recoil of a revolver can be likened to a blow with the fist, whereas the recoil of the automatic pistol is like a hard push with the open hand. The recoil first having to work the mechanism loses its sudden sharp stinging blow.

I find I can shoot a heavily charged military automatic pistol longer than I can a revolver which has much less recoil. There is none of the jar and strain on the wrist in an automatic pistol which a revolver with the English Regulation cartridge gives.

Cocking the revolver by trigger-pull is tiring to the hand, and a very few rounds entirely paralyses the trigger finger for the time being.

It is a very unnatural strain to draw back the weight of the spring to raise the hammer and revolve the chamber with the trigger finger. It tires the finger very soon.

With the automatic pistol there is none of this strain. Therefore a man can fire a hundred shots rapidly with the automatic pistol, when he could not fire twenty-four rounds with a double action revolver, using the double action, without his trigger finger giving out.

I merely mention this as a matter of interesting ancient history. Revolvers are obsolete, but it is as interesting to understand how they were used as it would be if we knew all such lost details concerning the ancient cross bow, or Bushman’s long blow tube.

When one thinks of the unhappy men who were forced in their training to shoot heavy military revolvers with alternate hands working the double action trigger, it is extraordinary more of them did not dislocate their trigger finger or sprain their wrists.

Let any one take one of these relics and work its double action for ten minutes without stopping, and when added to this each shot drives the wrist upwards with great force, he will no longer wonder why men used to shirk “revolver practice.”