EXHIBITION SHOOTING

In my Art of Revolver Shooting I did an unintentional wrong to a stage shot.

In the book I gave details of how to do legitimate stage shooting, and also exposed the devices of those who perform conjuring tricks, which the public mistake for genuine shooting.

There was a review of my book in one of the daily papers, in which the reviewer gave extracts of how some of these fake-shooting feats were done.

The next day I received a most indignant letter from a “Lady Champion Shot” telling me that when she was giving her exhibition at a music hall, people in the audience, after each feat, shouted to her “I know how that’s done,” and that she had lost her job in consequence.

I do not know the merits of the case, as I never saw her shoot, but I will not explain any more stage tricks, as I do not want “Stage Champion Shots” to lose engagements. Shooting men can see for themselves if any of these shooting exhibitions are genuine, and if fakes amuse the public, what does it matter?For hitting small objects with extreme accuracy at short range for exhibition purposes, I find the larger the bullet, providing it is propelled by a small charge which has no recoil, the easier to make hits with.

The big bullet cuts into say the ace of hearts, where a smaller bullet would just miss it.

Six well-placed shots with a .44 French duelling pistol shot at five yards would make one hole, whereas six .22 bullets hitting exactly the same centres would make six distinct holes, close together, but would not be the sensational “all the shots in one hole” like the former score, which audiences talk about afterwards.

Nowadays, with the wax bullets driven by fulminate out of a duelling pistol, shooting off the heads of assistants can be done with very little risk except to the eyes, whereas with a leaden bullet a bad shot means the death of the assistant unless provided with a steel skull cap under a wig.

In spite of the advantage of the big bullet, most stage shooters use the .22 calibre pistol.

It may be that they have some contract with the makers to use only their make of pistol, or it is a tradition because Chevalier Ira Paine used it, but why any one with a free hand uses it in preference to a .44 I do not understand.

I cannot do as good shooting with a .22 as with the larger calibres, and I have, I think, specimens of all makes of pistols and have shot them all.I was a pupil of Chevalier Ira Paine, who was an incomparably better shot than any of us at stationary targets, and unique in that I never saw him make a bad shot, and he has won (which no other man has succeeded in doing) both the Duelling Pistol and the Revolver Grand Medal at Gastinne-Renette’s Gallery in Paris. Both are better scores than any ever made before or since. There is also a seven-shot score with all the bullets into a shamrock-shaped hole at sixteen metres, made by Ira Paine, framed at Gastinne-Renette’s.

He was shooting for the Grand Medal d’Or when he made this seven-shot score. They were such a phenomenal group that he was asked not to continue on that target for fear of spoiling it.

As he shot so extremely well with the duelling pistol, and as I know no score of his with the .22 to equal his work with the duelling pistol, I do not understand why he did not use the latter for his stage work.

One of his most sensational feats was for his assistant to hold a playing card, the three of hearts, horizontally. Paine hit the outside pip first, then the middle one, and finally the one next the fingers, which were about a third of an inch from it.

This, in artificial light and reserving the most dangerous shot for the last, required nerve, and he did this the night before he died, when he knew his case was hopeless.As I said, he was the only man I ever saw who did what heroes of novels do. That is, he never missed or made a bad shot during all the years I saw him shoot.