My first book on pistol shooting (The Art of Revolver Shooting) was published in 1900. Up to that date there existed no book which contained instruction on pistol shooting, though several books had appeared describing the different makes of pistols.

Since that date several books have appeared—some very good ones, by various revolver experts. Unfortunately (as always happens when something original appears), others who were not revolver shots took to writing books on the same subject, largely made up of unacknowledged extracts from my books. Not understanding their subject, they distorted my teaching, and so any one trying to learn pistol shooting from them gets hopelessly confused.

I therefore give this warning; do not follow the advice of any but an acknowledged expert in pistol shooting, as books by hack writers, made up of extracts from other writers, and illustrations from gunmakers’ catalogues, are not to be taken seriously.

Moreover, the revolver is now obsolete, and there is no use learning to shoot it.My object in writing this book is to give instruction in the modern substitute for the revolver. That is to say, the automatic pistol, and incidentally, to instruct in the single shot or duelling pistol.

For those who wish to study revolver shooting, I would refer them to my book The Art of Revolver Shooting.

The present work might be called volume ii. of The Art of Revolver Shooting, as it instructs in the form of pistol shooting which has now taken the place of revolver shooting.

Though the revolver is now obsolete, my Art of Revolver Shooting is of interest, as giving details of out-of-date firearms, and the best-on-record scores made with them.

These records will be of the greatest importance for future generations.

There are now no records extant of scores made with the long bow, the cross-bow, and the various stone-hurling slings and balistÆ. All concerning them is legendary.

If we depended only on newspaper articles for what was possible in revolver shooting, we should get legends similar to those of obsolete arms.

I was credited with making a World’s Record with a revolver at five hundred yards by a reporter when it should have been fifty yards. He merely added a nought to the figures.

As all records are important for historical purposes, and for comparison with future scores, I give as an appendix in this book those revolver records which cannot now be beaten, the revolvers and cartridges being now no longer made.

It is curious how, even up to the outbreak of the Great War, people did not understand that shooting was more important than playing games, or that shooting had to be learned.

I recently read a “trench anecdote” which relates that a man who had never fired a shot before he was conscripted was shot in the back, and whilst dying, “seized his rifle and dropped an enemy who was running past 200 yards off.”

To do this would require a first-class trained rifle shot who specialized in shooting at moving objects, and even he, with his back broken, could not swing, which is the essence of successful shooting at moving objects.

Another writer, a lieutenant, wrote during the war to one of the daily papers, advising the purchase of a revolver to be deferred till actually starting for the Front!

I have had several men on leave bring me revolvers and automatic pistols, asking me to test them, as they could not hit anything with them at the Front.

With one of these pistols I made the highest possible score at thirty yards; with another I made ten out of twelve bulls at twenty yards. None of the pistols was wrong. It was the men’s lack of skill.

Just before the war, several rifle ranges in England were closed, because they interfered with golf players.

It is to be hoped that after this war, men will spend their spare time in learning rifle and pistol shooting instead of wasting it in games, and will not close rifle ranges because they interfere with their golf links.

The fallacy that games are the best training for military service is exposed by a very interesting article in the Field newspaper.

I maintain that no man who has not the instinct to shoot ingrained in him, will shoot when under intense excitement and danger. If he is a player of games he will not shoot, but throw things at his adversary, or use his rifle as a pike or club.

Mr. John Lloyd Balderston, writing to the Field newspaper of September 29, 1917, says:

“An officer showed me his charges going through a mimic attack—firing rifle volleys instead of hurling bombs or going in with the bayonet; in these attacks reliance was placed too much on the bayonet and bomb—now we have realized that when the enemy runs away and you run after him he is likely to get away. Accordingly we teach the men not to rush wildly along with the sole idea of bayoneting, but to stop and pump some bullets after him.”

Walter Winans.

January 1, 1919,
17 Avenue de Teroneren,
Bruxelles, Belgique.