LEARNING TO SHOOT
It is assumed that you have procured an accurate pistol, properly sighted.
It is best to use a single-shot pistol or revolver as an automatic pistol
cannot well be used as a single loader and for a beginner is very
dangerous with the magazine charged.
First, make sure that it is unloaded. _Always_ do this before handling a
pistol.
Take a bottle of sight-black and paint both sights over with the liquid. I
have seen men try to compete, with their sights in a shiny state, which
made it impossible for them to make good shooting on a white target with
black "bull."
For game shooting, or for military purposes, of course, a "dead" white
(ivory for choice) tip to the front sight is preferable, or my patent
military front sight, which answers the purposes both of a light on dark,
or dark on light sight.
With a pistol the first thing to consider is safety. It is, owing to its
shortness, one of the most dangerous of firearms to handle. Even an
expert must exercise great care; and in the hands of a beginner or a
careless person it may be fearfully dangerous. I have had many very narrow
escapes in teaching men how to shoot; it is not even safe to be behind
them; they will turn round with the pistol at full-cock, pointing it at
you, and say: "I cannot understand why it will not go off; see! I am
pulling as hard as I can at the trigger."
It is indispensable to have a safe background. Some people think that if
the target is fastened to the trunk of a tree it is all safe, since the
bullet will not go through the tree. This may be so if the tree is hit,
but the bullet will, most likely, go past the tree when the beginner
fires; or, what is just as dangerous, graze the tree and go off at an
angle. Also, in shooting with round bullets, and light gallery ammunition,
the bullets may rebound from a hard tree and come back on the shooter.
This I have actually seen happen.
A good background is a high sandy bank, a thick pile of fagots, or, if not
closer than fifty yards, a high brick or stone wall. The target may be
stood some fifteen yards away from the wall to prevent danger of a bullet
coming back on the shooter, and then the shooter can be far enough from
the wall, if the wall is a background. If a lot of shooting is done, it is
not very good for the wall, and if many shots hit the same spot they may
gradually make a hole. Iron butts are expensive, especially for the large
surface required by a beginner; at twenty yards, a beginner could not in
my opinion safely shoot at a background less than twelve feet high and
some ten in width. Even then there should not be any one beyond it within
half a mile, lest he should happen to let off by accident. Shooting out to
sea is safe, if one keeps a good lookout for boats; but the glare from the
water is bad. A sand or chalk pit is a good place to shoot in, or one can
shoot against a high chalk cliff. It is dangerous to shoot anywhere where
people cross unexpectedly, as from round the corner of a building.
The great thing is that _the pistol should never point in any direction
where it would matter if it went off by accident_. This rule should be
observed even with an empty pistol, because so many
"I-did-not-know-it-was-loaded" accidents occur.
Having got a butt, the learner should take a firm, narrow wooden table and
place it some ten yards from the target. This target is preferably a
"Bisley fifty-yards target," four-inch bull's-eye. The Bisley cardboard
targets are cheap; and, by pasting white patches on the white and black on
the bull's-eye bullet-holes, one target can be used for a long time. I
refer to the fifty-yards target because this four-inch bull's-eye is very
easy to hit at ten yards' range. The Bisley revolver "bull's-eyes" count,
at all ranges, seven points; the concentric rings counting one point less,
each, till the outermost one, which counts two points. The highest
possible score, therefore, for the six shots is forty-two, or six times
seven. It is best to shoot at this very big "bull" at ten yards, as making
"bull's-eyes" encourages the beginner; and, as he gets more proficient,
the two-inch twenty yards "bull" can be substituted. This I think
preferable to going back farther from the target as your skill increases;
also it is safer, for the nearer the shooter is to the butt the wider his
shots would have to be for him to miss it; whereas, if he goes back to
fifty yards he may easily shoot over a very high butt.
Place your empty pistol on the table, the weapon lying on its left side
with the muzzle towards the target. The table is preferably a narrow one,
so that, during the process of loading, the muzzle points to the ground
beyond the table and not to the table itself, an accidental discharge
being thus immaterial; a foot wide is about right; the length does not
matter, so long as it will hold your field-glasses, cleaning things, and
cartridges.
POSITION.--The position for shooting which I am now going to describe, is
the one in which I shoot and the one which I have found from experience
suits me best. This position, however, will have to be modified according
to the build of the shooter; a stouter or shorter-necked man than myself
might have to stand more sideways.
Stand facing the target; the right foot pointing straight for the target,
or perhaps a shade to the left (if the ground is slippery, this gives you
a firmer foothold); the left heel distant from six to nine inches to the
left of the right foot, according to your height (my distance is eight
inches), and about an inch farther back; the feet turned out about as much
as is natural to you when standing.
Stand perfectly upright, not craning your head forward; the left arm
should hang down straight and close to the side in the position of
"Attention." Some people bend the left arm and rest the hand on the hip;
but I think this looks affected, and it is not as workmanlike as if the
arm hangs straight down.
If you are trying to "hold" an especially important shot, and find
yourself wobbling off your aim, it is a great help to grip your thigh hard
with your left hand; this especially applies in a gusty wind.
Now lift the pistol with your right hand (the weapon is empty, remember)
and cock it. There are two ways of cocking: one using both hands and one
using only the shooting hand. I do not refer to the double-action revolver
cocked by pulling back the trigger, as I do not think shooting with much
accuracy can be done by this method; and it is, moreover, the cause of
half the accidents happening with the "I-did-not-know-it-was-loaded"
shooters. The cocking by the trigger is only useful in a revolver for
self-defence at very close quarters.
To return, this single-handed cocking is done by putting the thumb on the
hammer and by the action of the thumb muscles alone bring it to full-cock.
Take particular care that the first finger is clear of the trigger, or
else you will either break or injure the sear notch, or have an accidental
"let-off." With practice, this way of cocking becomes very easy, and can
be done with great rapidity. I personally can also let the pistol down to
half-cock (manipulating the pistol with one hand, with the trigger finger
and thumb); but I would not advise a beginner to try this, except with an
empty pistol and even then only one that he does not mind the chance of
spoiling, as he is very apt to break the nose of the sear if he bungles
it.
By practice, the thumb and forefinger muscles (_abductor pollicis_ and
_adductor indicis_) develop enormously, and you need not mind if at first
it seems difficult; but stop at first as soon as they feel tired, or you
may strain them. Pistol-shooting is good also for the flexors of the
forearm and for the dorsal muscles. A small hammer with short "fall" is
easiest to cock, as well as to make good shooting with, for such a hammer
takes less time in falling, and the aim is, in consequence, less likely to
be disturbed.
The beginner will find that it assists the cocking to give the pistol a
slight tilt to the right and upwards, taking great care to bring it back
with the hind-sight _horizontal_ afterwards, as holding the sights tilted
is one of the chief causes of bad shooting.
For double-handed cocking, assist the right hand by taking the pistol
barrel in the left hand; keep the barrel horizontal and pointed at the
target, _not_ towards your left-hand neighbour (if you are competing), as
is often done; and, while it is thus steadied, cock gently, not with a
jerk, bringing the hammer well beyond full-cock, so that it sinks back
into the bent with a well-defined click, keeping the first finger clear of
the trigger.
Now, stand with the pistol in your right hand, just clear of the table;
right arm full stretch. The first finger must be outside the trigger-guard
(_not touching the trigger_) during this stage.
Some Englishmen shoot with the second finger on the trigger and the first
along the pistol; but this is a clumsy way, and the first finger is apt to
be burnt with the escape of gas from the cylinder, if a revolver is used.
The habit was acquired from shooting the Martini rifle, the clumsy "grip"
of which made this manner of holding necessary.
The great thing is to have your grip _as high as you can_ on the stock, in
line with the axis of the barrel, or as near this as is practicable. With
the Smith & Wesson Russian Model (now no longer manufactured) I have it
actually in line with the bore of the barrel.
Some pistols for the British market often have specially long, big
handles, or stocks, because of the habit (or is it the Regulation
Position?) of holding the stock low down with the little finger beneath,
prevalent in England. Now this sort of position makes the recoil come at
an angle to the wrist, throws the barrel up at the recoil, spoiling the
accuracy, and puts more strain on the wrist than is necessary. I remember
a very strong-wristed man firing one of my heavily charged fifty-yards
revolvers and spraining his wrist at the first shot, owing to holding it
in this way; whilst I have fired hundreds of rapid-firing shots straight
on end with it without hurting myself. I take the recoil just as a man
catches a hard-thrown ball, letting arm, hand, and wrist fly up together.
The pistol barrel, hand, and arm should all be nearly in one line, the
thumb along the left side, so as to prevent jerking to the left in
pressing the trigger (in the same way as the left arm is fully extended in
shooting with the shotgun), and not crooked, as all beginners insist on
holding it.
You must be constantly on the watch that you do not crook your thumb,
until the extended position becomes second nature to you. Some makes of
pistols, however, have the extractor lever in a position which renders
this grip with extended thumb impossible.
For the benefit of beginners who are not target rifle-shots, the following
explanation may be necessary: The target, for the convenience of locating
shot-holes, is supposed to represent the face of a clock. The top of the
bull's-eye (which we term "bull" for brevity) is called XII o'clock, as
that is, of course, where the numeral XII appears on a clock face, and so
on for all the other numerals: half-past four, for instance, is half-way
between where the numerals IV and V appear on a clock. I was once shooting
in the presence of a foreign naval officer, and when I made a "half-past
five" "bull" shot he said, "South-east," his professional instinct making
him liken the target to the face of a compass.
First take a deep breath, and fill your lungs. Now slowly bring your right
arm to the horizontal, keeping your eyes fixed on the bottom edge--at "six
o'clock"--of the "bull"; whilst you are doing this, put your forefinger
inside the trigger-guard, and gradually begin to feel the trigger and
steadily increase the pressure on it _straight back, not sideways_. Whilst
you are doing all this, also gradually stiffen all your muscles so that
you are braced up, especially about the right shoulder, as though you were
walking along the pavement and saw a man coming towards you whom you meant
to shoulder out of your path.
You may breathe naturally until the pistol is levelled, then hold your
breath; if you cannot get your aim satisfactorily before you feel you want
to take a fresh breath, lower the pistol, take a deep breath, and try
again. If you have followed these directions carefully, you will find,
when the hind sight comes to the level of your eyes (closing your left eye
or not, as you find best, without any lowering of the head), the front
sight will be seen through the middle of the "U" pointed at the bottom of
the bull's-eye, the top of the front sight just touching it at "six
o'clock." If everything has been done perfectly, at the moment this
occurs the pressure on the trigger will have been increased sufficiently
to cause the hammer to fall, and, after it has fallen, you will see the
top of the front sight _still_ just touching the bull's-eye at its bottom
edge.
If the pistol had been loaded (assuming, of course, that it was an
accurate shooting one and properly sighted), you would have had a central
bull's-eye for your shot. Most likely, however, you will find that the
pistol came up all of a tremble, and that, as the hammer fell, the front
sight was jerked very wide of the "bull" and perhaps even hidden by the
hind sight.
Do not be discouraged, but cock and try again. By the way, it is best to
use a "dummy" cartridge or an exploded one whilst doing this "snapping"
practice, as otherwise the jar may do damage to the plunger and perhaps
break the mainspring. There are dummy cartridges, made with a rubber
"buffer," for this practice.
If you still find your hand shaky (and it is not naturally so), it most
probably arises from your gripping too hard.
The action of "letting off" should be like squeezing an orange--a squeeze
of the _whole hand_. Start with a light grip when your hand is down, and
gradually squeeze as you come up, the trigger-finger squeezing _back_; and
the hammer will fall without the least tremor or without the sights
moving off the point they covered during the fall of the hammer. The main
thing of all in pistol shooting is to _squeeze straight back_. Whenever
you find yourself shooting badly see if you are not "_pulling off to one
side_"; and in nine cases out of ten you will discover that this was the
cause of your bad shooting.
Some men can never squeeze the trigger straight back, and have to allow
for this by getting the hind sight "set over" to one side to correct it;
but this is a slovenly way of shooting, and, as the pull to one side may
vary according to the "jumpiness" of the shooter, it prevents his being a
really first-class shot.
Keep the hind sight perfectly horizontal; beginners are prone to cant it
on one side, which puts the bullet to the side towards which you cant.
After a little practice, you will be able to "call" your shots, that is to
say, you will be able, the moment the cartridge explodes, to say where the
shot has struck the target, as you know where the sights were pointed at
the "squeeze-off."
After six shots, make a pencil-cross over each bullet-hole, so as to know
where your former shots hit. After twelve hits it is best to take a fresh
target. At the end of the day's shooting, you can cover the holes by
pasting black patches on the bull's-eye holes and white on the rest, and
use the target again.
I will now say why I insist upon the importance of a table being before
the shooter. The usual procedure for a beginner with the pistol is this:
He cocks the pistol with both hands, pointing it at the spectators on his
left whilst doing so; he then holds it with his right arm close to his
side, pointing it to the ground at his right foot. He then brings it up
with a flourish, high above his head, and lowers it to the target, jerks
the trigger, and "looses off." Of course he does not hit the target, but
makes a very wild shot. After a few more shots on this principle, getting
more and more wild, and making bigger flourishes with his pistol, he
finally lets it off by accident whilst his arm is hanging by his side; and
he is lucky if he does not make a hole in his right foot.
I remember once a man telling me (he professed to be an expert with the
revolver) that I was wrong in keeping my revolver pointed in front of me
towards the target when preparing to shoot. "You ought to hold it like
this," he said, letting his right arm hang close to his side and keeping
the revolver pointing downwards; "then it is quite safe." At that moment
it went off and blew a big hole in the ground within an inch of his foot!
By my system of having a table in front of the shooter, close to which he
stands, and from which he lifts the pistol, he cannot shoot down into his
feet. But he must never turn round or leave the table without first
unloading the pistol and placing it on the table; nor, on any account,
must he let any one go up to the target or be in front or even get level
with him whilst the pistol is in his hand.
Now, as to the trick of lifting the pistol above one's head before firing:
I cannot understand why people want to do this. It only frightens
spectators; besides, the shooter is running the risk of shooting himself
through the head; and in competitions or in self-defence time is too
valuable to waste in such antics.
When you are pretty confident that you can keep your sights properly
aligned at the bottom edge of the "bull" while the hammer is falling, you
can try a few shots with a loaded pistol. It is best to load only some of
the chambers, if using a revolver, irregularly spin the cylinder round,
after the revolver is closed and at half-cock, so as not to know which
chambers are loaded, and every time you find you jerk off with a shot,
return to the snapping-empty-cartridge practice. This latter is good
practice, even when you become a skilled shot.
Place the box of cartridges beside, and to the right of, the pistol. Use
only a very small charge (gallery ammunition for choice) at first, as
nothing puts a beginner off so much as the fear of recoil. Stand behind
the table, the pistol being between you and the target, and take the
pistol by its stock in the right hand. Do not turn the muzzle to the left,
but straight out towards the target. Put it in your left hand and load it.
This procedure varies with different makes of revolvers; with the Smith &
Wesson, Russian, and Winans models, you lift the catch with your left
thumb and press the barrel down with the same hand till it (the barrel) is
perpendicular, pointing to the ground. But whatever the mechanism, when
the pistol is open for loading, the barrel should be pointing downwards,
yet in line for the target.
If a cartridge projects too much, remove it, as it is dangerous and may
explode prematurely from friction against the breech of the revolver. In
loading, of course have the pistol at half-, not full-cock. Close it by
elevating the breech with the right hand, not by raising the barrel with
the left, as in the latter case the cartridges may drop out. This rule
applies also to the hand ejecting revolvers. See that the snap, or other
fastening, is properly closed. If your shot goes wide of the bull, be
sure, before you alter your aim for the next shot, whether it is not your
"squeeze-off" which is wrong.
A practised shot can correct the shooting of his pistol by "aiming-off"
enough to rectify any error in sights. But the beginner had better not
attempt this: he will find enough to do in trying to hold straight under
the bull.
Do not mind if your score does not "_count_" much; those who do not
understand shooting judge the goodness of a score by how much it counts,
or by how many shots are in or near the bull's-eye. In reality, it is the
_group_ which constitutes a good score. One score may consist of the
highest possible,--forty-two points (all six shots bull's-eyes),--and
another may only count twelve points; and yet the latter may be far the
better "shoot."
I will explain: In the first case, the shots may be "all round" the bull,
"nicking" the edges; they would require, therefore, a circle of more than
four inches (on the target you are at present shooting at) to cover them.
The other score may consist of all six bullet-holes cutting into each
other at an extreme edge of the target, but making a group which could be
covered with a postage-stamp. The first "shoot" is a wild, bad score for
ten yards' range at a four-inch bull, although it counts the highest
possible in conventional scoring. The other is a magnificent shoot, that
any one might be proud of; the fact of its being up in the corner merely
showing that the sights were wrong, not the shooter's "holding." A few
touches of the file, or knocking sideways the hind sight, will put this
error right. Never mind, therefore, about scoring many points; merely
shoot for _group_. You will gradually find your groups getting smaller and
smaller as you improve; it is then merely a matter of filing to get good
scoring.
As your four-inch bull's-eye is too large for real shooting at ten yards,
you must remember that the sighting of the pistol should put the bullets
_one inch only into_ this size bull at "VI o'clock," not into the middle
of it. The reason is that, practically, the trajectory of a pistol is the
same at twenty as at ten yards; and as the English regulation bull at
twenty yards is two inches, you want the twenty-yards sighted pistol to
put the shots into the centre of the two-inch bull when you aim at the
bottom edge. In other words, you want it to shoot an inch higher than your
aim at that distance. Therefore, if with your four-inch bull, aiming at
the bottom edge, you go into the bull one inch up, it means a central
bull's-eye shot on a two-inch bull. The reason I recommend aiming at the
bottom of the bull's-eye instead of at the middle of it is that if you try
to put a black bead in the middle of a black bull's-eye, you cannot see
either properly; if you whiten the bead of the fore sight, then you
cannot see it clearly against the white of the target in "coming up" to a
bull. Nobody can hold _absolutely_ steady on the "bull" for more than a
fraction of a second; you have to "come up" from below and "squeeze off"
as you get your sights aligned.
It is best to have your cleaning appliances on the table, or otherwise
handy, when shooting, and every now and again to have a look through the
barrel and a wipe-out; you might otherwise be inclined to attribute to bad
shooting what may be caused by leading or hard fouling in the barrel. I
have a little cupboard under my table with a lock and key, in which I keep
my cleaning apparatus, cartridges, etc. (but _not_ the pistol), to save
the trouble of carrying them to the range.
Always clean a pistol as soon after shooting as possible, and clean very
thoroughly.
For real work, I prefer a pistol when it is half worn out, as everything
then works smoothly and there is less danger of jambing. Rust in the
rifling may entirely spoil accuracy, as, if you work it off, the bore gets
enlarged and the bullets "strip." I never like to compete with a perfectly
new pistol; all pistols have their peculiarities, and it is necessary to
get used to one, to "break it in," before trusting it to obey one's
slightest hint.
It is sometimes useful to be able to shoot with the left hand; as, for
instance, if the right hand is disabled, the right arm held, etc., and for
an officer with a sword in his right hand. If the novice has resolution
enough to divide his practising, _from the beginning_, between both hands,
he will be able to shoot nearly as well with his "left" hand as with his
right. I have put quotation marks round "left" as I mean by this the hand
not usually employed; a left-handed man's right hand being in this sense
his "left."
I have also noticed that a left-handed man can shoot more evenly with both
hands; that is to say, he is not much better or worse with either hand,
not being so helpless with his right hand as a normally handed man is with
his left. In all the directions for shooting, for left-handed work merely
change "right leg" to "left leg"; "right arm" to "left arm," etc.