FIRST LESSONS
As the automatic pistol is a very dangerous one for a novice to handle, it
is best for the beginner to first thoroughly master a single-shot pistol.
There are several styles of single-shot pistols (see Plates 2, 9, 10, and
17). I will not give a list and description of all makes, like a
gunmaker’s catalogue. I will merely describe a few of the typical ones.
Very many are not only obsolete but of no use, and I do not intend to
describe any pistol or ammunition merely to condemn it.
All that I describe have some merit, and most of them have great merit.
Still if there is any ammunition or pistol left out, you must not at once
jump to the conclusion that I consider it bad or dangerous; it may be that
it was omitted through an oversight.
It is best to have a pistol light in weight and shooting as small a charge
as possible, so that there may be no great weight to hold up and no
flinching from the noise or recoil.
[Illustration: PLATE 2. BREECH-LOADING PISTOLS
(By Gastinne-Renette)]
With a very small charge it is possible to use a very light pistol, and
though this is advisable for a beginner still, weight in a pistol, even if
it shoots only a very small charge, is an advantage for accurate holding.
The trigger-pull must not be lighter than 2½ pounds for safety (especially
for a beginner) and if the pistol weighs less than 2½ pounds, it is very
difficult to press the trigger without disturbing the aim.
Lightness in weight of the pistol is also often obtained by shortness of
barrel, and to shoot a pistol with only a two or three inch barrel is the
supreme test of skill in pistol shooting and a useless handicap to a
learner.
At one time I thought it impossible for good shooting to be had out of a
two inch barrel, but a friend and I tested this at twenty-five metres, and
we both, after a few trials, got strings of shots on the chest of a
life-sized figure of a man target.
But it requires a man who has shot for many years to be able to do this;
even an average shot goes very wide and wild in his shooting with such a
short barrel.
These very short barrels are therefore useless for the general public for
self-protection, except when the pistol actually touches the opponent.
Even the short police pistol requires a lot of learning. Most people
imagine it is merely necessary to buy a little pistol “which I can put in
my waistcoat pocket,” to become burglar proof.
[Illustration: PLATE 3.
Author’s winning score for Gastinne-Renette Competition, April 7, 1910.]
This sort of thing is worse than useless. If you leave a man alone he will
most likely leave you alone, but if you annoy him by banging at him, he
may lose his temper and hurt you.
A reasonably long barrel is therefore necessary for a beginner, and a
reasonably heavy weight.
The cartridges may have light loads. Unfortunately the easiest pistol of
all, to shoot, is now impossible to be had except from a dealer in
second-hand firearms. I mean the “Flobert” duelling pistol, formerly made
in France and Belgium, shooting bulleted caps of about .2 calibre.
The duelling pistol, in all its calibres, is the best balanced and easiest
to shoot of all pistols (see Plates 2 and 5).
The stock is at just the right curve and angle, is large enough for a big
hand, and yet does not feel clumsy in a small hand.
By taking the grip of the hand higher or lower, the same effect is
produced as in having a gunstock straighter or more bent; one can,
therefore, by altering the grip of the hand, find a place to hold which
makes the pistol come with the sights aligned on raising it, just as a
well-fitting gun “comes up.”
Next this pistol balances perfectly. The length of the barrel does not
make it top heavy, as the barrel is fluted, to lighten it forward, and the
stock weighted.
Most pistols, automatics especially, are muzzle heavy. There is really no
pistol except the duelling pistol which balances properly, and the
automatic will have to be altered in this respect before it can become the
ideal weapon for rapid shooting.
The ideal pistol is the Gastinne-Renette duelling pistol, which is of .44
calibre muzzle loader or shoots a centre fire cartridge, with French
“Poudre J” and a round bullet (see Plates 2 and 9).
This is the most accurate pistol in the world and a number of men have
made a score of 12 shots in a bull’s-eye the size of a sixpence, in
succession at 16 metres (17 yards 1 foot).
This pistol has very little recoil. If the beginner cannot get a “bulleted
cap” duelling pistol the ordinary .44 gallery ammunition duelling pistol
will do almost as well.
Now arises the question of expense, as these pistols are expensive.
If economy is necessary, then the only way is to get one of the American
single-shot pistols and add wood to the back of the stock, so that the
grip comes further back and the trigger is thereby further from the hand
and allows the trigger finger to be extended.
Then either cut down the barrel to lighten the pistol forward, or have
flutes made in the barrel to take weight of the metal off, and put lead in
the stock.
I have described the ideal way of learning to shoot a pistol but of course
any single-shot pistol which does not have too heavy a recoil will do to
learn with, so as to become a fair shot.
With the long reach to the trigger of the French duelling pistols the
trigger finger can be held outside and along the trigger guard (as with a
shotgun when walking up birds). With the trigger so far back, as it is in
American single-shot pistols, it is difficult to introduce the finger into
the trigger guard whilst holding the pistol with one hand, and one gets
into the dangerous habit of keeping the finger inside the trigger guard.
I will not describe these various single-shot pistols, as (in my own case)
I find shooting them does not do me any good, but teaches a cramped style.
The pistol which is no longer made, but can perhaps be picked up, is a
regulation French duelling pistol, full size, which shoots, instead of the
.44 duelling charge, a bulleted cap of .2 calibre, with fulminate only,
and a round bullet, and is exploded by a cross bar on the hammer which has
a flat striking surface. This flat bar strikes across the whole face of
the cap, indents itself into the cap, and having an undercut surface
extracts the empty cap after it is fired, as the pistol is cocked.
The pistol has no recoil and hardly more noise than an air gun.
The manufacture would be resumed if there were enough demand for such
pistols, and in my opinion they ought to be made as they are infinitely
preferable to modern .22 calibre pistols.
[Illustration: COLT AUTOMATIC PISTOL, POCKET MODEL, CALIBRE .32]