RUNNING SHOTS
The pistol being meant for use at close range at objects one sees only for
a moment, or which are in rapid motion, I do not advise getting too much
into the habit of taking long, deliberate aim at stationary targets.
When you can handle the pistol with safety to others and yourself, it is
better to begin to learn shooting rapidly and at moving objects.
I think it is well to begin to shoot at moving objects at first, instead
of rapid shooting. You can begin at slowly moving objects, which does not
hurry and flustrate you as shooting against time may do.
Above all do not attempt to shoot as many people tell you to.
The greatest bar to shooting at moving objects with the rifle or pistol is
the way most men shoot at them.
What they do is to aim at a spot and shoot when the object arrives there.
Shotgun men do not make this mistake, but men used only to lying on their
faces like a squashed frog in rifle shooting invariably do.
Wherever you go to a rifle meeting where there is a competition at a
moving target, “Running Deer,” “Running Man” or “Gliding Man,” etc., it is
always the same.
A few men shoot as they ought to, and win all the prizes. The bulk of the
competitors lie on their faces, as they were taught to do at stationary
targets, take a deliberate aim at a spot on the background, and wait till
the target gets opposite their aim.
Then--boom--the dust flies up where the target _was_ a moment before, but
it is now--elsewhere.
It is as if you tried to catch a fly by putting a finger on him when he is
on the table-cloth. You will put it where he _was_, not where he _is_.
The correct principle (the one with which I won the Rifle Running-Deer
World’s Championship at the Olympic Games in 1908) is to treat the rifle
or pistol exactly as if it were a shotgun.
Assuming you are not familiar with shotgun shooting, get a man who is a
good shot with the shotgun to coach you, when practising with the pistol
at moving objects.
If you are a shotgun man you do not need to be told what follows.
At a stationary target, however rapidly you are shooting, you try to hit
_that object_.
In shooting at moving targets you try to make two moving objects (the
target and the bullet) meet.
The target is moving. The bullet also takes time to get where the target
will be. You have to get the bullet to arrive simultaneously with the
target at the same spot.
If you aim at the object, the bullet will arrive at the spot after the
object has gone further on.
To give an illustration:
An illustrated paper showed an engraving of a man on a motor bicycle going
at fifty miles an hour, at six hundred yards’ distance.
There was a cross made on the man’s chest which, it was explained, was the
spot to aim at in order to hit him.
If the rifle were correctly aimed for this cross, a man could shoot
millions of shots and never hit the motor-cyclist.
The bullets would reach the spot where the motorist was a moment before,
but he would be yards further on when the bullet arrived.
Now the way to overcome this missing behind is to “swing” and “time.”
These are shotgun men’s terms, never used or understood by pistol or rifle
shots, and this is the reason so few riflemen can hit moving targets, and
chase them with the bayonets instead.
Suppose you have a shotgun in your hands and a pheasant comes flying
across you. The thing is to hit him in the neck with the centre of the
charge so as to make a clean kill without a flutter in midair--“neck him,”
as we call it.
Most men try to shoot without moving their position and so hamper and
cramp themselves unnecessarily by having to twist the body if the bird
is passing them at an awkward angle.
Turn like a soldier does in “right about face” to either side, so that the
bird gives you the easiest crossing shot. Whilst doing so, follow an
imaginary point in front of his head with your eyes, the distance in front
varying with the bird’s speed and distance from you. Whilst doing so bring
up your gun (_not_ looking at the gun), the gun swinging as your body
swings in the direction the bird is travelling. As the gun comes to your
shoulder press the trigger.
If you look at the bird, you will shoot _at_ the bird, and consequently
shoot behind where he was at the moment the trigger was pulled. If the
bird was forty yards off you will have missed clean behind him.
If nearer, owing to the shot spreading over a thirty-inch circle, you may
have hit him far back in the body, what is called “tailored him,” and he
will go off and die a lingering death.
If you shoot forward enough, you will either kill him clean or miss him
clean (a miss in front).
_That_ is the great thing. If it _must_ be a miss let it be a clean miss,
_in front_. Not shooting far enough forward is the chief cruelty in
shooting--wounded animals going off to die in agony.
Always remember this when shooting at animals and birds. The forward end
is the vital end; hitting it causes sudden, painless death, so _swing far
enough forward_.
To hit bird after bird, animal after animal, too far back, as one sees
some men do, to an accompaniment of screams of hares and rabbits, and
fluttering birds, is disgusting.
If you shoot well forward, none of this happens. You may not have so much
game down, but each one of them drops stone dead without a sound. There is
no calling out, “Bring a dog, I have a ‘runner.’”
I think it would be as well, before trying moving shots with a pistol, to
do a little shotgun shooting at clay pigeons, so as to get into the idea
of swing and timing, if you are not a shotgun shot already.
When you can swing your gun to an imaginary spot, in front of a moving
object and press the trigger at the moment the sights are aligned, without
stopping your swing, you can shoot the pistol with success at moving
objects, provided you treat it exactly as if you were using a shotgun.
Have a moderately large object which the bullet will either break or leave
a visible hole through, arranged to pass you at a slow speed.
It can either be dragged by a long string, run on a trolley (the trolley
shielded behind a bank so that a bullet could not strike it) or some other
slowly moving target.
A swinging object is of no use. It makes a difficult curve to follow, for
the beginner, and its passage lasts too short a time.
A swinging object also makes the shooter try the objectionable method of
waiting and aiming at the spot the object swings to, which I want to
avoid.
If your target travels slowly enough, and is large enough, and at only
some twelve yards’ distance, there will be no necessity to aim in front of
it. Its forward edge is far enough.
Fix your eyes on the front part of the target. As it traverses bring your
pistol up without looking at the pistol, as it comes level with your eye
and the sights get aligned. Keep on swinging your body and pistol and
press the trigger, while still swinging.