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.