PRACTICAL PISTOL SHOOTING
In England, rifle and pistol shooting are conducted on lines different to
Continental usage, owing to the entirely different point of view adopted.
In England big game has been practically exterminated. There are a few
fallow deer left in parks, and a few red deer are wild in Devonshire and
Somersetshire, and Scotland, but these deer are beyond the means of any
but rich men to shoot, and the deer in Devon and Somerset are reserved for
hunting with hounds.
There are a few roe deer in Scotland, but these are treated as vermin and
killed off with shotguns.
Rooks and rabbits are shot with miniature rifles but the rooks are shot
when young and unable to fly, sitting on the branches of the trees near
their nests, and the rabbits also when sitting outside their holes.
In England the general public never shoot rifles in sport, except those
who shoot sitting shots at rooks and rabbits.
The idea has therefore arisen that the rifle and pistol are not weapons
to use in sport but merely implements at the game of bull’s-eye shooting,
and that the shotgun is the sporting firearm.
The idea is that a rifle or pistol can be used only at a stationary
object.
When the above is realized, it is very easy to understand why in England
all rifle and pistol clubs shoot only at stationary bull’s-eye targets at
known distances.
The reason they adopted the black front sight probably arose because it is
easier to make a small black spot in the middle of a white sheet of paper
than to paint the whole sheet black and leave out a white bull’s-eye.
It was merely a matter of convenience in target-making.
Once however a black bull’s-eye on white paper was decided on; the colour
of the front sight _had_ to be black.
To shoot at a minute object, aim must be at the bottom edge of it “at six
o’clock” (so called from the analogy of the face of a watch).
If the aim is taken in the middle of a small bull’s-eye, the front sight
covers most of it and makes seeing the bull’s-eye difficult.
In order to see the front sight best on a white target below a black
bull’s-eye, the front sight must be black; black against white being the
strongest contrast. A white front sight on a white target would be lost.
As a result, all except big game rifles and English pistols are made with
black front sights.
Shooters of big game abroad found a white front sight best, and hunting
rifles are now made in England with silver or ivory front sights, but no
English pistol has any but a black front sight.
Military rifles of every nation have this conventional black front sight.
Professional experts test military rifles but they test them on white
targets with black bull’s-eyes, therefore a black front sight is necessary
for this purpose, and as the experts are merely expert target shots and
not big game shots, this black front sight is retained.
It being customary not to look on a rifle or pistol as of any use except
to hit a stationary target, all English rifle and pistol clubs have been
formed on this supposition.
At the English National Rifle Association Meetings at Wimbledon and later
at Bisley, the “Running Deer” target has been in use from the beginning,
but only a very few of us shoot at it.
The bulk of rifle shots have always fought most desperately against any
but stationary targets. This is natural. A man who has worked hard all his
life to become a “crack shot” at a stationary target is not going to risk
his reputation by being beaten by a school boy at a moving target.
At the revolver ranges, moving, disappearing, and rapid-firing
competitions were instituted but had very little support; a few men shot,
but half a dozen men do not constitute a big enough crowd to warrant the
keeping up of competitions which the bulk of shooters do not want.
On the Continent, shooting under practical conditions has always marked
the shooting at rifle and pistol clubs.
Numerous Continental sportsmen, even in humble circumstances, are able to
shoot bears, wolves, lynx, reindeer, elk, moufflon, chamois, wild boar,
etc., and above all _roe deer_.
It is the roebuck who trains men to be practical rifle shots on the
Continent.
In Scotland the roe is classed as vermin and exterminated with shotguns.
The roebuck is, to the middle class Continental sportsman, his highest
sport in rifle shooting.
Few men in England, even if they have the means, care for deer-stalking as
they know nothing of rifle shooting. They prefer small game shooting with
the shotgun which they are more skilful with.
On the Continent the roe is strictly preserved and no does or fawns are
ever allowed to be killed.
The roebuck must be shot only with a rifle and not during the close
season.
There are societies which have yearly exhibitions of roebuck heads, shot
by their members during the current year, and gold, silver, and bronze
medals given for the best heads.
A good roe-head in a public place draws crowds who discuss its good and
bad points.
I doubt if in England one person in a thousand would know what species of
deer they belonged to, but all would know the difference between a
tennis, cricket, or foot ball.
Rifle clubs are in existence all over the Continent to enable members to
practice for game shooting.
The club members are sportsmen used to game shooting with the rifle, not
men who have never fired a rifle except at a target or ever expect to
shoot otherwise, and who therefore take no interest in rifle shooting
except in seeing who can make the closest group of shots on a stationary
target and to win spoons and cups.
The makers of targets on the Continent employ good animal painters to make
the shooting as like the real thing as possible.
I know of a range where you climb steep rocks amongst bracken, and as you
get near the top, you see a model of a chamois, life-size and colour above
you, half hidden in foliage, which you shoot at.
At another range, there are stags, roe deer, wild boar, even hares,
life-size and colour which rush past unexpectedly like clay pigeons in an
English shotgun shooting school.
“Figure” targets in the United States and England are very badly drawn
(the running deer at Wimbledon was an exception, being drawn by Sir Edwin
Landseer).
The “figure” targets one sees in England and in the United States are
drawn by artists of the cubist, futurist, and vorticist schools. Such
drawings, over which the art critics go into ecstasies, are too difficult
to identify and therefore not suitable for quick rifle shooting practice.
The shooter does not know when it is safe to shoot. What he thinks is
meant for a wild boar, or possibly a lynx, is really meant to be the
“portrait of Miss X., the beautiful Musical Comedy Actress,” put up as a
target owing to the mistake of a workman ignorant of art.
It will be noticed that the bull’s-eye and concentric rings for scoring
bear no relation to the object drawn on it. It is possible to miss what
looks like a bottle stopper and score a bull’s-eye, or to hit the bottle
stopper and score a miss.
I have shown a proof of this last paragraph to a friend who says he
understands cubism, and he tells me the target referred to represents a
soldier and is a very fine example by one of the founders of cubism and it
ought to be purchased for the Chantry Bequest, but I am not sure if my
friend is a reliable art critic.
I confess I do not understand art criticism as I am merely a sculptor who
exhibits at the London Royal Academy and Paris.