The author having criticised the article in _Bailey’s Magazine_ in the
above remarks, was nevertheless himself responsible for it all, except
the voting, so that his criticism is obviously intended in good part,
and is only to indicate what a very limited class of shooting comes
under review in an article of the kind. There have been wonderful shots
who cannot be compared. For instance, good snipe shots, who saw Mr. Hugh
Owen shoot snipe in Pembrokeshire thirty-five years ago, told the author
that he not only beat them, but out-classed them, as well as everyone
else he ever met. What surprised was the great distances he killed these
birds consecutively with No. 5 shot—the size always used by Lord
Walsingham.
Since that article was written the author has often been told that Lord
de Grey is the only shooter who is as good as his reputation. No doubt
he is as good, for many of those who voted put him “in a class by
himself,” and more particularly when the shooting was extra difficult,
as in a strong wind and when birds were far out. Then his hammer ejector
choke bores, which are handed to him at full cock, and always loaded
with 42 grains of Schultze powder and 1–1/16 of No. 5, have a way of
finding the right place at a greater rate than any others. It has been
said of him that you can never tell by the interval when he changes his
guns. The two most discussed incidents in his shooting have been when he
accomplished five grouse coming together, by changing guns after he had
shot one barrel, and then had time to get two more of the five in front
of him and two behind. On another occasion, in walking through covert a
cry of “mark” brought round Lords de Grey and Walsingham, when, amongst
the trees, they accounted for four partridges each, or the whole covey
of eight birds. Lord de Grey is a very deliberate shot when he has time
to be so, and he has been seen to swing his gun some distance without
succeeding in getting on his game, and in consequence to refrain from
shooting. Therefore no question can arise about the fact that he aligns,
at least when there is time. Lord Walsingham wrote some years ago to
describe to a newspaper his method of killing wood pigeons, which,
amongst other evolutions, had been occasionally chased by a falcon. He
said: “The way in which a certain measure of accuracy, although by no
means a satisfactory measure to myself, was attained in shooting at
these wood pigeons could scarcely be better described than in the words
of your correspondent. He writes: ‘I myself race the birds, as it were,
in my mind without bringing up the gun; I then swing it and fire. This
swing or pitch is all done in one motion’! So far I go with him
entirely, but when he adds, ‘and the gun is not stopped even after the
trigger is pulled,’ I differ from him in practice. In my case the gun is
stopped at the instant of pulling the trigger, having been swung to as
nearly as possible to the exact spot the bird may be expected to reach
by the time the charge can get there to intercept it.” Lord Walsingham
was using 3¼ drams of Hall’s Field B powder and 1⅛ oz. of No. 5 shot
from a cylinder gun.
The number of cartridges used for the 1070 grouse in the day in 1888 was
1500. As a feat of endurance and woodcraft this is hardly likely ever to
be surpassed, especially with black powder. Only a shooter who never
suffered from gun headache could have done it. But even when that is
said, the keeping the birds on a 2200 acre moor for 20 drives is the
point of the story. When the late Sir F. Milbank killed his 728 birds,
he reduced his shot to ⅞ of an ounce in order to get penetration, and
declared that he would still further reduce to ¾ of an ounce for the
sake of still more penetration.
Mr. F. E. R. Fryer has been observed to have three pheasants dead in the
air at once, and yet in another page he is described as a deliberate
shot. It has also been shown upon another page that it takes just ⅓ of a
second to bring the backward movement in recoil to rest. Probably the
reaction of the shoulder takes as long after recoil, so that if the
tallest first bird fell from 40 yards high, and took, by the action of
gravity, 2¾ seconds to reach the ground, when quite dead, we may examine
the time thus:—
Recoil and reaction after first kill ⅔ seconds
Fresh aim and let off ¾ seconds
Recoil and its reaction after second kill ⅔ seconds
Fresh aim and let off ¾ seconds
——
Total 2.83 or about 2¾ seconds
Three-quarters of a second seems to be ample time for getting aim and
letting off. Partridges and pheasants when there is no wind travel about
60 feet a second, and Mr. Fryer has also been observed to take quadruple
toll out of a covey; if we may assume this done within 40 yards in front
and 40 behind, we have 4 birds killed in 4 seconds.