Gloan on Taking Aim.—The clever author of a neat little book entitled “The Breech-Loaders,” tells us that when the shot leave the gun the powder which propels the pellets has started them with sufficient force to keep them up for a short time against all natural resistances acting upon them, but finally gravitation, which is pulling upon them all the time, begins to tell, and carry them downward from the line upon which they set out.
“The shot have a journey to perform after they leave the gun, and before they reach the bird. It may be a long journey or a short journey, according to the distance of the bird; but still it is a journey, and it takes some time to do it in. While the shot are traveling on their way, the bird is flying on his way. If the bird is flying across the shooter, and the aim is at the bird, naturally, by the time the shot get to the point of aim, the bird has gone on beyond it, and is untouched by the shot. And if the distance is great, gravitation has affected the shot and pulled them down below the point of aim. Possibly, too, the wind is strong, and has blown them a little to one side. So that, assuming that a sportsman aims steadily and exactly at a cross-flying bird, sixty yards distant, going a mile a minute, the gun making a pattern good enough to kill, what results?
“When the shot arrive at their point of destination they are from eight to ten feet behind the point to which the bird has flown; and they are from ten to twelve inches below the line upon which the bird was flying. If the wind is high they are blown aside, even on the lower line, and the other pellets become harmless if they hit. The bird escapes, as a matter of surprise to the young sportsman, who is confident that he ‘covered it exactly.’
“He did cover it, literally, and exactly, and that was the cause of the miss. If he had aimed the length of a fence rail ahead of the bird and half the length above it, he would probably have brought it down. As the shot was, however, the bird was sure to be lost.
“An old shot will shine on range and allowance. His eye will measure distance as though with a tape-line. He will estimate velocity as with a registering instrument. He makes his cheek an index of the wind, and before his gun is at his shoulder he has decided with unfailing skill where the aim must be, and there he plants the load. If the bird does not fall it is the gun’s fault, not his.
“By the binocular vision these difficulties, which are so trying to the novice, are the more readily overcome. The eyes take in the flight of the bird, and convey the rate of speed at which it flies. The full distance of the whole perspective of the landscape is made palpable to the sense, and the finger responds to the call, which is made all the more quickly and all the more truly because of the certainty which the eyes impart.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ON USING THE PISTOL.
Natural Talent.—The number of persons who are really good shots with the pistol is smaller than one would be apt to suppose after considering how many weapons of this kind are in every-day use. They are almost as common as pocket-knives, and some of them are capable of shooting reasonably well at considerable length of range, and yet not an average of one man in five hundred, who owns a pistol, could be found, perhaps, who could put fifty per cent. of his bullets through a hat set up for a target ten paces away. The fact is, the pistol, while capable enough, if well made, is the most difficult of all our fire-arms to manage, so far as relates to good performances. There are men who can take a good revolver and shoot a chicken’s head off every time, ten or fifteen paces, but of such men there are not very many. And none of them have ever communicated how they happened to become such fine shots with the pistol. In some cases they had practiced a good deal, but not more than had hundreds who were but comparatively poor performers. To come squarely down to the point at once, the peculiarity which made them good shots with the pistol was a “born-gift,” as in the case of the best shots with the shot gun. Any man who practices with the pistol, in accordance with the established rules governing its use for best results, may soon become a fair shot, but it calls for more than mere practice to make him an excellent shot.
Taking Aim.—The best shots do not take aim by sighting along the barrel of the pistol, holding it out at arm’s length after the manner of the wooden figure standing in front of the city shooting-gallery. They do not close one eye and turn sideways to the object of aim like the ideal duelist, but they hold out the pistol, look at the object (not the pistol), with both eyes open, and blaze away, usually putting the bullet about where they want it to go. There is really no aim-taking in the case, any more than there is in the case of a boy playing at marbles. Indeed, shooting a pistol to the best advantage is very much on the same principle as shooting a marble. The boy takes the marble properly between his thumb and first finger, holds out his hand in the direction of the marble to be shot at, but considerably below his line of vision, looks at the object-marble with both eyes open and “flips” in obedience to the promptings of a kind of unconscious calculation as to distance, force at command, effect of gravitation, and so on. The marble “flipped” curves out on its way, and, if shot from the hand of a skillful player, strikes its mark with astonishing certainty. Just so with the bullet sent from the pistol; under the management of a skillful performer it goes in obedience to an unconscious calculation, and not in obedience to the squinting of one eye along the barrel. Sight-taking won’t do in either case; the good marble player would be a hopeless failure if he held up his arm to his line of vision and took sight every time he went to “shoot”—the pistol-shooter who performs upon the same plan is invariably a marksman of sterling uncertainty, to say the least.