Some pistols for the British market often have specially long, big handles, or stocks, because of the habit (or is it the Regulation Position?) of holding the stock low down with the little finger beneath, prevalent in England. Now this sort of position makes the recoil come at an angle to the wrist, throws the barrel up at the recoil, spoiling the accuracy, and puts more strain on the wrist than is necessary. I remember a very strong-wristed man firing one of my heavily charged fifty-yards revolvers and spraining his wrist at the first shot, owing to holding it in this way; whilst I have fired hundreds of rapid-firing shots straight on end with it without hurting myself. I take the recoil just as a man catches a hard-thrown ball, letting arm, hand, and wrist fly up together.
The pistol barrel, hand, and arm should all be nearly in one line, the thumb along the left side, so as to prevent jerking to the left in pressing the trigger (in the same way as the left arm is fully extended in shooting with the shotgun), and not crooked, as all beginners insist on holding it.
You must be constantly on the watch that you do not crook your thumb, until the extended position becomes second nature to you. Some makes of pistols, however, have the extractor lever in a position which renders this grip with extended thumb impossible.
For the benefit of beginners who are not target rifle-shots, the following explanation may be necessary: The target, for the convenience of locating shot-holes, is supposed to represent the face of a clock. The top of the bull’s-eye (which we term “bull” for brevity) is called XII o’clock, as that is, of course, where the numeral XII appears on a clock face, and so on for all the other numerals: half-past four, for instance, is half-way between where the numerals IV and V appear on a clock. I was once shooting in the presence of a foreign naval officer, and when I made a “half-past five” “bull” shot he said, “South-east,” his professional instinct making him liken the target to the face of a compass.
First take a deep breath, and fill your lungs. Now slowly bring your right arm to the horizontal, keeping your eyes fixed on the bottom edge—at “six o’clock”—of the “bull”; whilst you are doing this, put your forefinger inside the trigger-guard, and gradually begin to feel the trigger and steadily increase the pressure on it straight back, not sideways. Whilst you are doing all this, also gradually stiffen all your muscles so that you are braced up, especially about the right shoulder, as though you were walking along the pavement and saw a man coming towards you whom you meant to shoulder out of your path.
You may breathe naturally until the pistol is levelled, then hold your breath; if you cannot get your aim satisfactorily before you feel you want to take a fresh breath, lower the pistol, take a deep breath, and try again. If you have followed these directions carefully, you will find, when the hind sight comes to the level of your eyes (closing your left eye or not, as you find best, without any lowering of the head), the front sight will be seen through the middle of the “U” pointed at the bottom of the bull’s-eye, the top of the front sight just touching it at “six o’clock.” If everything has been done perfectly, at the moment this occurs the pressure on the trigger will have been increased sufficiently to cause the hammer to fall, and, after it has fallen, you will see the top of the front sight still just touching the bull’s-eye at its bottom edge.
If the pistol had been loaded (assuming, of course, that it was an accurate shooting one and properly sighted), you would have had a central bull’s-eye for your shot. Most likely, however, you will find that the pistol came up all of a tremble, and that, as the hammer fell, the front sight was jerked very wide of the “bull” and perhaps even hidden by the hind sight.
Do not be discouraged, but cock and try again. By the way, it is best to use a “dummy” cartridge or an exploded one whilst doing this “snapping” practice, as otherwise the jar may do damage to the plunger and perhaps break the mainspring. There are dummy cartridges, made with a rubber “buffer,” for this practice.
If you still find your hand shaky (and it is not naturally so), it most probably arises from your gripping too hard.
The action of “letting off” should be like squeezing an orange—a squeeze of the whole hand. Start with a light grip when your hand is down, and gradually squeeze as you come up, the trigger-finger squeezing back; and the hammer will fall without the least tremor or without the sights moving off the point they covered during the fall of the hammer. The main thing of all in pistol shooting is to squeeze straight back. Whenever you find yourself shooting badly see if you are not “pulling off to one side”; and in nine cases out of ten you will discover that this was the cause of your bad shooting.