Now stand in this position, watching the target go up and down, and counting all the while, “one, two, three,” etc., to yourself, till you get the rhythm of the thing. Keep your eyes all the time fixed on the bull’s-eye when it is vertical to you; do not follow it down with your eyes, but keep a mental picture of it, while it is away, on the background. You will gradually be able to know exactly where it will be, and when it will be there, and you will then be able to aim at the imaginary spot; so that when the target appears the sights will not have to be shifted to the bull’s-eye, but the bull’s-eye will come to the sights.
Now, cock the pistol, of course using only your right thumb, and not shifting your left hand, body, or pistol in the slightest.
(If you cannot do this neatly, cock the pistol first, and then “set” yourself at the ledge.)
Now, at the word “one,” slowly (i. e., without hurry or jerk) bring your arm up, quite straight, till the revolver is level with your eye, and you are looking through the sights.
If you have been following the above directions carefully, you will find you are aiming at the bottom edge of the bull’s-eye, without having had to shift your hand or to align the sights; the sights and also the target have, in fact, “come up” to your eye, not your eye to them. The speed with which you raise your arm should bring the sights touching the bottom edge of the “bull” at the word “two”; but it is better, at first, to be slower: as long as you get the sights touching the “bull” before it disappears, it will do—for the present. At the word “six,” lower the pistol to the table, but keep your eyes on the imaginary spot at which the “bull” disappeared. Keep the pistol down while you count six, and then raise it as before. After a few minutes of this drill, begin to squeeze the trigger slightly while the pistol is resting against the ledge. With practice you will be able to regulate the squeeze so that it will require only half a pound more pressure to fire the pistol. Then as you lift the pistol, gradually tighten the squeeze, and keep gradually tightening it, never diminishing the pressure, but not increasing it if your aim is getting wrong, and beginning to increase it again as you correct your aim. If you are increasing the squeeze properly, you will find, just as your aim is perfect, and a fraction of time before the word “six,” the hammer will have fallen and you will not have jerked or moved off your aim. With an automatic pistol there is no need to cock it after the first shot, but with a revolver the instant the hammer has fallen, cock quietly with your right thumb, and lower your pistol to the table as before. In all cocking, I mean it to be understood that it must be done with one movement of the right thumb, the finger well clear of the trigger so as not to break or wear the sear-notch, and the left arm, left hand, and body not moved in any way, as already illustrated. After you have done this a few times, and have confidence, you may load several chambers of the revolver, having exploded, or empty, cartridges in the other chambers, so as not to injure the nose of the hammer or the mainspring. The cartridges, loaded and unloaded, should be put in in irregular order, and the barrel spun round, so that you do not know when you have a loaded one to fire.
Now, go through the same drill as before; most likely, if the first cartridge is an empty one, you will be surprised to find you jerked it off instead of squeezing, owing to fear of the recoil; but if this is so, expecting your next shot to be also an empty cartridge, you will give a nice, smooth, gradual “let-off,” with the result that you will get a “bull,” or close to it. The following shot, in consequence of your being too eager, will almost certainly be a very wild one, most likely below the target. This is caused by jerking the trigger, which results in bobbing the muzzle down. It is curious that, contrary to the usual idea that in firing quickly with a pistol one is prone to “shoot over,” the exact reverse is the case, and that snatching at the trigger generally gives a low left shot. I have my pistols for rapid-firing competitions sighted to shoot higher than the others, to counteract this.
After a little of this sort of practice, you can get to loading all the chambers of a revolver. Now the great thing is “time.” Time and shoot like a machine. At Bisley one sees men fire one shot directly the target appears; the next too late—after the target has begun to go down; and whenever a shot goes wide, they dance about, stamp, or swear, and shift their position constantly, half raise the pistol and lower it again, and more antics follow in the same fashion. A man who shoots in this style may as well go home, for all the prizes he will win. I never trouble to look at his target; seeing his “form” tells me what his target must look like.
By your constant practice with the metronome, you ought to get the “time” so impressed on your mind that you could work the target at the proper intervals without any metronome to indicate the time. Your hand “comes up” simultaneously with the target; you fire just before it disappears (some of my highest possibles were made with the target just on the “wobble” of disappearing as I fired each shot); every instant must be utilized for the aim, and there must be no hurry or flurry. In fact, you become a “workman.”
Do not get into the trick of “coming up” too soon before the target appears. There is nothing to be gained by it, and you might be disqualified. If a shot goes wrong or there is a misfire (you are allowed another shot for a misfire), keep on just as though nothing had happened; pay no attention to the number of shots you have fired in the score, or how many more you have to “go.” I have often started to “come up” again for a shot, not knowing that my sixth had already “gone,” so mechanical had my shooting become.
In practice, never fire if you feel you are “off” the “bull”; better “come down” with the target, without shooting, and fire the next time the target “comes up.” In this way you will perhaps “come up” ten times for your six shots; but you will have good shots for those that you have fired, and will be encouraged much more and get better practice than by firing a lot of wild shots, which as you fired, you knew were badly aimed.