The following shots I recommend to amateurs as safe. Beginning with the easiest, we have:
Six stationary balls in a row or else the French rubber balloons. (The balls are cast from a mixture of resin and whiting; they are very brittle and break at a graze.) Take them as quickly as you can be sure of them. With practice, you can “snap” the six off in about four seconds.
Next extract the used cartridges, and have them put in a row on the edge of the board, standing them on their bases. Hit them in quick succession. This requires a little more care, as they are small; but their height prevents your being likely to miss vertically, and you have merely to pay attention to keeping your horizontal aim correct. Be sure not to shoot too low; for if you do, and hit the plank, you will jar all of them off it.
This can be varied, if you are a really good shot, by placing the spent cartridges on their sides with the cap end towards yourself; but it requires good shooting.
Shooting at an object with a wine glass on each side without breaking the glasses is a trick in which the difficulty varies according to how close the glasses are.
Put up a piece of paper with a black pencil line ruled vertically on it; hit this line. This requires care not to “pull off” to one side.
A similar line horizontal. This is more difficult, as the elevation must be absolutely correct if you want to hit the line.
Hit a swinging ball. Take the shot on a turn; do not follow, but aim at an imaginary spot just inside of where the ball is at one end of its swing, aiming at “IX o’clock,” as the ball is momentarily stationary at its farthest swing to the right, or vice versa.
Put six balls in a row; hit one with the revolver in the right hand, a second with the revolver in the left; a third and fourth with the revolver upside down, pulling the trigger with the little finger and using alternate hands. The remaining two shots to be made with the revolver held half canted to the right, and then half canted to the left. After a little practice, none of these positions are difficult.
The upside-down shot, as soon as you get used to aiming at the top edge of the ball instead of the bottom, is a very steady, easy position. For the two side ones, you aim at “IX” and at “III o’clock,” respectively.