The shooter pays for the pleasure of ruining his eyesight and ears, pays for the target, pays for the cartridges, pays for the hire of a dirty, greasy, worn out old revolver.
However good a score he makes he receives no prize or encouragement.
No wonder, after one such visit, the public gives the place a wide berth.
The Gastinne-Renette Pistol Gallery at 39, Avenue d’Antin, Paris, is constructed and run as a pistol gallery should be.
The first essential is to have it in a building well-lighted by daylight and airy, and where the neighbours will not object to the sound of firing.
The ideal range is, as at Gastinne-Renette’s, with the firing point covered and the range itself open to the air, but this is only possible under exceptional circumstances, and where gallery ammunition only is fired.
I am strongly of the opinion that unless gallery ammunition is used exclusively, an indoor or semi-indoor range is inadmissible, otherwise the shooting must, of necessity, be done in the country and in the open, with all its attendant inconveniences.
If the range is in an entirely closed gallery it should have plenty of top light (not artificial light), like a sculptor’s studio, or be situated and lighted on the top floor of the house, like a photographer’s studio.
Or it may be a long shed with windows down both sides.
A riding school or a gymnasium having plenty of daylight might do.