I therefore give this warning; do not follow the advice of any but an acknowledged expert in pistol shooting, as books by hack writers, made up of extracts from other writers, and illustrations from gunmakers’ catalogues, are not to be taken seriously.
Moreover, the revolver is now obsolete, and there is no use learning to shoot it.
My object in writing this book is to give instruction in the modern substitute for the revolver. That is to say, the automatic pistol, and incidentally, to instruct in the single shot or duelling pistol.
For those who wish to study revolver shooting, I would refer them to my book The Art of Revolver Shooting.
The present work might be called volume ii. of The Art of Revolver Shooting, as it instructs in the form of pistol shooting which has now taken the place of revolver shooting.
Though the revolver is now obsolete, my Art of Revolver Shooting is of interest, as giving details of out-of-date firearms, and the best-on-record scores made with them.
These records will be of the greatest importance for future generations.
There are now no records extant of scores made with the long bow, the cross-bow, and the various stone-hurling slings and balistæ. All concerning them is legendary.
If we depended only on newspaper articles for what was possible in revolver shooting, we should get legends similar to those of obsolete arms.
I was credited with making a World’s Record with a revolver at five hundred yards by a reporter when it should have been fifty yards. He merely added a nought to the figures.