Chapter IV: Part 4

First, if we take a peep at Mr. Griffith’s own celebrated revolving target trials of just twenty years ago, we find that his mean velocities of those trials were _all_ more than 1050 foot-seconds at 20 yards range. They were for the three guns and loads used 1073, 1124, and 1062 foot-seconds. But he has quite truly told us that during these twenty years the velocity has increased 100 feet per second. Consequently, the “standard loading” sets back the clock more than 100 foot-seconds and more than twenty years. That is not all: those beautiful trials exhibited the fact that the last pellets in a load had from 221 to 300 foot-seconds less mean velocity than the first, so that “standard” loading may mean 1050 foot-seconds for the first pellets, and 750 foot-seconds for the last, at 20 yards range. These trials were all conducted with cartridges loaded with 1⅛ oz. of shot. But years before that, when fine grain black powder was used, and gave to 1⅛ oz. of shot much higher velocities than those named above, Sir Fred. Milbank shot his 728 grouse in the day with ⅞ oz., on the ground that the ordinary 1⅛ oz. gave too little penetration—that is, too little velocity.

The only possible arguments left to put forward against increase of velocity are two:—

1st, that greater pressure adds to the necessity of weight of gun.

2nd, that more velocity spoils patterns.

The reply to the first is that the improvement of powders and increased velocity has been attained, as stated, by other means, and without increasing pressures; and, second, if pressures were increased it would not matter to the shooter who uses best metal in his guns, because it is quite easy to build 12 bore shot guns under 5 lb. that are quite as safe as 7 lb. guns; and weight is consequently adjusted by reason of the incidence of recoil, and not by reason of the weakness of steel.

The second proposition is equally groundless, and it is answered by the fact that not one in a hundred men use the fullest choke boring, and if velocity opens out patterns too much, ten shillings spent on a little more choking, by recess at the muzzle, will bring back the pattern in spite of the tendency of the greater velocity to open it out.

The means adopted by the powder-makers to effect the improvements referred to above have been to lighten the charge of powder, or to compress more fixed gas into a smaller solid weight. This statement more particularly applies to the light (33 grains) bulk powders. By “bulk” is meant those powders that fill the space occupied of old by 42 grain nitro powders in the 3 drams measurer meant for black powder.

But this does by no means embrace all the possible improvements. The 26 grains, and concentrated, powders occupy only about half the space of the bulk powder of whatever specific gravity, and consequently the prospect opens before them of making use of their 80 times power of expansion in the barrel, instead of the 40 expansion power of the bulk powders. This is not as great a possible improvement as it sounds, but it is a large one all the same. At present the coned cases used for this class of nitro powder bring it down below its possibilities, because, as these cones stretch under powder-gas pressure, it is similar in effect to the powder occupying more space in the chamber, and negatives a great part of its capacity for double expansions of other powders within the barrel. At present the makers of condensed powders have not been strong enough to get gun chambers generally shortened to suit them, and thus they are condemned to compete handicapped; but if we were starting to design guns afresh, and were not bound by precedent and the necessity of sometimes borrowing cartridges and lending them, gun chambers and cartridges would be shortened to make use of the possible 80, instead of 40, expansions, with an accompanying still further reduction of lost powder-gas momentum, or loss by “blast,” and its automatic accompaniment of more reduction of recoil.

Of course short cartridges in long chambers are not to be thought of from the standpoint of improvement, and in many guns they ball the shot in a most dangerous way. Thicker wadding is more objectionable than coned cases, unless it could be made lighter than the greased felt wad is now, and not only lighter but less compressible, because to compress it is to hinder it from bridging the cone between the mouth of the cartridge and the barrel proper, and it also enlarges the powder chamber in practice.

Some few years ago the cartridge-makers and the gun-makers came to an agreement, that there should be a maximum size for cartridges for each gauge and a minimum size for gun chambers. This was very wise and proper. These sizes are well known to all gun-makers, to whom they are important, but they have no interest for shooters, because the latter have not the instruments to measure either chambers or cartridges, and the usual and very proper practice is to make the seller responsible, and return cartridges that are too big to go in the chambers, or too small, so that they shoot weak, or burst the cases, or both.

Herein lies a great advantage of taking your gun-maker into confidence about cartridges. We cannot, as a rule, give bigger or smaller cases to fit chambers that may have been made, or grown, bigger before or since the agreement was come to; but if chambers are rather large for cartridges, and consequently shooting is somewhat weak, he can suggest a grain or two of additional powder to the usual charge. It is the belief of the author that a gun-maker usually delights in turning his customers out to do the best possible work, and will take any trouble to that end, not only because it is business, but because it gives personal pleasure.

Shot sizes are mentioned under the headings of the game to which they are most fitted; but although a slight advantage can be had by using hard shot, it is so slight as to be scarcely worth attention from the marksman’s point of view, and those who love not the dentist should at least refrain from breaking their own teeth unnecessarily.

Until something better is invented for the purpose of trying guns and cartridges, strawboard racks and Pettitt pads are the only means open to the shooter, and besides, when properly used, are the best means. Both vary in thickness and hardness, the latter according to the weather. But every shooter can arrange for a trial against a gun he knows, and against hand-filled black powder cartridges. Then, if he uses his “trial horse” against the same pads and boards as the other gun, or new cartridges, he will arrive at correct comparative results. This is not only the most effective but the cheapest way. If strawboards are used, the first and last boards can be renewed for each shot. The chances of having a shot pass through an already made shot hole are too remote and unimportant to matter. Then the way to assess penetration is to count the shot that struck the first board or sheet of paper, and the number that pierced the last, arranging the last in such a position that about one-half those pellets that hit the first paper also go through the last. This takes the mean penetration of the load, and was Colonel Hawker’s method. The results will then read something like this: .41, .50, .60, .55 of total shot through, say, 20 sheets of brown paper Pettitt pad.

The true way of testing the energy of the shot is by means of the ballistic pendulum, but although the author has designed a more simple apparatus than the usual device of this sort, it is not yet sufficiently tried to warrant its description.

To the very few who load their own cartridge-cases the author can offer no advice beyond this: the best cases and wadding, and the best powder, meaning the highest priced, are necessary, and not merely luxuries. The amateur loader has no means of testing powders to see if they fluctuate, and he must rely, therefore, on the maker; and that very careful person will take the most trouble over that for which he charges most. The shooter, in fact, is not buying raw material, but personal care and trouble. There is a possibility of a professional loader varying his method to suit fluctuations in strength and rapidity of powder. He can do it by means of the turnover, or by adding to or reducing the charge; but this is outside the range of the amateur’s skill. He would not know what was wanted. Even the best nitro powders do vary, batch for batch, and also by reason of the heat of the weather as well as by that of their storehouse.

The best place to keep cartridges in during the winter is the gun-room with a fire, and in the summer in the gun-room also, if it is dry enough not to require a fire; but the principal safeguard is to keep cartridges and their bags and magazines out of the sun as much as possible. The sun will easily raise the so-called “pressure” by about a ton per square inch in some cartridges. How much this may really be it is difficult to even suggest, but Lieutenant Hardcastle has estimated that “pressures” are not reliable within 30 per cent., and the author would have said by more. Fifty per cent. added is a very different proportion to 50 per cent. of reduction. In one case it is as 2 to 3, and in the other case it is as 2 to 1.

WITH PLENTY OF FREEDOM FOR GOOD LATERAL SWING
]

THE THEORY OF SHOOTING

Many scientific calculations have been made with a view to improving the shooting of sportsmen, or at least of interesting them. Two, which are in theory unassailable, have appeared very often indeed in the unanswerable form of figures and measurements, and nevertheless they are both misleading, and even wrong, in the crude form in which they have been left. One of these is based on the calculation that the shot and the game can only meet provided a certain fixed allowance in front of moving game is given. The calculations are quite correct, but they have no application to sport, for the simple reason that they neglect to calculate the reduction of the theoretical allowance in front, supposed to be necessary, but not all imperative because of the swing of the gun. In other words, the gunner, however expert he may be, does not know exactly where his gun points at the instant the tumbler falls, let alone the instant the shot leaves the barrel. Between the instant of pulling the trigger and the shot leaving the barrel a swinging gun will have moved some unknown distance, and this represents additional unobserved allowance. An inch of this movement at the muzzle of the gun becomes an allowance of 40 inches in as many yards of range. It will be necessary to refer to this unconscious allowance again directly, because it has a bearing upon the second oft-stated proposition.

It is this: mental perceptions in various individuals range from quick to slow, and besides this the muscular action due to mental orders and nerve impulses also range from slow to quick. Both these well-known facts are constantly asserted to necessitate an _added allowance_ in front of game by the slow individual. In practice, however, these slow individuals never admit the yards of allowance that they are supposed to need to allow in front of fast crossing game. It has occurred to the author to question whether the man of slow perception and of slow muscular obedience does need to allow more than the quick individual. Probably it is exactly the reverse; and he has to see less space between the muzzle and the game than the quicker man and than he of what is mistakenly called less personal error.

The “personal error” seems to be in assuming that the slow individual does not subconsciously know his own speed, and compensate for it.

Apparently it is mistaken to place the actions of shooting in this or any other sequence of events. It is said, “You see the game, you aim, your eyes tell the brain your aim is true, your brain orders the muscles to let off the gun.” That is possibly correct for some people, but the author does not believe that any fast crossing game would ever be killed if it were so. His view is that there is the game; your brain now instructs two sets of muscles to move in different directions, one to move the gun and another to pull the trigger, and at the same time informs each how rapidly to act in order that lefthand gun-swing and right index-finger pressure may arrive precisely together. This is what is called hand and eye working together, but it should be hand and finger. The eye certainly may observe whether the two things have been done at the same instant of time, but when they have not there is no time for correction; all the eye can do is to inform the brain that the swing did not catch up before the gun was off, or the reverse, so that the brain may correct the missed timing for the next shot. It is necessary to observe that the finger pressure starts, as does the swing of the gun, before aim is completed, and that if the latter were got before the order to pull were given by the brain, it would be lost by the mere continued swing of the gun before the order could be executed.

What has to be considered, then, is what appears to the brain at the instant of discharge. The quicker the perception of things as they happen, the more space will be observed between the muzzle and the crossing bird as the gun races past the game. The slow perception will not observe that the gun has passed the bird when the explosion occurs, and this clearly accounts for some good shots declaring they never make _any_ allowance for crossing game, but shoot “pretty much at ’em.” Of course they do nothing of the sort; but they tell you what they perceive. They do not observe that in the interval between pulling trigger and the shot leaving the barrel the gun has travelled past the game very considerably, and what they have observed is the relative position of gun and game at the time the trigger gave way. For their class of shooting, therefore, they must look for less daylight between gun and game than the person of quick perception, who sees most of what there is to observe.

The velocity of light is so much greater than the velocity of recoil, that it may be questioned, on that ground, whether this is the right explanation, on the assumption that only recoil would stop the perception of the relative positions of game and gun. But were it so, it is necessary to remember that the velocity of light has no relationship to the velocity of brain perception through the eyes.

But probably recoil has nothing to do with the matter for the man of slow perception, and to him the discharge is done with as soon as the trigger gives way. It appears, then, that the slower brain perception is through the eyes, the less observed allowance a swinging gun will require.

Is it possible to shoot fast crossing game without a swinging gun? For an answer to this, the author has tried to come back from the first shot to meet flying game behind with the second barrel, but has found it impossible to kill. Here the swing is in the opposite direction to the movement of the game, and it invariably carries the shot behind the game. Assuming it to be possible (as it is) to throw up the gun to a point of aim at which game and shot will intercept each other, the gun is mostly, possibly always, given a swing in the direction of the game’s movement by the mere act of presenting. That is to say, the shooter is raising his gun from a position more or less in the direction of the game when he starts the movement, and as the game is not there when the explosion occurs it is obvious that the gun has done some swinging, possibly unknown to the shooter.

Much reliance upon this kind of racing with the game has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. It reduces the necessity for accurate judgment of speed of game to a minimum. That is to say, if the gun races the game, and gets ahead of it unobserved by the shooter, the pace of the gun is set by the pace of the game, and the unobserved allowance ahead is also, and consequently, automatically adjusted by the game itself—that is, by its angle and its speed.

But this method of shooting takes no account of the _height_ of the game, and possibly this is one reason why high pheasants are so very difficult to many excellent marksmen at lower birds.

The pace of game high and low being the same, it is, relatively to the movement of the gun, slower according as distance increases. If the gun muzzle has to move 5 feet a second to get ahead of game crossing at 20 yards away, it need move but 2½ feet per second to get ahead of game 40 yards away and moving at the same velocity. Consequently, when the whole allowance is given unconsciously by swing, and is just enough at 20 yards, it is clear that the same swing will only give the same unconscious allowance at 40 yards, and that this will not be half enough at that range, where the pellets are travelling slower and have double the distance to go.

TAKING A STEP BACK WITH THE LEFT FOOT AS THE SHOT IS FIRED SAVES THE
BALANCE WHEN THE GAME HAS PASSED FAR OVER HEAD BEFORE BEING SHOT AT
]

For this reason, in theory—and the author’s experience supports theory in this case—it is better to make an allowance in front of all game, _in addition to swing_, and to increase the allowance very much for long ranges. To reduce theory to practice: with a swing to the gun automatically set by the speed of the bird, the author would find it necessary to allow 3 yards ahead of game at 40 yards, whereas the same game at the same speed would not have more than 2 feet allowance at 20 yards. But as all game varies in speed, and as all shooters see what they do differently, this has _no_ educational value for anyone, except so far as it sets out a principle that has not hitherto been dealt with, except in some newspaper articles—namely, the principle that swing regulated automatically by the pace of the bird has more effect at short range than at long range. This is so whether the nature of the swing is merely to follow and catch the game, or to race it and get past it, or to race past it to a selected point or distance in front.

To attempt to bring home this truth to those who do not agree with these remarks, it may be expedient to point out that they explain a very common experience. One sometimes gives ample apparent allowance in front of a crossing bird, and shoots well behind him; then, with the second barrel, one races to catch him before he disappears over a hedge, fires apparently a foot or a yard before the game is caught up, and nevertheless kills dead.

The judgment of speed is not very important if one allows the speed of the game to regulate the rate of the swinging gun, and although it is frequently discussed as if no one could shoot well without a perfect knowledge of speed, it seems doubtful whether it is necessary to worry about it, when the act of getting on the game is really an automatic regulation of swinging to the movement of the bird.

But as there are very likely some shooters who would like to be able to calculate speed as accurately as may be, here is a plan which is never very much out for heavy short-winged game, such as pheasants, partridges, grouse, black game, and wild duck of kinds.

Estimate the height of the game at the moment it was shot, then measure, by stepping, the distance the dead (not wounded) bird travels before it touches the flat ground. Air resistance to the fall of the bird will be practically just equal to air resistance to its onward movement after it is dead, and the time it takes to fall, and necessarily also to go forward the measured distance, are the same. The time taken for the fall may be safely calculated by the height in feet divided by 16, and the square root of the dividend is the number of seconds of the fall. Thus, if the bird falls 64 feet, then 64/16 = 4, and the square root of 4 is 2 seconds. In 3 seconds the game falls 48 yards, so that practically all pheasants take between 2 and 3 seconds to fall, or ought to do so.

The velocity the bird is travelling before being shot does not affect the time it takes to reach the ground, but wind, with or against the game, slightly alters the distance it goes forward after being killed. With the wind the game will always be going faster than the air, and will therefore be getting air resistance from the front, and the method only partially breaks down when a heavy wind is blowing directly against the game.

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES AND LORD FARQUHAR RIDING TO THE BUTTS ON
THE BOLTON ABBEY MOORS, 1906
]

THE PRACTICE OF SHOOTING

Mr. Walter Winans has expressed the opinion that the better a shooter grows at the rifle targets the worse he becomes at moving objects with the rifle and gun. But it is probable that all good shooting at moving objects is based upon a beginning of steady alignments. Those who believe that shooting at flying game is to be well learnt before still objects can be accomplished seem to the author to neglect the first principles, and would run before they can walk. There is this to be considered: that one often does get, even in grouse and partridge driving, marks that are exactly equivalent to still objects. That is to say, they are coming perfectly straight at the gun. Is one to let them off without shooting quite straight because one has been taught not to align? There is no doubt the best shots do align for the very fastest crossing game if there is time to do it; and the belief of the author is that a man cannot be really quite first-rate unless he can shoot in every style as occasion requires. That is to say, he will be able upon occasion, when circumstances and time admit of but a brief sight of a crossing bird between the branches of fir trees, to throw his gun ahead to a point, as he thinks, and tries to do, without swing, and will be able to kill his game. The author has occasionally risen to such success himself, but only when he has not been trying to do it, but has grown up to it, out of the more certain method of consciously swinging past the bird to a point in space ahead, and pulling trigger as the alignment was getting to the spot, and without checking the gun. In the first-named style of shooting, when the kill comes off, there is probably always swing, by reason of the gun being put up from a position pointing much behind the bird, so that the swing occurs as the gun is going home to the shoulder, and it is not checked when the trigger is pulled, simply because no swing can be checked instantly. By this method of finding the place and shooting at it, the author can manage rabbits jumping across rides—that is, when he manages to kill them at all; but he prefers to handle winged game by the slower and surer method, which, however, he would abandon for the better style if he could. But the ability to be quick in this better style is not his for a permanency, it only comes sometimes, when there is not time to take game with a conscious swing of the gun. The late Mr. A. Stuart Wortley, who was one of the best game-driving shots of his time, has told us in one of his books that he could not hit anything until he started to shut one eye and align. Later, he thought first aiming at a bird, and then swinging forward of it, was slow, and making two operations of one. Lord Walsingham has assented to a description of shooting in which the “racing” of the bird with the gun was the principal feature, and Lord de Grey has been watched to put his gun up, try to get on, and, failing, take it down without shooting; all of which tends to show that alignment and swing are the two necessary factors in shooting, not necessarily alignment of the game, but generally of a moving point at the end of a space in front of the game. Mr. F. E. R. Fryer is very clear about the advantages of swing, and also allowance in front. As he is as quick a shot as ever was deliberate, and more deadly than those in a hurry, there can be no better proof that swing itself is not necessarily accompanied by any delay. But there are two or more kinds of swing, and it does not necessarily mean what Mr. Stuart Wortley implied. It is not always, or often possibly, a jerk after getting on the game, neither is it a following round of the game, but in its best form it is probably mostly done before the gun touches the shoulder, and is not stopped by contact with the shoulder, or by pulling the trigger. It is not supposed that those who can sometimes bring off this ideal style—which, in intention, is finding the right place in front of the game to shoot at—always find this style possible to them. At least, not invariably possible for very high and very fast game; and the author believes that the only way to it for a novice is to begin by aligning, go on by aligning, and end by aligning; for that is really what this ideal style of shooting amounts to. It is aligning a spot, which bears no mark, ahead of game, and doing it as the gun comes home to the shoulder, and with a double movement, while it swings in the direction the game is going. That is to say, it is the quickest and most accurate alignment of all. That is the outcome of all the author has been able to learn of the methods of crack shots, confirmed by his own longer but smaller experience with the shot gun.

H.R.H THE PRINCE OF WALES WAITING FOR GROUSE, SHOWING THE MUCH MORE
FORWARD POSITION OF THE LEFT HAND THAN WHEN SHOOTING
]

These remarks have appeared necessary by reason of the large quantity of bad advice that has been given. Those who have said that no alignment was necessary, because it took too much time, seem to have a notion that the gun has to move fast because the game does so. But a muzzle movement at the rate of 3 or 4½ feet a second, or two, to three miles an hour (less than the space of an ordinary walk), will out-race any reasonable bird at 30 yards range, even if he is travelling 90 miles an hour, so that it is not pace, as such, that is difficult.

Calculated allowance in front of game, and the automatic allowance for speed by reason of swinging with the bird, have been touched upon already. The worst objections to giving a little too much allowance ahead are, that only a part of that proportion of the load that should hit the game does reach it, and that part is the weakest of the load, or, at any rate, the last pellets. Another is, that any swerve of the game ensures a complete miss, and it is swerving of fast game that causes its difficulty much more than its pace. This supposed necessity for being so very quick because of the great pace of game has spoilt more shots than anything else. There generally is plenty of time to be deliberate, to aim at the exact spot while moving the gun at least fast enough to keep ahead of the game, and it is necessary to remember that the best shots are the quickest only because they are most deliberate, and get “on the spot” before firing, or, to be more correct, know that they are about to get there by the time their fingers can take effect on the trigger. Mr. Fryer before mentioned says that he has both to swing and make allowance too for the very fast high birds.

Probably the best way to avoid stopping the gun as one pulls trigger, or waiting to see that aim is correct before letting off, is to make a rule to pull just before the right alignment is reached. It will be reached by the time the shot leave the gun.

There is no reason to say that for handling a pair of guns instinctively a loader must be trained by the shooter himself, because there are so many ways of giving and taking guns. Besides this, shooting far off with the first barrel for grouse, and as soon as partridges top the fence, are essentials to getting in four barrels at a brood, or covey, as the case may be. Moreover, it is generally a case of kill or miss in front of the shooter, and wound or kill behind him.

Shooting schools cannot help a shooter to learn to kill curling pheasants, swerving partridges, wrenching grouse, or zigzagging snipe, but they can teach the quick firing and changing of guns. And to one not in practice it is this quick firing that puts a shooter out of touch with gun and game, much more readily than swerve, wrench, zigzag, or curl.

All the talk of the speed of driven game making it difficult has frightened and unnerved many a beginner at such birds, but it is merely the echo of what was said before shooters had learnt that they had to swing and aim ahead as well. To talk of speed of game now, as if there was some mystery in it, is merely to unnerve more disciples of Diana. When once the gunner knows where he has got to shoot for the driven bird (in the singular), the shot is much easier than the going-away game, because the longer you wait in one case the worse chance you have, and in the other the better chance you have. If the shooter thinks differently, he can turn round in the grouse butt every time, instead of shooting his game coming; but he will soon give that up, because he will find his gun is not equal to the greater requirements of the going-away game.

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES SHOOTING GROUSE AT BOLTON ABBEY, SHOWING
THE VERY FORWARD POSITION OF THE LEFT HAND.
]

After writing the remarks above, it seemed to be the proper course to consult some of those excellent marksmen who are discussed by everybody. Consequently, the author bethought him of the article he had written for _Bailey’s Magazine_ on the twelve best shots, and decided to ask for the views of a few of those expert marksmen who had, by the votes of others, come out as best. He was impelled to this course not with any desire to have his own views corroborated by such good authority, but in order, if possible, with the greater authority, to correct what to him appear very erroneous notions so often seen in print. As nobody can assist those who are perfect already, it is clear that the novice is the person who can benefit by a discussion of the subject. For this reason it was not so much to inquire how crack shots shoot now, as how they learnt to shoot, that was the intention of these inquiries. Often have been put forward the methods of shooters _after_ they have become expert, which is about as helpful as telling a schoolboy, “There is W. G., go and imitate him with your cricket bat.” The author’s own fault of delay and the limitation of space has rendered it necessary to compress this information into very small space.

After disowning any more connection with the twelve best than a hundred others have an equal right to, Mr. R. H. Rimington Wilson was good enough to reply to some leading questions in much this way:—

In shooting at fast crossing game he looks at the place he is going to shoot, not at the game.

He admits that the “ideal” best form in shooting would be to bring up the gun in the nearest way, without swing, and to shoot to the right place, but he questions whether it can be done for high, or fast, wide birds. He can do it for near grouse, just as the writer has explained that he does it for rabbits. But Mr. Wilson is convinced that for far-off fast game you must “swing.” He once questioned Lord de Grey on how he shot, and the reply was that this great performer took every advantage the game gave time for. That is to say, he only shot quick, by the throwing up and firing without swing, when there was no time for swing.

For pheasants, Mr. Wilson prefers to get behind them and race his gun to the front without stopping the gun to inquire whether he _has_ got in front, because he finds that such a stop means shooting behind. But although this is his plan, he questioned whether it was right, because when he has occasionally shot from a deep gorge, where there was no time for this method, he has found the game come down, just as he has when a quick second barrel has been sent after a first failure. The author thinks this only emphasises the use and value of swing; because in shooting at a pheasant crossing a deep gorge the very act of putting up the gun to the shoulder constitutes a swing in the direction the game is going. It is probably the fastest of all swinging, and the one to which the shooter is least able to apply the muscular stop. This, then, represents what some crack shots do now. But the most important thing to know is how did they arrive at that point? Did they begin by snapping at the place where the bird was going to be when their shot arrived, or did they begin by aligning, and so grow into the mastery of the gun?

The former has been the fashionable method to talk of in the press, but Mr. Rimington Wilson is very emphatic on the necessity of the rifle like aligning as a start. The author was very pleased to hear this, because it is one of those points on which he has always disagreed with what may be called the written schooling of the shot gun. We have all heard of the man who never would go in the water until he had learnt to swim, and probably the would-be crack shot who wishes to begin at the end will make no more progress than the would-be swimmer.

MR. R. H. RIMINGTON WILSON SHOOTING GROUSE, SHOWING THE BACK POSITION
OF THE LEFT HAND
]

Mr. Wilson does not believe in choke bores. He thinks that the 8 or 9 yards of distance they increase the range is paid for very dearly at all near ranges. Another point made by this good sportsman is contrary altogether to accepted ideas. He does not believe driven grouse harder to kill than grouse shot over dogs, and would rather back himself to kill consecutive numbers of the former than the latter. Here, again, Mr. Wilson is in agreement with the author, who has often given this opinion in the press, and has, moreover, supported it by pointing to the wretched scoring of double rises at the pigeon traps, even at 25 yards and by the best pigeon shots in Europe. Pigeons, again, are much more responsive to lead than a right and left grouse at 35 yards rise in October. The grouse spring twice as quick as the pigeon. But Mr. Wilson was not speaking of the October grouse, but of average grouse shooting over dogs and average driving. Probably we all agree that there is an occasional impossible in almost every kind of shooting.

Another point that Mr. Wilson has assisted the author to place in its true light is that his big bags are by no means made for their own sake, but simply because the grouse are on the moor and his is the only way to get them. To hunt for grouse in driblets would be to drive most of them away never to be shot. They are so wild that they have to be broken up by the severest treatment, and as one man could drive them all away, so it takes an army of flankers and beaters to keep them on the moor during the driving days.

Mr. Wilson shoots with Boss single-trigger guns, and, contrary to expectation and ideas, one of these single triggers is often made to do duty in a day’s tramp after a couple of woodcock or a small bag of snipe.

FORM IN GAME SHOOTING—I

“Form,” like “taste,” is a very definite thing to every one of us, but probably no two persons have ever quite agreed about either. Shooting “form” is just as definite: we know for ourselves what is, and what is not, good form instantly; but again it is not an easy thing to agree upon in the abstract, although in practice when two men discuss another they will not be unlikely to agree that he is either “good form” or “bad form.” There appears to be no half-way house—it is always either good or bad. Form as it is generally understood has not much to do with success, but is more a matter of appearance. If a shooter at a covert side planted his gun at his shoulder when the drive began and so kept it until a pheasant came over into line, and then he let off, his form would not be either good or bad—it would be too uncommon for either; too ridiculous to be seen, in fact; but it is precisely that which pigeon shooters and clay bird men mostly adopt. It is outside the question of game killing altogether.

No kind of shooting requires more sharpness of eye than grouse driving, and when the gun is at the shoulder, engaged with one bird, we all know how easy it is for others to slip by unobserved, and then we get just as bad a reputation as if we had blazed away and missed.

Obviously, quickness of perception has much influence on success, but whether it has anything to do with form is doubtful. It is curious that what we all agree is the best possible style for the second barrel is the worst possible for the first. The man who takes down his gun between the double shot is a fumbler, unless he has to turn round; but the man who keeps his gun at the shoulder for the first shot is worse. The reason it is bad form in one case and good in another may not be quite the same as why it leads to success in one case and not in the other. Perhaps an appearance of ease has some near relationship to good form, and ease itself has a nearer affinity to success with the gun. It would tire out the arms to practise in game shooting the pigeon shooter’s methods, on whose arms the strain in the “present” position lasts only until he calls “pull.” The strain in game shooting would last long, and it would certainly happen that when, at last, game did come within range, the arms of the shooter would be too cramped to deal properly with it. “Form,” therefore, appears in this instance to have some relationship to success. But this is far from being always so. The author remembers one case of a young man who did not kill much, but of whom it was said it was more pleasant to see him miss than to see others kill. This was in shooting over dogs, when good style greatly depended upon “wind” and “stamina” to get over and shoot from any rough foothold.

There is “form” in walking also, and when stamina counts there can be no good style in shooting without good easy walking. Look at the different angles of body in which men go up and come down hills. In the ascent some people bend their backs over their foremost toes, and progress, truly, but they have to “right” themselves when the flush occurs, and before they have done it the bird has flown 20 yards. Again, in going down hill some men throw back their bodies, and if they have suddenly to stop they again have to “right” themselves before they can shoot with success.

But there is something worse than bad shooting style, there is bad sporting form; and coming down hill often brings it obviously to the man who is walking behind, and sees the leading man’s gun carried on the shoulder, pointing dead at the pit of the follower’s stomach. That cannot be avoided when the gun is carried on the shoulder in Indian file; but it never ought to be so carried then, and in the writer’s opinion, at least, is a deadly disregard of “good form.” In this case probably there will be no disagreement by any who from this cause have ever felt their “hearts in their mouths.” Guns can be jarred off, and the rough ground on a moorland down-hill path often occasions very sudden jars.

There are other shooters who always seem to be at the ready, whether they are going up hill or down; whether they are jumping from peat hag to peat hag; or, in the bogs, from one rush clump to another, to save themselves from sinking in the intervening soft ground. Balance has a great deal to do with it, and some there are who can shoot straight even when the foothold is rotten and is giving way under them. It is clear that good form requires that the performer should be able to shoot from any position the rise happens to find him in. If he must get the left foot forward and the weight of the body upon it, he will not be as quick as others who can get off their guns no matter where their feet may happen to be.

This seems to be all a matter of balance, and the nearer we imitate cat-like equilibrium, and not only keep our heads uppermost, but keep them cool in all circumstances, the more surely shall we get our guns off at the right moment.

The latest phase of shooting is to make it as easy as possible to accomplish the difficult. Paradoxically, we have our boarded floor in our grouse butts, racks to keep the guns off the peat, and shelves upon which to distribute our cartridges, and we place our grouse butts to favour the guns. Then, having made everything as easy as possible for the sportsman, we now attempt to make the birds as hard to kill as wings and the wind can make them. We send over the pheasants as far out of reach as we can make them fly; we take particular care to send the grouse down wind if we can; and when we have got our guns swinging yards in front of the streaks of brown lightning, then we are especially pleased if we can bring off an up-wind drive in which the birds can just, and only just, beat up against the gale, and so defeat the guns again by the new variation of flight; one in which any sort of lead on the birds, any kind of swing, will have no other effect than shooting yards in front of the game, and perhaps in turning it back to fly over the drivers’ heads and miles down wind beyond.

Some of the most killing shooters are those who need ample time; those who get on their game 100 yards away, come with it as it approaches, then jerk forward and pull trigger at the instant, and never require to look round to see if their bird is dead—they know it is. The critic may think this terrible slow business; and so it is. What, he will ask, would happen if four came abreast and the gunner wants all that time for one bird? The critic’s opinion would be just if he watched and saw that the slow and sure performer did not, in fact, have time to deal with, let us say, two pheasants abreast without turning round. But to assume that a shooter cannot be quick because he is slow when quickness is not required, assumes too much. The “bang-bang,” in spite of expectations, may be so quick, from the apparently slow and sure man, that both birds, coming together, turn over and race each other through the air to the ground not 10 yards apart.

But it is not good style, this poking and following; it may be very admirable bag-making, and is so when the quick second barrel just described is added, but not when each barrel seems to require equally long to get off. But it is not pretty; it cannot by any stretch of imagination, even in the best built and most graceful of men or women performers, be regarded as good style. The gun that goes up to the spot and is off the instant it touches the shoulder represents the best of good style. But the author doubts whether it always means the most success in killing. At any rate, the highest exponents of the art do not invariably adopt this plan; probably when the top man is at the top of his form he can shoot in this way, with as great success as he can in any other: but that is the point. Who is invariably at the top of his form? The writer would back a great shot to disguise the lack of it from everyone but himself at any time,—him he cannot deceive,—he knows in his heart that sometimes he is a fumbler, but nevertheless one who has such mastery over the many manners of shooting, that if he cannot shoot to the right spot in one way he will assuredly be able to do it in another, provided he has a bit more time. At the top of his form he will be aware that he can rise to any occasion; and the less time he has, the more brilliant will be his work, the less time he will require. He will be able to bring tall pheasants down, even those that only show 6 feet through the gaps in the fir trees, with as much certainty as if he had them outside and began his aim 100 yards away. But that represents his very best; he cannot do it every day, whoever he may be, and whatever reputation he may have to sustain him and to be sustained.

At covert side it is difficult to be always quite awake; the first few birds may be slovenly taken, and so the shooter may go on until a difficulty rouses him to exertion, and he becomes fully awake without recognising the process of arousing. In grouse shooting over dogs the same differences of form are seen, and others also. One shooter puts up his gun at the bird fluttering at his feet, waits until it gets 30 yards away, and kills it dead, and he may be quick enough with the second barrel. Another waits with his gun down until the birds are a proper distance away, then his “crack—crack” takes the farther off bird with the first barrel and the nearer next, and they tumble on top of each other. The one is “form,” the other is equally good bag-filling; but then these are _not_ the days of pot-hunting, and the difference between the two methods is as great as between the flint and steel and the modern single trigger.

There are more differences than the mere art of killing, and the manner of its doing. In walking up to a dog’s point, for instance, the sportsman and the mere gunner proclaim their different “forms” as wide as the poles apart. The one walks like the crack man across country rides, wide of the “dogs,” perhaps one will be 25 to 35 yards to one side or other; another man may walk right at the dog and level with his head as he draws on, until perhaps he consequently loses the scent; or turns and rodes the birds right between the gunner’s legs, or would if he opened them and failed to get out of the way. In such circumstances the dog needs no help in pointing out bad form in sportsmanship, although he will not pass an opinion on gunning. The dogs that turned tail and went home, because of the frequent missing, existed, it is said, in the early part of last century. But in those days they had not instituted spring field trials, in which dogs do their work as well as in the shooting season, and in the total absence of the gun and the slaying of game.

WARTER PRIORY. LORD DALHOUSIE.
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FORM IN GAME SHOOTING—II

The manner in which various shooters hold their guns, or rather the position of the left hand, has been elevated to the dignity of a shooter’s creed almost. It is not so important as is supposed. It is merely a fashion, which changes with generations in England, and has never assumed importance out of our very little island. The fashion at the present time is to push forward the barrel hand almost if not quite as far as it will reach, whereas two generations back the fashionable shooter for the most part placed his hand in front of and upon the trigger guard, and although a beginner now who did so would be told that he would never shoot, the author has seen as good work done by those who adopted that method as he ever expects to see.

The forward hand was an outcome of pigeon shooting, like the very straight stock. The first can be theoretically defended by those who do not require to swing with their game, just as the over straight stock is a good expedient for shooting a little more over a rising pigeon than the unassisted intention of the shooter would accomplish.

The method of pushing out the left arm may be good for some people and bad for others. There is not the slightest doubt that there are not only individuals who do best with either plan, but that different methods of shooting are each most suitable to different individuals.

Individuals may be divided into those who have long arms and narrow shoulders, and those who have short arms and are wide between the shoulders. The former class have much more room for play with three sides of the triangle (of gun, left arm, and width of body), always kept at nearly the same length, than have the short-armed, wide-chested men, who, in swinging the gun a greater degree to the right than they turn the body, increase the necessity for one long side to the angle much more than the others do. But the hand holding the barrel is not a fixture, and can slide down to the fore end as the necessity for the long left arm increases by swinging to the right. This is obviously the Prince of Wales’ method. However, when the swing round to the right is very far, the position of the fore end stops the hand at a certain point.