Part 8

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.