132 GUNS 



ill-balanced in your hands, and things will go 

 all wrong to a certainty. Let the left arm be 

 straightened out as much as it conveniently can, 

 and then, when the gun rests between the thumb 

 and fingers of that hand (the hold being of course 

 round the barrels underneath), it will be well under 

 command ; ease and steadiness will be the result. 

 There is as much in the grip of the gun as in the 

 grip of the golf driver, only there is practically 

 but one way of gripping the former. 



Among those who do not shoot, and have not 

 watched shooting with the shot-gun, there is a 

 somewhat prevailing notion that, to shoot flying or 

 running objects, the gunner lays his cheek against 

 the stock, shuts the left eye, and peering down the 

 barrels fires only when he has covered the object 

 with the sight. But, if this were the method of the 

 sportsman, he would have to restrict himself to 

 large objects travelling slowly ! The truth is, you 

 don't use the sight at all when you shoot rabbits 

 running or birds flying. Then how is it done ? 

 There is so much about the process of achieving a 

 hard shot at a running or flying mark, which is what 

 may be termed sub-conscious,^ that it seems to me 

 very difficult to depict it in words. The gun is 

 raised, swung with firmness and ease to the spot 



^ Take the pulling of the trigger. The forefinger pulls the front 

 trigger for the first barrel and the back for the left without the shooter 

 thinking of the thing at all. Once for a long while I somehow had 

 the habit of pulling the back trigger first, and so of making my left 

 barrel my opening one. I was as sub-conscious in this case as the 

 other. 



