66 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



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 

 2.\ 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 allow- 

 ance 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 



