THE EFFECT OF RECOIL UPON SHOOTING. 325 



curate rifles just about four inches below the bullets 

 with the half charge and the round balls with full 

 charge, all of which also cut the same hole. And the 

 strangest part of it all was that both to me and my 

 attendant the rifles in every case appeared to jump 

 upward; and certainly did so, though they must have 

 first jumped downward before the ball escaped the 

 muzzle, for of course the barrel could not bend. 

 These results were always the same whether the 

 rifles were fired offhand or from rest, no matter in 

 what direction or whether solidly backed or fired 

 from a suspended sling. Yet this Maynard was so 

 accurate that I once fired with it five successive balls 

 into a four-inch circle at two hundred yards. 



On the other hand, a light barrel when overloaded 

 is more likely to jump up than down. A very light 

 carbine generally does; so does a shot-gun, especially 

 a double one, if both barrels be fired simultaneously 

 when heavily loaded. So do most all pistols. A 

 Russian model .45 navy at only seven paces with 

 its common cartridge shot two and one half inches 

 higher than it did with the heavy ball and some of the 

 powder taken out and a round bullet put in the car- 

 tridge; yet this pistol was very accurate. Most all 

 pistol-cartridges are overloaded, it being necessary 

 with most of them to aim at a man's toes at twenty 

 yards to touch him at all; and it is no wonder that 

 when " the finest police in the world " shoot at a man 

 across the street, the servant-girl looking out of 

 the attic of the house behind him is more apt to suffer 

 than the bifurcated target. So much do some of these 

 pistols jump up that even after building an extra 

 story on the front sight and cutting clown the back 

 one it is almost impossible to prevent overshooting 



