GUNS AND AMMUNITION 



85 



•double Schutzen trigger, and my score went 

 up to 235. No doubt, after sufficient prac- 

 tice I could work this up to 240, and, pos- 

 sibly, by using tbe telescope sight and palm 

 rest, I might do even better. 



All this goes to show that each style of 

 shooting requires its own weapons and meth- 

 ods. For years I had scoffed at the Schutzen 

 rifle, with its palm rest, aperture sights and 

 enormously heavy barrel, but I have dis- 

 covered that when shooting at a small mark, 

 seventy-five feet away, a 12-pound rifle and 

 hair trigger form a much better combination 

 than a light rifle with plain trigger, and I am 

 forced to acknowledge that there is a fasci- 

 nation about this style of shooting. More- 

 over, I think it must improve one's game 

 shooting, as it causes one to realize the abso- 

 lute necessity of a steady let-off. 



William Ryder, Westport, N. Y. 



MEDIUM POWER LOAD. 



Editor Recreation : 



I have a large Smith & Wesson revolver, 

 using the 44-40 Winchester cartridge. I 

 would like to know what would be a good 

 medium power load, — smokeless powder or 

 black, — and whether I should use a wad over 

 the powder or load loose. I have never 

 loaded nor experimented with any but full 

 loads. 



H. W. Archibald, 

 60 Tyler St., Lowell, Mass. 



You will find bullet No. 429,107, of the 

 Ideal Mfg. Co., of New Haven, Conn., a first 

 rade medium power bullet. Or, if you want 

 something for shorter range, you might try 

 either 130 or no grains No. 429,105 and 

 429,104, respectively. The full power loads 

 being 40 grains of black powder, or 14 or 

 Laflin & Rand's Sharpshooter Smokeless, or 

 17 grains of DuPont's No. 2 Smokeless Rifle 

 powder. You might experiment safely, start- 

 ing first with about one-half loads You will 

 not need any wad, and as you experiment 

 you will quickly learn the capability of your 

 weapon and the charges that give best re- 

 sults. — Editor. 



GOOD SHOTS AND BAD SHOTS. 



Editor Recreation : 



It occurs to me that there is a good deal 

 of misconception as to what constitutes a 

 naturally good shot. We often meet men 

 that shoot well, and sometimes, in fact usu- 

 ally, we are assured that the art came na- 

 turally to them. 



Now, to my mind, the qualities that en- 

 able a man to shoot above the average are : 

 Firstly, a perfection of the nervous system, 

 that enables the hand and eye to work to- 

 gether with more than ordinary accuracy and 

 rapidity. Secondly, a good eyesight. I am 

 convinced, however, that eyesight does not 



play so important a part as the nervous sys- 

 tem. 



In order to hit a small mark, it is, of 

 course, necessary to align the front and rear 

 sights very accurately upon it, and the suc- 

 cessful shot manages to press the trigger in- 

 stantaneously, as soon as his eye has sig- 

 nalled to his brain that the sights are bearing 

 upon the object it is desired to hit. When 

 the shooter possesses this power he is a good 

 shot. Most men, however, go through some 

 such process as the following: The object is 

 seen over the notch of the back sight and 

 then the foresight is brought up to the mark, 

 but, of course, refuses to remain steadily 

 aligned upon it, going through more or less 

 complicated gyrations, until, at length, the 

 rear sight, fore sight and trigger, are all in 

 line. This fact is realized by the shooter 

 and he says to himself, mentally, "Now I am 

 right, and will shoot." But by this time the 

 fore sight is no longer bearing upon the 

 bull's eye, and when the trigger is pressed, 

 even supposing the let-off has been faultless. 

 the bullet goes either to the right or to the 

 left, or else high or low, but it does not, ex- 

 cepting by the merest accident, reach the 

 point intended. 



Some years ago experiments were con- 

 ducted at Harvard, for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining what degree of variation there was 

 in different individuals in the time required 

 to register by means of pressure on an elec- 

 tric button, flashes of light. The figures 

 are not at my command, and I am only 

 speaking from memory, when I say that the 

 individual differences were yery great. Some 

 nervous systems responded almost immedi- 

 ately ; others were very slow. The impulse 

 in each case had to be communicated from 

 the eye to the brain, and from the brain to 

 the hand. And this is just what happens 

 when we fire a rifle. 



Novelists are very fond of writing about 

 the "rifle held in a vice-like grip," but as 

 long as a man lives, the beating of his heart 

 and the pulsations of his arteries, will effec- 

 tually prevent his holding the sights aligned 

 on any small object for more than a fraction 

 of a second. The .most successful shots 

 are by no means the men whose fore sights 

 wobble the least, but they are invariably men 

 whose muscles respond immediately to their 

 brains. 



Most written instructions tell the rifleman 

 to raise the fore sight, after viewing through 

 the notch on the back sight the object aimed 

 at, until it is just below the object he de- 

 sires to hit. Yet, one of the best shots I ever 

 knew always brought up his rifle to the level 

 of the bottom of the bull's eye, but con- 

 siderably to the right of it. Then, he pulled 

 his rifle over the left, until it was just be- 

 low the bull's eye, and cut loose, never at- 

 tempting to hold the rifle without movement, 



