One may drag or grate. The other seems to go off at your mere wish.
No automatic can have the delicate touch of a single-shot pistol. It has to withstand such rough handling by the mechanical loading of the explosion.
A thing to be especially remembered is that one who is not expert, trying to put the pistol to half-c.o.c.k, ruins the trigger-pull and renders it unsafe.
The point of the seer can be broken off or distorted by someone fumbling with the trigger and hammer.
Do not let people touch the hammer or trigger of your pistol, any more than you would let them jerk your horse"s mouth.
In the course of your first trials in c.o.c.king, putting to half-c.o.c.k, etc., you will probably injure your trigger-pull more or less, and should you feel the least alteration or grate in it, have it examined by a gunmaker before worse mischief occurs.
With a hammerless (_i. e._, pistol with invisible hammer inside the lock) there is not this danger. c.o.c.king is accomplished by the act of closing or opening the pistol which at the same time causes the hammer to be locked at safety.
What corresponds to c.o.c.king and putting to half-c.o.c.k is accomplished by sliding the safety bolt to the firing position, or to "safe."
It is advisable to have the same weight of trigger-pull on all your pistols. If they vary it makes it difficult to shoot equally well with all. The heavier trigger-pull of some will hamper you, and the lighter trigger-pull on others may make you discharge them before you mean to.
As individual fancy in trigger-pull varies, some makers sell their pistols with intentionally a very heavy trigger-pull, so that their clients can have it regulated to their requirements. This probably was the reason my old man had such a heavy trigger-pull on his "greatest bargain I ever saw"
gun.
Before practising for or entering a compet.i.tion, see that your trigger-pull complies with the regulations, as nothing is more annoying than, after making a winning score, to find your trigger-pull is too light and your score in consequence is disqualified.
It is best to have the trigger-pull well over the minimum so as to allow for its getting lighter during shooting.
CHAPTER IX
AMMUNITION
Every make of pistol has ammunition which suits it best. In fact, to shoot what was made for it. In the case of automatic pistols, they will not work properly unless their own ammunition is used.
It is very dangerous to shoot the wrong ammunition out of a pistol. It may burst it. I nearly had such an accident with a revolver when winning a prize given for the best score with a certain make of powder.
I found the pistol working very stiff in the revolution of the cylinder, toward my last shots, and when I had finished I looked and saw that the cylinders had become egg shape, caused by the pressure of the explosion, which was greater than the powder-charge the pistol was made to withstand.
It was only the excellence of the material which caused the cylinder chambers to expand toward their weakest point (the circ.u.mference of the cylinder), instead of bursting.
It was this expansion that had caused the friction in turning the cylinder.
As my book is not a gunmaker"s catalogue there is no use in giving ill.u.s.trations of ammunition.
Such ill.u.s.trations are neither artistic nor of any interest. Many makes of cartridges are long since obsolete and only linger in catalogues because the old blocks happen to still exist and can be used to fill up a catalogue and make it "fully ill.u.s.trated."
Any one conversant with pistols does not even glance at them. When he buys the pistol, he also buys the cartridge made for it. He does not buy a pistol and then try which make of cartridge will fit into the chamber.
A cartridge should fulfil the following conditions:
First of all, it should be safe against accidental explosion, such as dropping or when feeding through the magazine of an automatic pistol.
Next, the case should not split or swell when fired, so as to make it difficult to extract.
Next (this is a matter also of the construction of the pistol), it should not blow back fire into the eyes of the shooter. This has several times happened to me with cheap makes of rifles and pistols and one is very apt to have such an accident when shooting at bottles at a fair with cheap worn rifles.
I asked a woman attending at one of the shooting booths at a fair, if it was not very dangerous when drunken men came to shoot.
She answered: "Oh no, when a man looks dangerous I load only blank ammunition for him."
The chief requisite is accuracy; and without accuracy a cartridge is useless.
CHAPTER X
FIRST LESSONS
As the automatic pistol is a very dangerous one for a novice to handle, it is best for the beginner to first thoroughly master a single-shot pistol.
There are several styles of single-shot pistols (see Plates 2, 9, 10, and 17). I will not give a list and description of all makes, like a gunmaker"s catalogue. I will merely describe a few of the typical ones.
Very many are not only obsolete but of no use, and I do not intend to describe any pistol or ammunition merely to condemn it.
All that I describe have some merit, and most of them have great merit.
Still if there is any ammunition or pistol left out, you must not at once jump to the conclusion that I consider it bad or dangerous; it may be that it was omitted through an oversight.
It is best to have a pistol light in weight and shooting as small a charge as possible, so that there may be no great weight to hold up and no flinching from the noise or recoil.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 2. BREECH-LOADING PISTOLS
(By Gastinne-Renette)]
With a very small charge it is possible to use a very light pistol, and though this is advisable for a beginner still, weight in a pistol, even if it shoots only a very small charge, is an advantage for accurate holding.
The trigger-pull must not be lighter than 2 pounds for safety (especially for a beginner) and if the pistol weighs less than 2 pounds, it is very difficult to press the trigger without disturbing the aim.
Lightness in weight of the pistol is also often obtained by shortness of barrel, and to shoot a pistol with only a two or three inch barrel is the supreme test of skill in pistol shooting and a useless handicap to a learner.
At one time I thought it impossible for good shooting to be had out of a two inch barrel, but a friend and I tested this at twenty-five metres, and we both, after a few trials, got strings of shots on the chest of a life-sized figure of a man target.
But it requires a man who has shot for many years to be able to do this; even an average shot goes very wide and wild in his shooting with such a short barrel.
These very short barrels are therefore useless for the general public for self-protection, except when the pistol actually touches the opponent.
Even the short police pistol requires a lot of learning. Most people imagine it is merely necessary to buy a little pistol "which I can put in my waistcoat pocket," to become burglar proof.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 3.