Wing and trap shooting

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Wing-Shooting Problems ... 9

III. Snap-Shooting, Deliberate Swing

Chapter I

IN wing-shooting an object in motion must be struck by missiles from an arm also in motion. The whole science of wing-shooting consists in delivering a charge of shot, not directly at the flying target, but to a point where the bird will be when the charge reaches it. A woman novelist states the matter very naively when telling her sister sportswomen how to shoot English sparrows with a 22 rifle. Incidentally the lady cleverly demonstrates that she possesses all those qualities of lively imagination so requisite in a writer of " fiction for girls." According to the authoress she early discovered that when attempting to hit the little birds while they were sitting she missed because of their springing away with the flash of the gun, but when she jumped them and shot where they would he when the bullet got there, she killed them every time. Wing-shooting is as simple as that, merely shoot exactly where the bird will be when the shot gets there and success is certain, even with a rifle.

Many of us have had more trouble to do this with a shotgun, however, than this feminine writer of fiction seems to have found with a rifle, hence this book on the science of wing-shooting. If the birds invariably flew in the same direction with a motion as even as the flight of an arrow, at one unvarying rate of speed, and the gunner knew how to gauge the speed and angle to the fraction of an inch, possessing at the same time the mechanical regularity of a machine in every movement he made, I see no reason why he should not be as successful as the lady.

In field shooting every separate shot may afford its own individual problem which must be solved instantly if the game is to be killed. Wing-shooting problems are highly complex, moreover, because nearly every factor is unknown. The only factor, indeed, that is absolutely known, or should be, is that when the gun is held right the bird is killed. The death of the bird proves, per se, that the problem was correctly solved, and there is no other correct solution. Reasoning backward from results we know that the mind stated the unknown factors with truth and reckoned from them without error. However, suppose the bird were missed, the question then is to learn which of the unknown factors was misstated, and here our difficulties begin.

It reminds me of a department in an old arithmetic of my father's which was called supposition. You supposed such and such to be the case, and this governed a second unknown quantity, which finally led to solving the problem, provided your first supposition had been correct; otherwise you tried again — in wing-shooting at another bird.

The unknown factors in wing-shooting are the behavior of the shot charge and where it has gone when you miss ; the direction, rate of speed, and evenness of flight of the target; the mechanical ability of the gunner to perform certain acts with absolute regularity and precision; the behavior of the shooter's mind and nerves under varying degrees of tension.

If only one of these unknown quantities were known, fixed, and stable, it would immensely facilitate learning to shoot on the wing. For instance, if our shot charge went up to the target in the shape of an immense black ball, thirty inches in diameter, that we could see strike or miss the target, we could all learn more of this art in a year than we now do in a lifetime. The expert shot can frequently tell why he has missed and where his charge went, but not so the novice for whom we are writing. Even the most experienced are frequently puzzled as to the cause of missing, though in their case it merely adds to the fascination of the game which would lose in interest if made too easy.

In the same way if we could shoot at game which had an undeviating line of flight, with angles that never changed and a speed that never varied, striking the mark would be greatly simplified. We would then have conditions similar to those that govern trapshooting with artificial birds where higli scores are made with such regularity as to become monotonous.

Given a shot charge that could be seen and a target at known angles whose rate of flight never changed, and we would still have two unstable factors to contend with, the inability to make a perfect machine of the human body and poor team work on the part of brain and nerves. Mechanically nature has endowed us differently. A man may be able to draw one straight line, but if you tell him to draw ten, one of them will be crooked; some other can draw ten straight lines, but will fail before reaching a hundred. The more difficult the task and the longer continued, the higher the degree of mechanical skill required. An expert modern trapshot is simply a great mechanic and nothing else, but a high degree of mechanical skill is a requisite in every description of wing-shooting. Nevertheless it is only one of the factors that lead to success in live bird shooting.

The action of an individual mind and nerves under varying degrees of excitement is one of the shooting factors that are extremely hard to control. Reliable work can be accomplished only by the man whose mind and nerves have been trained to that very sort of thing. They must work with automatic rapidity, without effort, under all circumstances. Pulling the three-pound trigger of a shotgun is a very simple thing but it takes one man six times as long to accomplish it as it does another, or the trigger may be pressed in 4-100 of a second ordinarily but under excitement will be pulled in 1-100 of a second. If one pull places the charge upon the bird the other would probably miss it.

It might be well to illustrate some of the shooting principles mentioned. A quail is passing the gun at a distance of twenty yards and the arm is aligned two feet ahead of the bird and fired, resulting in a kill. Now the student of wing-shooting has an apparent foundation to work upon, one of his unknown factors has become a fixed quantity; a bird crossing at right angles, twenty yards distant, can be killed by holding two feet in advance. But the next bird that affords a similar shot is a duck and shooting two feet in front of it scores a clean miss. His theory of holding two feet ahead of the target proved wrong in this case and he must find reasons. By and by it may occur to him that the duck was flying faster than the quail, forty feet a second faster. The necessity of closely calculating the speed of flight of the target is thus strongly impressed, and it dawns upon him that one of the unknown factors, speed of flight, can never become a fixed quantity, but must always be estimated, and upon' his sound judgment depends his growth of skill as a shot.

The next duck that comes along he leads four feet and kills, much to his satisfaction, for now he knows that two feet in advance of a quail will kill it and four feet in front will connect with ducks. However, a third duck is of a different variety, one that comes loitering by at twenty miles an hour, A pull four feet ahead of this fowl results in another rank miss and a badly puzzled shooter. Holding two or four feet in advance doesn't all depend on the variety of bird for the same wings can carry it fast or slow, and every bird must be judged individually.

Again a quail comes by. A two-feet lead will surely kill it as it did before, but just as the trigger is pressed the bird suddenly swoops, and the charge goes harmlessly above it. Birds must fly evenly if our novice is to strike them; yes, and anyone else — that is what the second barrel is for. Yet another duck wings by and the gunner means to try that four foot lead again, but the aim is high. He knows it, but there is no time for more than the one aim and he cannot avoid throwing his charge away. Our tyro has learned something else, though; if he is to kill he must have the mechanical ability to place his charge exactly where he means it to go, otherwise the knowledge of speed and where to hold that he has been acquiring is all wasted.

More opportunities occur and the student resolves to be extremely careful as to where he places his next shot. All his movements are more deliberate. He swings slowly and pulls steadily and carefully, as nearly as he can judge exactly four feet ahead of the duck, but it goes on without the loss of a feather. Now what the deuce was wrong? Did he fail to estimate the speed, or to hold where he intended? He may not know it or learn what was the trouble for a long time, but the miss was due entirely to his extreme care and overcaution, to dwelling on the trigger and taking 6-100 of a second to pull, in place of his usual 1-100. During the time lost by his over carefulness the bird flew four feet and the shot passed away behind. His finger and brain worked together like balky horses ; when one lunged forward the other held back.

Gradually, he acquires knowledge, but all birds do not fly past at twenty yards. A big bird swings down upon him and he thinks it very close, but the usual lead fails to cut a feather. His gun swung to the very spot he wished, he pulled in exact time, the flight of the fowl never wavered from a straight line, and yet he missed. Neither would he ever have known why except for a friend standing near who asked him where he had held and how far off he considered the bird to be. His reply was twenty-five yards and he had held five feet in front of the old drake. He was skeptical when told that the fowl was not less than forty-five yards distant and that he should have aimed from eight to ten feet in front of it instead of five.

All this will be dwelt upon later. Here I wish merely to impress upon the reader that the difficulties of wing-shooting lie almost entirely in the inability of the gunner to detect the cause of error. Should he ascribe the trouble to one thing and it proves to be something else, he will surely go farther astray. There is no such thing as profiting by our mistakes unless we know what those mistakes are. A bird might be missed by giving it too much lead while the shooter, conclud-

WING-SHOOTING PROBLEMS IT

ing he had not led enough, would get farther and farther out with every succeeding miss.

Very likely the result of a perfect estimate of distance, angle, and speed is thrown away by the novice keeping poor time, swinging too fast or too slow, with a consequent placing of the charge elsewhere than where he thinks he did. Under such circumstances the most natural and easiest thing to do is to change the point of aim with the inevitable additional misses that are as certain to follow as that two wrongs do not make a right.

A false diagnosis leads to the novice swallowing many bitter and useless doses. It is like a hunter hurrying to camp but on the wrong road, the faster he walks the farther off he gets ; he ought to learn the right road by traveling it often enough.

Some of the problems of wing-shooting are much more complex than any of the foregoing. It took the writer a good ten years of steady practice to solve one, and he thinks well of his work at that.

Through years of shooting I was considerably exercised by the fact that I missed easy shots, generally quail going straight away or gently quartering — shots that should have been as easy as falling off a log. Very often this happened when I was perfectly cool and collected, covering mj target with such ease and certainty that missing should have oeen impossible. By and by, from being told by companions and seeing the shot strike the water or sand, I learned that the trouble was shooting low. There was no doubt that I missed by shooting under, but I couldn't see why when the bird had been quivering along just above the muzzle of my gun as it had a thousand times before when killed. One thing was obvious; I only lost the birds that I felt sure of killing, those that were covered with deliberate, calculating accuracy.

That being the case, I had only to quicken time, or shoot a trifle more recklessly to kill^ and this I could do. However, this did not satisfy me ; I wished to know reasons for the miss as the only sure means of preventing its recurrence. My first conclusion was that with deliberate %hots I flinched and dropped the muzzle without knowing it. This satisfied me in a way, though I worried because I never could detect the flinching or discover means of preventing it. Then I solved the mystery though I still miss the birds sometimes.

Here is the solution which applied in my case and might or might not in others. At the exact instant when an experienced shot expects his weapon to be discharged, he unconsciously leans forward to catch the recoil which would otherwise throw him backward out of balance, preventing tlie quick delivery of his second barrel. Now suppose the weapon misses fire, there being no recoil to restore the equilibrium of the body, it continues forward and if the gunner is standing in a light duck boat he may be pitched out. On firm ground . the muscles of the feet will quickly restore him to position, but he will find his gun pointing well beneath the target.

In a minor degree all this happened to me when I pulled deliberately. Leaning forward to catch the kick which did not come at the anticipated time because of slow pulling, down went the muzzle of my gun enough to insure a miss. Of course leaning forward might not depress the muzzle of the gun if you did it consciously, but not one shooter in a thousand knows that he does it, and considerable poor work can be attributed to this cause.

Close observation, experience, and practice will take you safely over the road to the expert wingshot's camp, and the farther you travel the smoother the path becomes — only do not take the wrong trail or walk in a circle, neither trust anyone else to more than point the direction you ought to go.

In an entire day's field shooting no two shots may be alike; indeed it is a question if two shots are ever exactly similar in live bird shooting. One bird is driving, another is coming in; this little chap quarters with a rising flight, and the next is dropping like a bullet; the snipe dodges, while the mallard swerves and towers; now a wary old pintail beats up against the wind and hovers over the decoys, but forty yards beyond a blue wing teal whistles down the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. No man ever lived or ever will live that could kill them all, which is as it should be.

I can remember the time when I could recall every kill made during an entire season and where I held for the shot. That time will never come to me again. The very best sport is enjoyed only by the ambitious novice who is just beginning to learn. Youth, a good gun, and the brown birds rising in the rag weed field need ask no odds of king or millionaire. What matter if in five only one solved problem has deadly results, life is before the boy and the skill that is surely coming to every man who loves the gun.

Chapter II

WING-SHOOTING is of comparatively modern origin, A hundred years ago very few birds were killed awing, and those with a long-barreled old flintlock that usually had double sights and was fired with what we should consider a slow, pottering aim. Wing-shooting really dates from the invention of percussion caps in a practical form, about 1830, and the present style of shotgun shooting is of very modern origin.

Naturally the rifle method of aiming had its influence for a good many years, a full half century in fact, long after the invention of breech-loading guns. The old manner of shooting a shotgun was to close one eye and squint low over the breech, theoretically never pulling trigger until the front bead was accurately aligned upon the target. Many an old veteran still speaks learnedly of " drawing a bead " on the game. The author's wing-shooting career has been connected with the

«2 WING AND THAP-SHOOTING

breechloader only, yet in his first lessons, given by his father, the necessity of closing one eye if any accuracy of aim were to be attained was strongly emphasized.

In truth the primer of gun-firing was to learn to close one eye instantly and invariably, preparatory to aiming, and the second principle was not to shut them both before pulling the trigger. If in those days any man had discovered that he could kill game by simply pointing his gun without closing his eye or seeing a sight, he would never have had courage enough openly to advocate such a system of gun aiming.

Doubtless the coming of nitro powder has had much to do with the development of our present slap-bang fashion of shotgun shooting, yet due credit should be given to Doctor Carver who is properly entitled to be called the father of modern wing-shooting. Probably no less wonderful shot than he could have had influence enough to have changed a style of shotgun aiming that was once universal.

The " one eye " method of sighting a shotgun is not altogether obsolete yet. Many a veteran sportsman has shot long and successfully in this way and will not change ; neither is there good reason why he should, for it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, nor does he learn them quite so well as he knew the old. Nevertheless it is true that few or no expert shots ever close an eye in aiming to-day, though some of them in effect sight exactly the same as though they did. The writer has followed the Carver scheme of gun pointing more years than he can remember, and among all his friends who shoot well, especially in the uplands, there are none who have any other method of aiming.

Many who point a gun without regard to sight or rib do it unconsciously. As an example a shooting companion of mine who found difficulty in connecting with crossing birds concluded that a patent sight with three beads would assist him greatly. With a bird passing to the left he would use the right bead, and he figured to a mathematical nicety just how far ahead that would throw his charge. After a shot of the kind that usually troubled him, which he missed exactly as before, I asked him where he had held that off bead. He admitted blankly that he never had seen it, and neither could he remember ever seeing one of those three beads afterward when making a quick shot though they were big enough to cover a balloon. He soon threw the patent sight aside as being theoretically fine but practically worthless.

24 WING AND TRAP-SHOOTING One Eye Sighting

One eye sighting is distinctly slow and is not adapted to killing game that in the nature of its flight is either imperfectly outlined or rapidly gets beyond range. One eye aiming implies that the instant the gun comes to the shoulder there shall be a pause in its movement while the eye adjusts itself to the sight, or, as it is called, finds it. This focusing the eye upon the sight necessarily dims the vision of the target, for there is no such thing as the human eye focusing perfectly both upon the gun sight and the game. Notwithstanding this the target can be seen, even though it appear shadowy, and the sight placed upon it very accurately; indeed, if the game were not moving, or the shot was directed straight at it, it could be placed with greater precision than in any other way. But it occurs not infrequently that after you have paused to find the sight, the opportunity is gone, either the game cannot be seen again or not quickly enough to cover it before it escapes.

Further, the principle involved in the one eye use of gunsights is that if they do not align perfectly with the target on the first attempt, withhold your fire and never pull trigger until sure of your aim. Naturally this theory of obtaining a second and surer sight when needful is rarely put in practice in wing-shooting, and if it were the result would be a pottering inefficiency that would last through life. The gun-pointing shot doesn't do things that way, since nothing short of a house intervening would prevent his shooting exactly on time.

Finding the sights, whether with one or both eyes open, and putting the focused bead upon the target is beyond question the most accurate way of aiming a gun, as witness that it has been adopted by all riflemen who are obliged to do fine holding. The very finest sighting that I have ever seen done was accomplished with a telescope having a big leather blinder attached to the rear which entirely covered the left eye, thus permitting it to remain wide open without seeing anything. Using a sight of this kind shots can be called within one inch at two hundred yards. This means that at shotgun range of forty yards, a sighting error of one-fifth of an inch could be detected ; the absurdity of such close sighting can be noted by recalling that a shotgun pattern covers at least thirty inches at the distance.

What is required in wing-shooting is no such hair-splitting aim, but that we cover the target with the utmost dispatch and pull on the instant — not a hundredth of a second sooner or later.

Indeed pulling a hundredth of a second too soon or the hundredth of a second too late will make more difference as to where our shot charge lands than any variation that can occur with the finest sight or no sight at all.

While I am opposed on principle to the novice learning to sight a shotgun with one eye shut or both eyes open, in fact to sighting the arm at all, believing that so taught he can never become a first rate performer on all sorts of game, yet I have seen so much excellent work in wildfowl shooting by men who closed one eye or who focused on the sight that I hesitate to say it is not an effective style of firing at ducks or any bird of large size that is habitually outlined against the sky. In shooting of this kind the game is often seen while approaching and allowance can be made for the time required to focus on the sights; neither is it requisite that the gun be handled with such rapidity as in ordinary upland work.

Success with wildfowl is more due to correct estimates of distance and speed of flight than to manner of aiming, and since there is never any question of being able to see the bird, even with half an eye, it is probable that any system of sighting or pointing the gun can be made about equally effective.

Binocular Shooting — Two-Eye Aiming

Two-eye aiming, or binocular shooting, has all the advantages of closing one eye even for rifle firing while a distinctly clearer view of the target is obtained and distances can be estimated more positively. All of us who were taught to close one eye can well remember that the instant we blinded the left eye to find the sight, the bird at once appeared to be a great deal farther away. I can recall that more than once when a boy I had shut the left eye and then decided that the quail was out of range, after which I opened both eyes and found it still well within reach.

It is no doubt true that with only one eye a gunner could finally learn to judge distances as well as though he had the use of both, but when from birth to age he uses both eyes to see and estimate distances a million times to where he does once with an eye shut, it reasonably follows that he will do better work in the style in which he has been trained, even though that training were not with a gun. Therefore we can take it as a simple statement of fact that with both eyes open we can the most accurately estimate the distance that game is from us, the speed of its flight, and the lead necessary in order to kill. Moreover we can secure equally fine sight with both

^8 eyes open, either with shotgun or rifle, provided one eye alone governs the line of sight or is focused upon the sights. This eye is then said to be the master eye for the reason that the brain

Gun-Pointing — With Both Eyes Open

pays attention only to what this eye is doing. The other eye sees just the same, but of its vision the brain fails to keep any record.

Ordinarily it is supposed that the master eye has the stronger vision, which entitles it to govern, but this does not follow by any means. In shooting from the right shoulder the right eye controls, not because its strength is greater, but for the simple reason that the brain has been trained to register only what this eye sees. It may be the stronger eye or it may not, nor would this make much difference unless its vision were extremely defective while that of the other was normal. Ninety-nine times in a hundred one eye governs the line of sight entirely because it has been trained to do this and for no other reason.

The usual manner of testing the eyes for shooting is to hold up an object a proper distance from them and align it with a point beyond while keeping both eyes open. Now close the left eye and if the alignment doesn't change, the right eye governs, but if on shutting the left eye the line of aim swings to the left the wrong optic has been in control, and the student will have to begin training the right eye to assume the mastery or learn to shoot from the left shoulder. Either can be done, but it is much simpler and easier as a rule to put the brain to making its records from the proper eye. It might be noted, in passing, that in ease of an experienced shot no eye tests are necessary, for the one with which he has been accustomed to sighting is certain to govern.

The style of aiming with both eyes open may be exactly the same as with one closed; that is, the gun is brought up and there is a slight pause long enough for the eye to find the front sight which is then placed upon the point of aim. The focusing of the eye upon the front sight, however, will probably not be so sharp as with the left eye shut, with the consequence that the vision of the game will be less dimmed. The man accustomed to aiming with one eye closed may find it best to teach himself to shoot with both eyes open while still focusing upon the sight after his acquired fashion. However, this is not the favorite or most effective mode of two-eye aiming. Modern wing shots have pronounced in favor of the

Caevee Method of Gun Pointing

While this style of shotgun aiming is of modern origin, in fact originated with Doctor Carver, yet it is the oldest of all systems of directing a missile. It was used by the rock slingers, the spear throwers, the dart casters, and was brought to the greatest perfection by the long-bowmen. Shooting in this fashion an Indian will drive a penny from between a split stick with half his shots at fifty feet, or strike a running deer at three hundred, and doubtless the Anglo-Saxon bowmen were much better shots than any Indian.

Gun pointing was the recognized manner of aiming of all our western " bad men " and gun fighters whose gun play was entirely too rapid to be directed by any description of gun sights. In combined quickness and accuracy, from foot or horseback, the work of these men has never been equaled, but their system of shooting is now becoming a lost art because it was not found the best adapted to target practice. Perhaps in course of time gun pointing will hold sway in short range shooting with every variety of firearm, for the military tendency at present is to encourage rapidity of fire.

Probably it was from the western gun-fighter that Doctor Carver, a western man, got his idea of the correct way of sighting a shotgun. If the man with the six-shooter could hit nickels thrown into the air, rabbits running, a man on a galloping horse while himself mounted, or swing his weapon on a foe with such rapidity that the eye could not follow the movements, then why couldn't a man with a shotgun place its thirty inch pattern upon a flying bird without glueing his eye to any sights? Carver believed that it could be done, and he showed the skeptical until everybody was ready to go away and do likewise.