href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@41335@[email protected]#CHAPTER_IX" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">IX.—

Automatic Pistol Shooting

CHAPTER I

THE AUTOMATIC PISTOL

This is the pistol of the future and the revolver has now to give place to it, just as the horse has to give place to the automobile for traction purposes.

Still, like the horse, the revolver seems still to have before it a future for certain purposes, and one uses a revolver where one would not care to use an automatic pistol.

The superiority of the revolver consists in its being adaptable to reduced charges and also in its being less complicated and less apt to be discharged accidentally by an ignorant person.

At one time, the revolver was considered the most dangerous fire-arm in existence, but the automatic far surpasses it in this respect. When the chambers of a revolver are emptied, it is harmless; but when the magazine is taken out, after an automatic pistol has been charged, one cartridge still remains in the chamber. This has been the cause of several accidents; a man thinks the pistol is safe after he has extracted the magazine.

The automatic pistol is barred from gallery shooting by the fact that the mechanism is operated by the recoil from a full-charge cartridge only, and this full charge makes too much noise.

I do not advise the purchase of any automatic pistol which does not have at least one safety bolt and which does not have also an external hammer.

There are two makes which, from personal experience, I can recommend; one is the Colt .45 which has been adopted by the United States Government for army and navy purposes. This has a grip at the proper angle for shooting. Hardly any other automatic pistol is properly designed in this respect, their grips being too much at a right angle, so that the barrel tends to point too high, this creating a strain on the wrist, since the wrist must be held in an unnatural position.

The Colt automatic of the U. S. Army pattern has a stock as pleasant to aim with as a duelling pistol.

Next, it has a hammer which can be put to full and half cock, just like that of an ordinary pistol or revolver.

It has, besides, two safety appliances; one a slide which can be moved with the thumb just before firing, like the safety bolt of a shotgun, the other a safety bolt which is pressed by the palm of the hand in the act of squeezing the trigger, like that of the Smith & Wesson safety revolver, later described.

The pistol is, therefore, as “fool-proof” as it seems possible to make it, but yet there is the danger of a cartridge being left in the chamber when the