with a shot, return to the snapping-empty-cartridge practice. This latter is good practice, even when you become a skilled shot.

Place the box of cartridges beside, and to the right of, the pistol. Use only a very small charge (gallery ammunition for choice) at first, as nothing puts a beginner off so much as the fear of recoil. Stand behind the table, the pistol being between you and the target, and take the pistol by its stock in the right hand. Do not turn the muzzle to the left, but straight out towards the target. Put it in your left hand and load it. This procedure varies with different makes of revolvers; with the Smith & Wesson, Russian, and Winans models, you lift the catch with your left thumb and press the barrel down with the same hand till it (the barrel) is perpendicular, pointing to the ground. But whatever the mechanism, when the pistol is open for loading, the barrel should be pointing downwards, yet in line for the target.

If a cartridge projects too much, remove it, as it is dangerous and may explode prematurely from friction against the breech of the revolver. In loading, of course have the pistol at half-, not full-cock. Close it by elevating the breech with the right hand, not by raising the barrel with the left, as in the latter case the cartridges may drop out. This rule applies also to the hand ejecting revolvers. See that the snap, or other fastening, is properly closed. If your shot goes wide of the bull, be sure, before you alter your aim for the next shot, whether it is not your “squeeze-off” which is wrong.

A practised shot can correct the shooting of his pistol by “aiming-off” enough to rectify any error in sights. But the beginner had better not attempt this: he will find enough to do in trying to hold straight under the bull.

Do not mind if your score does not “count” much; those who do not understand shooting judge the goodness of a score by how much it counts, or by how many shots are in or near the bull’s-eye. In reality, it is the group which constitutes a good score. One score may consist of the highest possible,—forty-two points (all six shots bull’s-eyes),—and another may only count twelve points; and yet the latter may be far the better “shoot.”

I will explain: In the first case, the shots may be “all round” the bull, “nicking” the edges; they would require, therefore, a circle of more than four inches (on the target you are at present shooting at) to cover them. The other score may consist of all six bullet-holes cutting into each other at an extreme edge of the target, but making a group which could be covered with a postage-stamp. The first “shoot” is a wild, bad score for ten yards’ range at a four-inch bull, although it counts the highest possible in conventional scoring. The other is a magnificent shoot, that any one might be proud of; the fact of its being up in the corner merely showing that the sights were wrong, not the shooter’s “holding.” A few touches of the file, or knocking sideways the hind sight, will put this error right. Never mind, therefore, about scoring many points; merely shoot for group. You will gradually find your groups getting smaller and smaller as you improve; it is then merely a matter of filing to get good scoring.

As your four-inch bull’s-eye is too large for real shooting at ten yards, you must remember that the sighting of the pistol should put the bullets one inch only into this size bull at “VI o’clock,” not into the middle of it. The reason is that, practically, the trajectory of a pistol is the same at twenty as at ten yards; and as the English regulation bull at twenty yards is two inches, you want the twenty-yards sighted pistol to put the shots into the centre of the two-inch bull when you aim at the bottom edge. In other words, you want it to shoot an inch higher than your aim at that distance. Therefore, if with your four-inch bull, aiming at the bottom edge, you go into the bull one inch up, it means a central bull’s-eye shot on a two-inch bull. The reason I recommend aiming at the bottom of the bull’s-eye instead of at the middle of it is that if you try to put a black bead in the middle of a black bull’s-eye, you cannot see either properly; if you whiten the bead of the fore sight, then you cannot see it clearly against the white of the target in “coming up” to a bull. Nobody can hold absolutely steady on the “bull” for more than a fraction of a second; you have to “come up” from below and “squeeze off” as you get your sights aligned.

It is best to have your cleaning appliances on the table, or otherwise handy, when shooting, and every now and again to have a look through the barrel and a wipe-out; you might otherwise be inclined to attribute to bad shooting what may be caused by leading or hard fouling in the barrel. I have a little cupboard under my table with a lock and key, in which I keep my cleaning apparatus, cartridges, etc. (but not the pistol), to save the trouble of carrying them to the range.

Always clean a pistol as soon after shooting as possible, and clean very thoroughly.

For real work, I prefer a pistol when it is half worn out, as everything then works smoothly and there is less danger of jambing. Rust in the rifling may entirely spoil accuracy, as, if you work it off, the bore gets enlarged and the bullets “strip.” I never like to compete with a perfectly new pistol; all pistols have their peculiarities, and it is necessary to get used to one, to “break it in,” before trusting it to obey one’s slightest hint.

It is sometimes useful to be able to shoot with the left hand; as, for instance, if the right hand is disabled, the right arm held, etc., and for an officer with a sword in his right hand. If the novice has resolution enough to divide his practising, from the beginning, between both hands, he will be able to shoot nearly as well with his “left” hand as with his right. I have put quotation marks round “left” as I mean by this the hand not usually employed; a left-handed man’s right hand being in this sense his “left.”

I have also noticed that a left-handed man can shoot more evenly with both hands; that is to say, he is not much better or worse with either hand, not being so helpless with his right hand as a normally handed man is with his left. In all the directions for shooting, for left-handed work merely change “right leg” to “left leg”; “right arm” to “left arm,” etc.