The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-08-11
Pistol Shooting.
San Francisco Examiner.

l San Francisco Examiner.
 During the last two years a great advance has been made in fine shoot ing with the revolver, and interest in the amusement has been awakened in nearly all of the large cities of the country. Makers of pistols and ann intuition hove responded to the de- mand for more accurate work, and several new models of revolvers have been produced within a year. Finer sights, careful chambering and smoother lock mechanism are the principal improvements.
 In the ordinary cheap revolver the trigger pull is heavy and uneven, and often there is drag or creep at the end of the pull, which disturbs fine aim and makes the exact instant of discharge an uncertain quantity. A hair trigger is not exquisite for fine shooting, but the trigger-pull must be smooth and the release quick and sharp.
 Having procured perfect weapon, the shooter must look to his ammuni- tion, which is of equal importance. Factory pistol cartridges are next to good for nothing, because they are loaded without any regard for pro- portion of powder and lead. The short P and short 38-calibers are about right, but the other sizes are badly loaded and make g. pistol kick more than is necessary.
 Gunmakers and marksmen thought for many years that the way to secure accuracy in rifled arms was to make the grooves very deep and use a ball large enough to fill the grooves. Be- lieving in this theory, pistolmakers chambered their cylinders larger than the barrels, and ammunition-makers provided bullets forty -one hundredths of an inch in diameter for barrels only forty hundredths in bore. English makers used even larger bullets, and the British service revolver to-day is about as unscientifc and bungling a weapon as could be devised. A heavy charge of powder IS required to force the ball through the barrel, and the consequences are waste of powder and great recoil. The bullet is smashed out of shape before it leaves the barrel, and its flight is therefore inaccurate.
 A series of careful experiments proved that the best results could be obtained by using barrels in which the rifling is scarcely percepti- ble to the eye and bullets which can be pushed easily through the barrel with stick, fitting just tight ano,7nb 4o ha ol;nbtlx ,IoorLaI bx, tho riiing. From seven to ten grains of fine, quick burning powder are enough for shooting up to thirty yards. A round bullet, driven by such charge, will cut clean, sharply defined hole in paper target.
 Some gun- fighters use the thumb only in cooking and firing. They either tie the trigger back to the guard, so as to throw it out of con- nection with the hammer, or remove it entirely. They file down the roughened cap of the hammer and make it smooth, so that it will slip readily from under the thumb. In firing they pull the hammer back and let it slip when they have taken aim. Wild Bill has two guns fixed that way, and he often would sit with one in each hand, unloaded, and play a tattoo with the hammers or keep time to a waltz.
 The best way to take aim with a pistol IS to fix the gaze upon the mark and bring the weapon up until the sights come in line. In that way no obstruction comes between the eye and the target. In bringing the pis- tol down to the level of the eye from above the shoulder, the arm, hand and weapon come successively be- tween the eye and the mark, and the aim must be corrected after all three have passed below the line ot sight. Yet some good marksmen always shoot the latter style. They throw the weapon back over the shouler to cock, and bring it forward and down. ward with something like the action of throwing stone.