The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1900-11-02
GOOD PISTOL SHOTS.
Some Men Endowed with the Fa.
Guilty of Workmanship.
Shooting by Sense of Direction Is the
Method of Many Good Marks
men-SOme Notable Ex-
ampIes.

ampless
"Yes, I've heard good many stories
about hip shooting" said a veteran
hunter of this city, relates the New
| Orleans Times-Democrat, "but l never
saw but one man who protested to be
able to do the trick. He was a physi.
clan named Webster, who came from
somewhere near Charleston, S. c. I
hunted with him twice at Asheville,
and on each occasion he gave some re.
markable exhibitions of his skill. He
used an old-fashioned breech-loader, ~.
bore, and when he shot from the hip
he grasped the stock just behind the
hammer with his right.hand, and held
the barrel firmly in his left some eight
or nine inches below the muzzle. The
fiat of the stock was pressed against
his right side at the top of the hip bone
and a little to the front, SO he did not
face the object he shot at, but had it
quartering on his left. lam sure about
these details because l watched him
particularly.
"The first thing I saw him knock over
was a rabbit, which was Looping across
a plowed field. He steadied the gun
for an instant, with a gesture that re-
minded me somewhat of a man hold
ing billiard cue, and then blazed away.
The rabbit dropped. Afterward 1 saw
him shoot lark on the wing and two
other birds sitting. He afterward
missed couple of wing shots, but /
saw enough to convince me that there
was no accident about his first work.
He didn't pretend to shoot as well from
the hip as from the shoulder, and adj
mitted frankly that he couldn't bring
down difficult game, such, for instance,
as snipe. L can hit about three out of
five,' he said, when pick my own con-
ditions,' and believe he could do even
better
when I asked him how he did 10
he laughed There is no mystery about
hip shooting, he said, and it is great
mistake to suppose it necessary to look
over the sights in order to hit things.
How does an archer bring down flying
birds? He doesn't look along the ar
row. he shoots by sense of direction,
and l do the same thing with a gun. It
isn't everybody who possesses this
sense of direction, he added, but those
who have it-perhaps one out of three
can learn hip shooting without diff.
Guilty"
81 believe there is a good deal in the
Standardization theory said an
other sportsman in the group. 81 lived
in the west five or six years and know
for certainty that nearly all the best
off-hand pistol shots among the cow
boys fred without aiming-I mean
without sighting in the usual manner
along the barrel. They would look at
the target instead of the weapon, and
would generally give their pistols
slight forward thrust before pulling
the trigger 1t was done on the instant,
and those who were clever at it could
be fairly confident of hitting a mark
the size of mans hat at, say, so PAGES.
None of them claimed to be able to
shoot as accurately that way as he
could by sighting, but it was pretty
trick, all the same, and very valuable
n a sudden melee.
"One of the best off-hand shots I
ever knew was a COW puncher named
Bill Rainey. He attributed his skill to
The habit of laying his index finger
along the barrel of his six-shooter. I
don't pint the gum he said; I just
pint my finger and then let her go
Iallagher' There was probably more
n that practice than Bill himself sus-
Dected. We are accumtomed from in
fancy to pointing at things we desire
% indicate, and no doubt unconscious
y cultivate the very sense of direc-
ion of which you were speaking few
ago. 1 have seen Rainey
mock over an oyster can five times
,ut of six at distance of over so feet
without doing a particle of sighting,
md firing almost as quickly as he could
,ull the trigger. One of his pet tricks
vas to wheel and fire, and the accu-
acy with which he could plant bull
ct while his body was still turning was
One thing l noticed in par
ocular in regard to shooting without
al1ing aim along the barrel was that
must be done very quickly or the
Juliet is almost certain to fly wide of
IS mark. If there is. any hesitation or
tempt to calculate the direction it is
afe to wager on a miss. The cowboys
rho were most expert at this style
eemed to find their target by a sort of
lstinct and pulled the trigger the mo-
lent the arm was fully extended.
side from Bill Rainey and his index
niger theory, l never encountered any
ody who was able to throw any light
q the performance. When questioned
he COW punchers would look bewil-
cred and say there was a kind of
mack about it, and beyond that were
gidently at sea themselves"