< Previous8SHOOTING T O LIVE force, consistently trained in the methods of this book, has to its credit in twelve and a half years no l e s s t h a n 6 6 6 a r m e d e n c o u n t e r s w i t h c r i m i n a l s . T h e following table, referring only to encounters m which pistols were used by the police, gives the r e s u l t s : — Killed . Wo u n d e d Police. ■ C r i m i n a l s . 42 260 ICQ 193 WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKCHAPTER II CHOOSING A PIST OL We open this chapter with a warning. Without an adequate knowledge of its use, there can be few things so purposeless and dangerous as a pistol. Adequate Imowledge conies only from competent instruction. If you have never received such instruction and are not prepared to do so, do not buy a pistol, or if you own one already, surrender it to the police. That wiU help to lighten the bm'den o f t h e i r c a r e s . We shaU assume, however, that om readers are sufficiently interested to recognise that the possession of a pistol and efficiency in its use should go hand-in- hand. For them, the starting point in choosmg a pistol should be to buy the best they caii afford for the particular purpose in view. If a pistol is needed at aU it may be needed very badly indeed, and poor quality contributes nothing to either safety or peace of mind. The type of pistol to be chosen depends on the use to which it is to be put. A pistol that meets the needs of the detective or plain-clothes man, for instance, is not necessarily suitable for individual self-defence or for the uniformed service man. 9 WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UK10 SHOOTING T O LIVE Let us consider first the case of the detective or plain-clothes man. Here the weapon must he carried concealed and the wearer must be prepared for the quickest of quick draws and an instantaneous first shot, most probably at very close quarters. For that purpose, our own choice would be a cut-down revolver of heavy cahbre. Fig. 22 (6) on p. 89 -ivill show you better than any description what we mean. The weapon shown in the illustration started life as a -45 Colt New Service double-action revolver ■with a 5-mch barrel. The hammer spur has been cut off, the barrel length reduced to 2 inches, the front part of the trigger-guard has been removed, and grooves have been cut on the left side of the butt for the middle, third and little fingers. N o w f o r t h e r e a s o n s f o r t h i s d r a s t i c t r e a t m e n t . The big New Service revolver was chosen, prunarily, because the butt is of adequate size for the average man's hand to grasp in a hmry without any fumbling. Secondly, it is one of the most powerful weapons possible to obtain. The removal of the hammer spur and the smoothing over of what remains prevent the weapon from catching in the clothing when dra-wn in a ■violent hurry. As the hammer cannot be cocked by the thumb, the weapon has to be fired by a continuous pull on the trigger. With a sufficiency of practice, very fast shooting is rendered possible by this method. The shortening of the barrel is for speed in drawing. WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKCHOOSING A PIST OLII Obviously, it takes less time for 2 inches of baiTel to emerge from the holster than 5 inches. Contrary to what might be expected, there is no loss of accuracy, at any rate at the ranges at which the weaj)on is eustomarily used. The front part of the trigger-guard is removed in order to ehminate yet another possible cause of fumbhng when speed is the order of the day. The index-finger, no matter of what length or thickness, wraps itself in the proper position round the trigger without any impediment whatever. The grooves on the butt are there to ensure that the fingers grip the weapon m exactly the same way every time. Lest it be thought that we are the originators of this fearsome but eminently practical weapon, let us say at once that we are not. We owe the idea to a book by hlr J. H. Fitzgerald of the Colt's Patent Eke Ai'ms Manufactm'ing Company, and we gladly acknowledge our indebtedness. For a weapon to be carried openly by uniformed pohce and officers and men of the fighting services, we mrhesitatingly avow our preference for the automatic pistol. We shall treat it as a matter of personal preference and shall not abuse the supporters of the revolver for havmg other views. They are quite welcome to those views and we trust we may be allowed to retam ours. We shaU do so, in any case, rmtil we have good reason to a l t e r t h e m . We are familiar with the criticisms so often made WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UK12 SHOOTING T O LIVE of the automatic pistol. It is said that it is un- rchable, wUl often jamb -without provocation and certainly -will do so if mud, sand or water gets into the mechanism, and above all, it is not safe. There have been and possibly still are automatics like that, but one is not obliged to use them. We think it is only in Great Britain that the reliabUity of the automatic is still questioned. In the United States, while many people adhere to their preference for the revolver, we have never heard any doubts expressed in the matter, and it is worthy of note that both there and in Germany the automatic has long been in use as a standard weapon of the fighting services. There are in existence tjrpes of automatic pistols which are perfectly reUable. We base this statement on our actual experience of them over a period of twenty years. That experience includes an intimate knowledge of a ser-vice consisting of over six thousand men, most of them armed -with automatics and ha-vLng a surprising record of shooting affrays to their credit. If their weapons had been in any way unsatisfactory, twenty years should have sufficed to reveal the defects. But in alt that time nothing has occurred, either in the training of the service referred to or in the affrays in which.the service has taken part, to cast the slightest doubt on the rehabihty of the automatic, nor has there been a single instance of injury or death due to accident. Apart from the question of reUability, we have WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKCHOOSING A PIST OL 13 found that in comparison mth the revolver, the automatic offers the foUowmg advantages :— It is easier and quicker to recharge. It can be fired at far greater speed. I t i s e a s i e r t o s h o o t w i t h . The first point will be readily conceded but the other two may meet with opposition. It is probably the case that, for the first shot, the c u t - d o w n r e v o l v e r w h i c h h a s b e e n d e s c r i b e d i s fractionally quicker, but for subsequent shots the rate of fire of the automatic is much higher. A great deal of the recoil is absorbed in the operation of the mechanism and the trigger puU is much s h o r t e r a n d e a s i e r t h a n t h a t o f t h e r e v o l v e r. W e refer, of course, to the use of the double-action r e v o l v e r . H t h e h a m m e r w e r e t o b e c o c k e d f o r each shot, the rate of fire would be funereal by comparison. A skilled shot can do excellent work with the automatic even while making it sound like a machine-gun. It seems to foUow logically that the absorption of so much of the recoil, combined with the shorter trigger-pull, furnish theoretical proof of our conten tion that the automatic is easier to shoot wit^i. Practical proof of our contention is found in the training results. Critical observation has demon strated that a beginner can be trained in the use of the automatic in a third of the time and with the expenditure of less than half the ammunition WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UK14 SHOOTING T O LIVE required for the revolver. Furthermore, once trained in the use of the automatic, men appear definitely to need less subsequent practice to maintain the standard of shooting which has been attained in the course of training. We shall endeavour to throw more light on this subject in the chapters on training methods, and by way of preface to those chapters we must introduce and describe one more point in connection with the automatic, and this time we shall certainly be accused of heresy. We have an inveterate dislike of the profusion of safety devices with which aU automatic pistols are regularly equipped. We believe them to be the cause of more accidents than anything else. There are too many mstances on record of men being shot by accident either because the safety-catch was in the firing position when it ought not to have been or because it was in the safe position when that was the last thing to be desired. It is better, we think, to make the pistol permanently " unsafe" and then to devise such methods of handling it that there wfil be no accidents. One of the essentials of t h e i n s t r u c t i o n c o u r s e s w h i c h f o l l o w i s t h a t t h e pistols used shaU have their side safety-catches permanently pinned down'in the firing or " unsafe " position. How this matter is taken care of is described at length in Chapter m. Suffice it to say here that our imorthodox methods have been subjected to the acid test of many years of particularly WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKCHOOSING A PIST OL 15 e x a c t i n g c o n d i t i o n s a n d h a v e n o t b e e n f o u n d wanting. Having dealt with weapons suited to the detective or plain-clothes man and the uniformed services respectively, there remains the case of the private individual who mshes to carry a gun. In most countries it is illegal to do so and we have no Avish to encourage laAv-breaking. Nevertheless, there are s t i U s o m e c o u n t r i e s a n d c k c u m s t a n c e s i n w h i c h i t may be necessary and advisable for the private individual to go armed. Our recommendation to the private mdividual AA'ho can justifiably claun the right to carry a pistol is to buy an automatic and carry it in a shoulder holster such as is described in a succeeding chapter. We are not greatly in favour of small Aveapons. No small Aveapon can possess the strength and reliabfiity of a large one. The material and work manship may be as good but the margins of tolerance are too small to provide the absolute rehabfiity Avhich is so desirable. We recommend the automatic of good size and cahbre partly because we are assured of its rehabfiity and partly because of its shape. It does not " bulge " like the revolver and therefore is less noticeable (Ave are presuming that the private individual aauII carry his pistol concealed). Do not forget the obligation which you are under to make yourself thoroughly safe and efficient Avith the weapon of yom- choice. We are often asked Avhat is the best Aveapon to WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UK16SHOOTING T O LIVE have in the house for purely protective purposes. Most of the people who make this enquiry know little of fire-arms and say so quite frankly. It usually happens, too, that they have neither the intention .nor the opportunity to make themselves efficient with any kind of one-hand gun. If they are of this type, we are convinced that they would he better off with a good watch-dog, or even a poUce-whistle. There are, however, many men whose knowledge of fire arms is limited to the shot-gun, in the use of which they are both proficient and reliable. If this type of man insists on possessing some kuid of weapon " to keep in the house " we would recommend him to acquh-e a " sa-\vn-off" shot gun, with external hammers of the re-bounding type and barrels of about 18 inches in length. The ease with which it can be manipulated, the accuracy with which it can be aimed, either from the shoulder or the hip, and the spread of the shot charge combine to make it a much safer and more efficient weapon than any kind of one-hand gun in the use of Avhich he is not proficient. WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKCHAPTER III T R A I N I N G : P R E L I M I N A R Y C O U R S E ' FOR RECRUITS T h e c o u r s e o f i n s t r u c t i o n w h i c h f o l l o w s r e l a t e s primarily to the Colt automatic. The elimination by us of any use of the side safety catch necessitates the introduction of special features, and the system consequently differs considerably from that in use by the American forces, who are armed ivith this particular weapon. It might be thought that it would have been better to have devised separate courses of instruction for revolver and automatic respectively, but in actual fact that woidd have entailed going over the same ground tivice. The methods of mstruction given in this chapter apply equally to any pistol, revolver or automatic, if the reader ivill regard them from two aspects, mhkuig a careful distinction between the two. The first of those aspects is merely that of the mechanics of the Colt automatic and, with suitable modifications due to differences of design, applies equally to any other automatic. The second relates solely to the method of shooting and that, without any modification whatever, applies equally to any form of one-hand gun from the flint-lock onwards. The revolver user who wishes to make use of this 17 • B WWW.RIFLEMAN.ORG.UKNext >