Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES AND LORD FARQUHAR RIDING TO THE BUTTS ON THE BOLTON ABBEY MOORS, 1906

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Mr. Walter Winans has expressed the opinion that the better a shooter grows at the rifle targets the worse he becomes at moving objects with the rifle and gun. But it is probable that all good shooting at moving objects is based upon a beginning of steady alignments. Those who believe that shooting at flying game is to be well learnt before still objects can be accomplished seem to the author to neglect the first principles, and would run before they can walk. There is this to be considered: that one often does get, even in grouse and partridge driving, marks that are exactly equivalent to still objects. That is to say, they are coming perfectly straight at the gun. Is one to let them off without shooting quite straight because one has been taught not to align? There is no doubt the best shots do align for the very fastest crossing game if there is time to do it; and the belief of the author is that a man cannot be really quite first-rate unless he can shoot in every style as occasion requires. That is to say, he will be able upon occasion, when circumstances and time admit of but a brief sight of a crossing bird between the branches of fir trees, to throw his gun ahead to a point, as he thinks, and tries to do, without swing, and will be able to kill his game. The author has occasionally risen to such success himself, but only when he has not been trying to do it, but has grown up to it, out of the more certain method of consciously swinging past the bird to a point in space ahead, and pulling trigger as the alignment was getting to the spot, and without checking the gun. In the first-named style of shooting, when the kill comes off, there is probably always swing, by reason of the gun being put up from a position pointing much behind the bird, so that the swing occurs as the gun is going home to the shoulder, and it is not checked when the trigger is pulled, simply because no swing can be checked instantly. By this method of finding the place and shooting at it, the author can manage rabbits jumping across rides—that is, when he manages to kill them at all; but he prefers to handle winged game by the slower and surer method, which, however, he would abandon for the better style if he could. But the ability to be quick in this better style is not his for a permanency, it only comes sometimes, when there is not time to take game with a conscious swing of the gun. The late Mr. A. Stuart Wortley, who was one of the best game-driving shots of his time, has told us in one of his books that he could not hit anything until he started to shut one eye and align. Later, he thought first aiming at a bird, and then swinging forward of it, was slow, and making two operations of one. Lord Walsingham has assented to a description of shooting in which the “racing” of the bird with the gun was the principal feature, and Lord de Grey has been watched to put his gun up, try to get on, and, failing, take it down without shooting; all of which tends to show that alignment and swing are the two necessary factors in shooting, not necessarily alignment of the game, but generally of a moving point at the end of a space in front of the game. Mr. F. E. R. Fryer is very clear about the advantages of swing, and also allowance in front. As he is as quick a shot as ever was deliberate, and more deadly than those in a hurry, there can be no better proof that swing itself is not necessarily accompanied by any delay. But there are two or more kinds of swing, and it does not necessarily mean what Mr. Stuart Wortley implied. It is not always, or often possibly, a jerk after getting on the game, neither is it a following round of the game, but in its best form it is probably mostly done before the gun touches the shoulder, and is not stopped by contact with the shoulder, or by pulling the trigger. It is not supposed that those who can sometimes bring off this ideal style—which, in intention, is finding the right place in front of the game to shoot at—always find this style possible to them. At least, not invariably possible for very high and very fast game; and the author believes that the only way to it for a novice is to begin by aligning, go on by aligning, and end by aligning; for that is really what this ideal style of shooting amounts to. It is aligning a spot, which bears no mark, ahead of game, and doing it as the gun comes home to the shoulder, and with a double movement, while it swings in the direction the game is going. That is to say, it is the quickest and most accurate alignment of all. That is the outcome of all the author has been able to learn of the methods of crack shots, confirmed by his own longer but smaller experience with the shot gun.