Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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Italy has the credit of the invention of the pistol, which came into being soon after the designing of the wheel-lock and the rifling of barrels. Caminelleo Vitelli of Pistoia made the first about 1540. It was in the manufacture of these small weapons that gun-makers from this date to the beginning of the nineteenth century excelled. The workmanship was generally of a high order, and the ornamentation, especially of some of the German specimens, was extremely artistic.

Moreover, during the flint and steel age, some double-barrelled pistols were built with two locks and only one trigger. Although these weapons worked quite perfectly, it must not be assumed that the makers of these pistols could have made a double shoulder gun to work satisfactorily with but one trigger. That difficulty was overcome at the end of the nineteenth century; but even then the clever designers had not discovered exactly what the former trouble was, and it was freely stated in a way that is now known to have been wrong. Indeed, the author was the first to discover the real reason for the involuntary second pull and double discharge. As this phenomenon did not occur in pistols, but did so in shoulder weapons, it apparently seemed easy to trace the cause. Very early in the nineteenth century, dozens, and since then hundreds, of designers and patentees have set out with the announcement that they had discovered the true cause of the trouble, and met it with a patent. As the latter were always badly constructed, it may be assumed that the patentees were wrong in their diagnosis. As a matter of fact, they were, as was proved when the author published the true cause of involuntary pull in The County Gentleman, and for a time had to meet alone the hostile criticism of most of the gun trade, the members of which now admit the truth of those criticised statements. Although the true reason must be dealt with under the heading of single-trigger guns and rifles, it may be briefly stated that the success of the single-trigger double-barrelled pistol was not because of its more feeble explosion, as was supposed, but because the recoil continues long enough to allow the will of the shooter to gain command of his muscular finger action, before the check to recoil occurs. Whereas, with the shoulder gun, the finger which has let off the first lock flies back as the trigger is carried from it by recoil, and this sustained muscular action cannot be stopped by the will as quickly as the gun recoil is lessened by the shoulder. Consequently, we involuntarily give a second pressure to the trigger, without knowing that we have ceased giving a first. This want of perception of what we ourselves do is caused partly by quickness of the recoil, and partly because the recoil relieves the pressure, and our wills have nothing to do with the matter. Or, to be more correct, we pull off the trigger once intentionally, but are unable to cease pulling when the trigger has given way. Consequently we unconsciously follow up the trigger as it jumps back in recoil, catch up with it, and involuntarily pull it again without knowing that we have let go, or had the trigger momentarily snatched from us.