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896 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
One of the Millions of Faulty Positions
This is artificial and unsatisfactory; it looks as though thr
person using it cared more for "form" than results—and
results usually bear out this condemnation.
sight, instead of saying vaguely that the
shot went high left which may mean
more or less high and more or less left.
Alas, when your hammer fell, the
front sight instead of staying calmly in
its position at six o'clock, touching the
bull, gave a little jump, and as the clickcame
you noted that it leaped up to one
o'clock, above the bull, and a bit to
the right.
Now is the time to stop and talk it
over seriously.
The final trigger pull of the rifle is
the one stumbling block of the neophyte
rifleman. Nine-tenths of all puffs of
wind, changes of light, poor ammunition,
inaccurate rifle and prevaricating
marking boy at the target, are nothing
more than that fatal little tenth of a
second when the hammer of the rifle
falls on the firing pin. It boots not that
you have held the rifle like unto
a rock for ten minutes previous
to the release of the hammer, it
boots not that you held the rifle
like a machine rest to within a
tenth of a second of the time the
trigger slipped back
and the hammer fell.
If you didn't hold the
rifle motionless, undisturbed in
the slightest by the fact that you
felt the trigger slip, and if the
rifle was moved by anything save
the recoil of the cartridge, then
you're hopeless until you quit
that most fatal habit—letting go just as
the trigger comes back. As the rifleman
says, "you quit holding, and pulled the
trigger".
You must hold that rifle steadily and
undisturbed by the fall of the hammer
or striker, wherefore the extreme value
of the practice with the empty rifle, and
then with the humble .22, the recoil of
which won't serve to cover up your
trigger squeezing faults. Were you
shooting full service loads, the kick of
the gun would have covered up that
jump of the front sight from the fall of
the hammer—really from your own failure
to continue to hold the rifle—and
you'd be all at sea and go to fussing
around and blaming the rifle and ammunition
or changing your sights.
Make yourself, from the very first
snap of the hammer of the empty rifle.
first tell yourself or your instructor
where the front sight was when the
hammer fell and whether or not it
moved; second, release that trigger
without affecting in the slightest your
calm, steady aim. Get in the habit of
holding the rifle motionless three or four
seconds after the hammer falls, and
never blink the eye or take it off the
front sight. This will help you avoid
that most common habit and that most
fatal habit of what the rifleman knows
(Continued on page 940)