METHODS

CHAPTER XVI

OF COMPARING MERIT OF GROUPS OF SHOTS-TARGETS WITH CIRCULAR RINGS-THE ELEMENT OF LUCK IN SHOOTING CARTON

IN testing the accuracy of rifles or ammunition, without respect to the correctness of the sighting, the method is to fire a series of shots with exactly similar aim. Each of these is then measured from any horizontal line drawn above or below them. The average distance of all the shots from this line is found, and a horizontal line drawn to represent it. Similarly, the shots are measured from a vertical line outside the group, and a vertical line drawn which represents their average distance from it. The intersection of this line and the horizontal line marks the 'point of mean impact.' Each shot is measured separately from it, and their total or average deviation represents the figure of merit of the whole group.

The method of marking and scoring shots varies a good deal in different countries, and admits of many modifications. It is commonly accepted that the most satisfactory system of marking is to measure the distance of each shot from the absolute centre of the target, and by adding up the total of the deviations of every shot in the series fired to arrive at a definite figure of merit. This method, however, gives no preference to a close group not actually on the central point aimed at, as against shots scattered round it. It is in vogue in America in reckoning the merit of very fine diagrams made under perfect conditions from a rest, and is called string measurement. To this kind of leisurely shooting it is suitable enough. In Switzerland and elsewhere upon the Continent a near approach to this system of marking is practised in some classes of competitions. One target, which

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is 1 metre in diameter, is subdivided into very narrow rings a centimetre or half a centimetre wide, and numbered from 1 to 50 or 100, from the outer ring to the centre of the target. By signalling the number of the innermost ring touched by the shot, which can be done at 300 or 400 metres by exhibiting large figures placed in a panel, and hoisted up, the score is made to correspond closely with the actual measurement of each shot from the centre. The same result is sometimes arrived at by measuring the distance of each shot from the centre of the target with a tape, or with a brass rod having on it a well-made vernier scale which carries a point that can be adjusted precisely to the middle of the target, a fixed peg in the other end of the rod being fitted into the hole made by the bullet. This gives a reading of any required degree of accuracy. For scoring in this way circumstances must allow of the marker not being hurried, and of his being extremely careful and trustworthy. It is, in fact, necessary that he should be skilled at this particular employment, a condition which at large rifle meetings in this country it is almost impossible for markers to fulfil. Shooting at a target when the measurement of the shot is so very exact demands that the range should not be very long, and that the firer and the rifle should have every advantage of protection from weather, and of refinement of sights, and delicacy of trigger. When we remember that no rifle can be depended upon to shoot within 2 or 3 inches in ordinary weather at 200 yards, it is evident that nothing is gained by multiplying the number of circles upon a target so that they become quite disproportionate to the size of the group that the rifle will make. Nothing is gained, that is, as regards classifying the skill of the shooter, and almost nothing as regards gauging the capacity of the rifle, while the process of marking requires much more skill than it would with fewer rings and simpler values. At the International match at The Hague in 1899, the target used was one divided into numerous small circles (see p. 482), and at a meeting of the delegates representing the countries taking part in the match, one of the French representatives proposed that in future matches a target should be used having much wider divisions, on the ground that the small

divisions were out of proportion to the accuracy of the rifle at 300 metres. This is a perfectly sound argument. It must be remembered, on the other hand, that subdivision into smaller circles accentuates an element, never absent from rifle-shooting, and depending on causes beyond the capacity of either the rifle or the man, which we call luck. As we find from the earliest days of Swiss shooting that the championship was awarded to the man whose shot was most precisely in the centre of the target, and as in Fenimore Cooper's novels, to drive the nail at 100 yards is represented to be the last test of skill, so has there always been a happy disposition to ascribe successes of this kind directly to the skill of the shooter. This very fortunate element is not one to be ignored, for not only does it appeal strongly to the imagination to think that a man is skilful enough to perform such a feat, but it will suddenly raise to the pinnacle of success and satisfaction some marksman of no special merit beyond this, that the gods have favoured him. It is not suggested, of course, that the most skilful shot, armed with the very best rifle, will not have appreciably more chance of making an absolutely central shot than one less skilful, with a less good weapon; but he, too, will require luck if he is to stand first in such a contest. It is well frankly to acknowledge the interest which is created when skill does not have things entirely its own way. A Swiss marksman, so long ago as 1863, said to a member of the Council of the National Rifle Association: Your English system will make a certain number of first-rate shots, but it will never, like ours, create a nation of riflemen; it is the element of chance which enters so largely into ours that takes men to the targets.' It is perfectly true that if skill were the only thing that told, it would be possible to know beforehand almost exactly the relative merits of different competitors, and the young shot might well despair of ever getting a place in competition with them. A slight tincture of chance, even when it does not amount to gambling, certainly has an immense attraction for human minds, as witness the popularity of egg pool' at Bisley in 1899, when a prize was given for hitting at 500 yards a 2-inch circle marked on a piece of cardboard hung in the middle of the bull's-eye, a thing

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which skill alone could not certainly accomplish. It may well be doubted whether the Queen's prize was not more attractive to competitors generally in the days when anyone who could pass through the ordeal of the first stage had a fair start with his neighbours at the long ranges in shooting for the much coveted distinction. The Queen's 60 (originally 40) was expanded to the Queen's 100, and the consequence of piling up the totals made at all the ranges, and deciding the prize by the aggregate, has been that the man who is low down in the 100 feels that he has almost no chance at all of carrying off the blue ribbon of rifle shooting. The competition is much more of a real championship than it used to be, but it has lost something in attractiveness for the man who is not yet certain of being able to hold his own in a competition extending over several days with the pick of our Volunteer marksmen.

Each carton was entered against a After the meeting There was no

At Wimbledon many years ago great interest used to be excited by a form of competition imported from Switzerland, and known as Carton shooting. A circular piece of thick cardboard coloured black was hung in the middle of the bull's-eye. It varied in size according to the range. Prizes were given for the shots nearest the centre of the carton at each distance during the whole meeting. numbered, and the shooter's name was corresponding number in the register. was over the cartons were measured up. difficulty in rejecting a very large number in which the carton had been pierced by a shot not far from the edge, but among the central shots the differences were usually very fine, and required an extremely accurate machine to measure them. It would happen sometimes that some schoolboy, paying his 6d. for a single shot at a carton target, would carry off one of the substantial money prizes, running up to 251., which were given for the most central shots, while a man who had invested a certain sum of money in carton shooting, and persevered at it, would be unlucky enough not to have a single shot near enough to the centre to win him a prize. To meet his case money prizes of a certain value were given to those who had made the largest number of

cartons at any particular distance. The competition for this used to be very keen. Carton shooting was decidedly very fluky work. Mr. Henry Whitehead recounts that on one occasion at Wimbledon, when he had taken some friends to the 600 yards firing-point to show them what carton shooting was like, he made five-and-twenty consecutive bull's-eyes without once touching the actual disc of the carton. The bull's-eye at this distance was 2 feet in diameter, and the carton about 1 foot. To give an opposite instance, Mr. Martin Smith many years ago undertook to break a dinner plate in 15 shots at 1,000 yards, and succeeded in doing so.

An attempt was made to revive carton shooting at Bisley in 1890, but it was not very successful, and nothing of the kind now appears in the National Rifle Association programme book. The conditions have changed. The programme of shooting at the National Rifle Association meetings is far more crowded than it used to be, so that the earnest shooter has little leisure to spend in odd competitions. There is in the present days of the Volunteer movement a much smaller proportion of men who can afford to invest a few pounds on the off-chance of getting a big haul than there used to be.

Shooting at pool still survives, and is very popular. The shooter pays a shilling or thereabouts for each shot. The total amount of the entrance fees, minus a deduction for expenses, is divided among the successful competitors in shares proportionate to the number of successful shots which they make. Formerly each bull's-eye made entitled the shooter to participate in the division, but the improvement in rifles has made it necessary to introduce a central bull'seye, defined by a white circle, so that a man may hit the black without necessarily obtaining any return. Pool shooting is fairly safe work for a skilful shot; he may invest as much or as little as he pleases, and in any case his return is likely to be proportionate to his investment. Large profits are not to be expected, but steady winnings may be made by the careful man. The value of pool bull's-eye tickets of course fluctuates with the weather, and they are worth more in difficult times, since fewer are obtained in proportion