You and Your Gun

The following information comes from The Elusive Ten by William Reichenbach. The Elusive Ten is also available to purchase in print.

We have seen, after getting this far, that there is a little more to revolver shooting than many perhaps anticipate.

You don’t just resolve some fine day to take up shooting, buy a gun, step up to the range and bang away.

You have found out by now that you have to get a foundation and that you have to work to get it, that you have to discard and to rebuild, to bend and submit to other judgment—until you can stand on your own.

Although everything is fundamentally simple, you have to make yourself “absorb” these simple things—and you have to practice, practice.

We have filled many pages with fundamentals and what will be considered as aids and hints, but, although we have criticized its technical weaknesses, we have not spent much breath upon the soul of our sport, namely, the revolver itself.

Do not, even for a moment, get the idea that your revolver is just a tool of the trade.

Every revolver has its peculiarities, although it may have been made with fine factory tolerances along with thousands of others—peculiarities,—indeed. I am tempted to say that every revolver has its own character. Don’t smile, just switch guns and your face will lose its sanguine expression.

Let’s pick a simile. Once you have chosen a gun, consider it in the light of a sweetheart, court it, fondle it, treat it with care; but, beyond all, study it, try to find its characteristics, solve its soul.

The rewards will be ample.

Your gun is very jealous and will not permit a rival (that is, not within eye-scratching distance). So, do not switch sweethearts (even though you may think that you have solved them individually) during a shoot.

Just try to do that very thing and your sunny disposition will suffer.

Therefore, don’t.

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You and Your Gun

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