I just finished W.D.M. Bell's "The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter" and in the chapter on "Rifles", he writes...

�The thing that did the most for my rifle shooting was, I believe, the fact that I always carried my own rifle. Constant handling, constant aiming, constant Swedish drill with it, and then when it was required there it was ready and pointing true.�

Does anyone know what the "Swedish Drill" consists of? Is it the transition from a slung rifle into to shooting position or something entirely different. I don't recall Bell ever mentioning slings on his rifles, so I think he may be referring to something else.

Just curious if anyone is familiar with this term.

THANKS,

Stump


PS - The book is excellent! Took me a while to find it, but glad I was able to finally track it down.

[b][/b]

If you read Karamojo Safari, his other book, he speaks about constantly doing aiming and dry fire exercises on game. His rifles became extensions of his body/mind reaction.

Thank Your for the reply Docbill...

Yep, read that one a few years ago and if I remember correctly, John "Pondoro" Taylor said the same thing about using his long-guns in the same fashion, I was just wondering if this is what "Swedish Drills" were implied as or if it was something in addition to the above since it is specifically mentioned. It could very well be the "Dry-Fire" aspect of the above practice too. In fact, you may be on to something as the term "Dry-Fire" could easily be used in place of "Swedish Drill" and would make absolute sequential sense in that excerpt.

Thanks Again!

Stump

It could also be the practice of never taking your eyes off the target and bringing the rifle into alignment so the sights are added into your "visual picture" rather than finding and looking at the sights THEN trying to re-aquire the target after a momentary loss of concentration (This is a good technique with bino's too), but the dry fire practice makes a lot of sense.

A Google search indicated that a Swedish Drill is a "system of gymnastics that brings every lazy and disused muscle into play."

Excellent Poconojack!!! That could be it as well!

I found this interesting historical site...

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks14/1400171h.html

Again, this explanation easily fit into the scheme of things as well.

I appreciate all the replies!!!

Stump

That sounds like something Bell would like!


He was nothing if not thorough..



Recommended reading: "Bell of Africa"- his memoirs. Learn things about him you never knew.

Dry firing is great for learning to acquire and hold a target. The "real" dedicated rifle shooters use it a lot. one guy I know said he dry fires an hour EVERY day, and also shoots 12,000 rounds a year in matches. You get good when you do that. Muscle memory is there, and the strength to hold the rifle. But with game, helps too, to do the point and dry fire, program, as gets you on the target and aiming for the kill area, and that would change with the animal, so the more animals you practiced on, the better.

'African Adventures' by Denis Lyell has letters between the author and Bell....might surprise some some that voice their opinion as being the same as Bell on rifle selection for dangerous game what he actually did say and recommend to people heading to Africa after elephants and other heavy game.....hint, wasnt his favorite small bores......

I found it interesting his observations of the native villages he encountered in, I believe, "Bell of Africa". They were all of similar size and strength, because a smaller weaker village would be eliminated by their stronger neighbor, the woman taken and the men and children sold to the Arabs.

No wonder them Arabs are still pissed off!

Yeah, they really wanted the goats.

Bell talks about 2 myths of the hunting world he went contrary to. First, that dryfiring would break the firign pin and disable the rifle. He didn't buy into that at all. Second was insessent cleaning of the bores. Bell calimed that more bores have been ruined by the cleaning rod than neglect.

'calimed'??????

Having grown up in a Swedish enclave, I would have put money on its having something to do with drinking coffee.

"Swedish Drill" refers to the manner of manipulating/cycling the bolt using the fingers of the right hand, and not the palm, in which the shooting eye never leaves the axis of the sight plane.

Practiced this with my CG63, and it works.

I've been practicing the Irish Drill for years: cycling the bolt while holding a pint of Guinness without spilling a drop.

With snap caps for just about every cartridge now available, there's no reason not to dry fire anymore, whether the old firing pin cautions were true or not.

To the best of my knowledge the only things that can be harmed by dry firing are box lock shotguns and rim fires.

Vrbanic... Would you mind describing the technique for us please? I'm intrigued with the details of the exercise and the origins of the term if you know it. THANK YOU!!!

Headed out the door right now and will be at the Bozeman Gun Show all weekend.

I looked for the reference last night, and will do my best to find it when I get back.

If I remember correctly the idea is to use the fingers to manipulate the bolt while leaving the shooting hand in a position close to the grip. Takes some practice with the cock on closing Swede Mauser.

Get back on this Sunday evening.

His point was, if you are going to hunt carry your own dam rifle

Brilliant chap, eh?

I would suspect that in the areas where Bell did his hunting, the atmpsphere was drier than a Graham cracker fart so even corrosive priming had nearly 0% humidity to suck water from. Cleaning wouldn't be a daily necessity after even a lot of shooting under those conditions.

actually he did a fair amount of hunting in places like Liberia, the Belgian Congo and other parts of rainforest Africa as alot of very big ivory was held there up through the 1970's....but those forests are also where he quit using the 7x57 and went to the 318 cause the bullets didnt bend like the 6.5 and 7's occasionally did and started advising hunters less experienced than him to carry a heavy double.....

I kin spel butt kant tipe gud, 'specially on my smartass phone.

Smartass phone?

I have a smarts computer.


Its why my posts usually end up the way they do.


Its not me.


Really.


My computer went self-aware in 2010....

dry firing is easily accomplished during the evening news...

And he was right on both accounts. However if you're talking about double rifles, a prudent man would use a snap cap. On a Mauser action, snap away; you ain't gonna kill it.

As for bore cleaning, the only concern back then was drawing in of moisture. Many primers were mercuric back in his time, and would foul a bore in 24 hours. Absent a mercuric primer, there's very little in the way of worries.

Did we ever reach a consensus on the meaning of 'Swedish Drill'?

Good one, RevMike!

I can relate.

Swedish Drills were the earliest well-known form of 'calisthenics', i.e. basic, easy-to-do exercises, which just used the inertia of your body weight to get fit. They were originally developed by Swedish Landowners to increase the strength and effectiveness of agricultural workers, but were widely practised by the British Army during the 1st World War.

However, the variation that I think Bell is referring to, is when you use the inertia of your rifle as a weight to help strengthen your arms & shoulders, and hence improve your ease & stamina in handling your weapon.

This was still being done in the British military in the 1980s when I was a soldier (with the FN Browning rifle), and was normally called 'pokey drill'. The toughest exercises always involved holding the weapon at arms length with one or both arms, and then manipulating it (twisting/rotating etc.).

The huge advantage of Swedish drill is that you can do it any time, anywhere, including in the field.

So far as I can tell, Bell was the first man to use the term "Swedish drill" to describe what he was doing with his rifles.

As mentioned elsewhere, it was a popular term for calisthenics in the early part of the 20th Century.

https://simplycharlottemason.com/store/swedish-drill-teacher/

I think it just amused him to adopt the phrase.

Did he have a girlfriend of Nordic descent?