While we know all about the evolution of our own handguns and training systems, I for one do remain pretty much clueless about the evelution of such in England.
Generally forgotten now, but the Brits had an exceedingly robust handgun tradition, with numerous opportunities in various "affrays" across the Empire to sort out what worked and what didn't, typically English gentlemen on foot facing determined opponents armed with edged weapons, exactly the sort of situation that later led to our own development of the .45 acp cartridge and the auto that fires it.
Astonishing how long the potential the revolver took to be recongnised, especially given that double action percussion smoothbore "pepperbox" revolvers had been around for a decade or more.
IIRC Colt began production of his "Paterson" revolver in 1836, but it wasn't until
1844 that Jack Hays' Texas Rangers famously showed what they could do when used rapid-fire as a primary weapon, Colt having gone bankrupt in the meantime due to lack of sales.
IIRC again, the .44 Colt Walker didn't achieve wide circulation until 1847. England adopted the '51 Navy as an official service in the 1850's just as we did, but by that time was
already producing big bore, short barreled double action revolvers from .44 all the way up to .50 cal.
In service the .36 cal single action '51 Navy quickly proved too slow and too weak, the Brits going the big bore, double-action route and never looking back. I forget exactly when the first such handgun was adopted by the US Military, maybe the 1890's (???), forty years after the fact.
Where I'm going with this is, along with that early Brit adoption of functional fighting revolvers oughtta have come a functional manual of arms.
Earliest I've read about was in an old "Guns Annual" (which I no longer have) in which a guy named Wilfrid Ward wrote an article about the Brits dropping the Webley .445 in favor of the Enfield Mark 1 .380 revolver (one of which was my very first cartridge revolver, marked "1943", another gun I should never have sold).
IIRC Mr Ward had it that, to pass the British "Revolver School" of the 1920's, starting from a one-handed low ready, a candidate had one second to put a single round inside a 10" x 15" rectangle posted at chest height 30 feet away. It weren't exactly on a level with Sykes and Fairbairn in Shanghai, but it was prob'ly better than what we were doing in that same time period.
Anyhow, here's an article from that same CQB site that offers some interesting glimpses on the topic (bold emphasis mine)...
THE IRON HAND of WAR
British experiences in the development of combat shooting.
...a typical police force would take the top competitors and make them the force firearms instructors who would then stipulate the range facilities and training program. People teach what they know, and if you employ target shooters, they will teach target shooting.
This accounts for virtually every police/military pistol range being of at least 25yds length�. there is no tactical reason, it comes from sporting regulation...
Today liberal sentiment is highly critical of the British Empire, but whatever the faults it provided the British Army and Colonial Police Services with a wealth of experience. Tribal confrontations, border disputes and insurrections gave soldiers and police practical experience. From these ranks many radical thinkers emerged, men who realised that bulls-eye target shooting was a woefully deficient preparation for fighting.
I�ve heard of one officer who would take primed cartridge cases and press the case mouths into blocks of soap, forming a hard soap �bullet�. He would load these into his service Webley. In the garden he would have his servants surround him, armed with a variety of sticks and bludgeons, then at random rush him. Our hero would then respond with well-placed shots to his human targets, giving him practise in reactive accuracy....
The earliest influential figure in our study is Arthur Woodhouse, an officer with the United Provinces Police in India. The result of his experiments was offered in the �New Revolver Manual for Police and Infantry Forces� published in 1907, with the stated objective �to give sound advice on how to practise in order to become a good shot- and to urge more practical training. Woodhouse was a proponent of unsighted snapshooting for close range confrontations. The shot was fired by �whole hand squeeze� while the pistol was sweeping up through the target. As we will see, these two techniques form a common thread.
An innovation was his �revolver pit� a 20-yard circular bay enclosed by a 14-foot high mud wall. A series of target zones were marked on the wall, and the shooter had to engage them according to the random commands of the instructor. Scores were noted, then bullet holes filled with wet mud, which quickly dried in the Indian sun....
In the bloody hand-to-hand trench raiding of World War One many fearsome close-range impact and edged weapons were devised and employed (still on view in the Imperial War Museum). At hand to hand range, in ankle-deep mud the pistol was a valued weapon but again, bull�s-eye training proved inadequate. Captain Charles Tracy was a voice of reason. In his �Revolver Shooting in War�, published in 1915 he says � Fine drill method is one thing, revolver fighting is another�.
An advocate of the �whole hand squeeze� and �vertical lift�, like Woodhouse his preference was for the revolver rather than the semi-auto pistol. Tracy constructed a number of tactical training ranges, where his students could search a �ruined village�, or, navigate an �enemy trench�. Targets appeared, moved dropped. At night the student would wander into booby traps, which would detonate; briefly illuminating targets to be taken by snap-shot....
Noel wrote �How To Shoot With A Revolver� in 1918, followed by �The Automatic Pistol� in 1919 and a later [1940] abridged edition of �How To Shoot With A Revolver�. In Noel�s work we see links between Tracy and Grant-Taylor [particularly with the cocking of the gun in route to firing position]. Noel covers firing by �instinctive sense of direction� utilizing a contraction of the whole hand, as though �squeezing water from a sponge�, a 45-degree ready position and a vertical lift to threat.
He, also, created shoot houses with moving, falling, pop up, and knock down targets. In some cases, he even fitted a blank firing pistol to the hand of a 3D target so that he could cause the hand to raise and fire the gun at the student.
We know that Tracy eventually went on to command the �Southern Command Revolver School at Wareham� and that Noel went on to become a �revolver instructor� at the �Small Arms School at Hythe� under Major Dudley Johnson in 1921, but that�s all I have regarding them as instructors....
THE MAXIMS OF PISTOL SHOOTING...
...7] You seldom need a pistol, but when you do, you need it mighty badly.
...8] You cannot claim to be a pistol shot unless you are a fast shot
...9] Practice the correct handling of the pistol from the first, then you will handle it by instinct when the moment comes.
...14] Trigger pressing is the secret of pistol shooting.
...15] Pistol shooting is merely a matter of practice
...16] Don�t hang on to the trigger, release the finger fully after every shot.
...17] Learn not to fumble. Practice a clean, quick action in drawing and handling your pistol.
...20] Reload at the first opportunity. Always have a full magazine ready.
...22] Keep cool. Fire fast, but never faster than your �best speed� or you will miss every time.
...23] The art of quick shooting lies in perfection in the quick alignment of the sights, combined with an instinctive and automatic trigger squeeze.
Note the way-early developement of various moves towards a "practical pistol" course. Turns out even Sykes and Fairbairn "stood on the shoulders of giants".
Fascinating stuff.
Birdwatcher
