MATT HELM: The War Years Read Online Free PDF

with the weak hand was a matter of official policy, not just Vance's idea.
     
    After deciding I was a pretty good shot, at least with my right hand, we got down to serious business.  Vance went to the jeep and pulled out a bag of round, white plastic Ping-Pong balls, each a little smaller than a golf ball.  He walked downrange about thirty-five feet and dropped several on the ground.  Returning, he told me, "See if you can hit one of these.  No, don't aim, just point and shoot."
     
    I got one.  It only took me seven shots.  The second one only took me five shots.  Vance came over and took the gun from me and slipped in a new magazine.  Turning quickly, he pulled the trigger four times and four white balls jumped up into the air.  He reached into the bag with his left hand and took out two more balls.  Throwing them into the air downrange, he hit both before they started back down.  I was impressed and said so.
     
    "It's called trick shooting," he explained.  "It is accomplished by just yanking out your gun and firing, not seeing the sights, not seeing the gun, even; not seeing anything but the mark.  Wishing the bullet home; and if you do it right, with enough concentration, you can toss a marble into the air and hit it with the pellet from a BB gun held at the hip.  It seems like magic. Just how it works, nobody's ever told me, but it works, if you think the slug home.  That is, it works if you're in practice.  You have to practice, to keep the concentration."
     
    He paused, letting it sink in.  "Try it again.  Forget the gun, just concentrate on the ball."  I did, getting four out of ten.  I kept trying, getting better and better.  He was right; the more I concentrated, the more shots went where I wanted them to go.  I was enjoying myself and he couldn't get me away from the range until we ran out of balls.  Within two weeks, I could even shoot one of them out of the air, but I never did get good enough to match his two.
     
    In the ensuing days, I practiced with a variety of pistols and found one that fit me perfectly.  It was a beautiful - to me - .22 Colt Woodsman and I fell in love.  Vance noticed my preference and told me I could keep it if I liked those little toys.  I made a few choice remarks about his noisy beast of a .45 and we ended up agreeing to disagree, in a friendly fashion.  From pistols we went on to rifles - all kinds of rifles - where I did much better.  Not as good as Vance at first, but close enough.  He still managed to teach me a few things, and toward the end of my training we were pretty evenly matched.
     
    I even got a chance to teach him something about rifles.  He came up with a brand new .30-06 and had me sight it in.  I got the telescopic sight roughly centered, so the shots would at least go on the paper at a hundred yards.  A standard .30-06 is a lot of gun to shoot from rest, prone, where the body can't rock back with the recoil but has to stay and take the punishment.  I started shooting for group, five rounds, using a different bullet weight for each target.  You never know what bullet a gun is going to like best until you try it.  After I'd finished, I went down to inspect the targets.  I put a pocket ruler across the best group, the 150-grain load.  Four and a quarter inches.  A bolt-action rifle that won't group within two inches at a hundred yards isn't worth having, and I ought to get one and a half even with factory ammunition.
     
    After putting up fresh targets, I got out the tools and took the gun apart.  It looked like the stock had warped a little, which they often do on those light rifles.  Vance looked at me in amazement.
     
    "This isn't something they teach in training, is it?" I asked.  I pointed at the stock.  "It's supposed to be a free-floating barrel without any wood contact, but we seem to be getting some pressure here that's throwing it off.  If I ream out the barrel channel a bit I can put in a few cardboard shims to