By this time I’d owned the Airsporter rifle for a couple of months and my marksmanship was improving all of the time. Practice makes perfect. Confidence was essential in being a successful hunter. Knowing the killing range of a weapon was important and made it less likely to wound a creature. My right eye was my master eye which meant it was unnecessary to close my left eye to line up the sights.

This made a shot quicker when looking along the Barrel to line up the fore sight with the back sight. I also adjusted the trigger so it needed a very light squeeze to shoot the gun. I found I could shoot more accurately by squeezing the trigger as soon as the sights lined up rather than try to hold the sights on the target. The rifle weighed about 7 pounds.

I always aimed at the head or neck of a bird or rabbit to be less likely of wounding it. I once made the stupid mistake of firing at a golf ball in a shallow pond on the local course. I heard the ricochet come right back at me and the pellet creased my scalp, nicking the skin and drawing blood. My practice targets after that incident were restricted to spent shotgun cartridges which were just about the same thickness as a pheasant’s neck.