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Show ? I - - - - - - . . "TRICK" SHOOTING EXPOSED Ma r i x - r a i - v , ,--A- " A 1 : .A;. a i. - v . A , V & Y t ih . ' x ' A f " 4W i y & $ .t;"' a f A A I A -Vv' ' 4 i A ' i' - ,j' "qARICK SHOOTER" axe flghtin' A words, stranger, and smile when you say them to modern exhibition shooters who perform their feats of marksmanship legitimately. That's the advice of Ernie Llnd, one of America's top exhibition shooters, who unmasks some of the trickery which earned old-time carnival car-nival and vaudeville shooters their name of trick shooters. "Trick" shooters Is a name that makes genuine gen-uine mnrksmcn like Ernie and his wife, Dot, as well as Herb Parsons, another crack shot, boiling mad. The Linds and Parsons tour the country annually, shooting at gun clubs where they perform dozens of real feats of marksmanship under the sponsorship of local clubs and Western- Winchester. The Ealloon Stunt The old-time fake shootors used to amaze audiences by breaking tiny targets with blanks, or with real bullets even though the bullets missed the targets. This sounds incredible in-credible and it is because the stunts were done by trickery, according to Ernie Lind who has explained how some of these seemingly impossible tricks were performed. v The ballaon stnnt is typical. Shooting from the rear of a Ernie and Dot Lind, famous Western-Winchester exhibition shots,, expose how old-time phony shooters pretended to shool a moth bail, but hit a big metal plate attached to a rat trap instead. Jarring the plate, which was rigged in such a way that it released the trigger of the trap, caused the trap to spring and shatter the moth ball. Of course, all the-audience the-audience saw was a tiny moth ball peeking out of what appeared to be a black cloth on the stage. I vaudeville theater, the trick shooter aimed his rifle at a poker pok-er chip, squeezed off bis shot and the chip disappeared. The trick was performed by pasting the poker chip on a balloon 18 inches in diameter, and letting the chip peep out behind a hole in the curtain. Hitting the 18-inch 18-inch balloon "disappeared" the chip. The moth ball stunt was even more ; ingenious. In this one, the audience ' saw a tiny moth ball peeking out of ,' what appeared to be a black cloth on the stage. The trick shooter raised his rifle, plink, and the moth ball disappeared In a puff of powder. People In the front rows could even smell the powdered moth ball. How It Was Done. Here's how it was done: A big rat trap was nailed to a heavy board. The trigger of the trap was fastened to a steel plate about 10 Indies across. Hitting this big 10-Inch plate released the spring of the rat trap. The moth ball was placed where this spring wouid bang down upon It. Thus, the trickster shot at the steel plate which released the spring which broke the moth ball. Splitting bullets with a knife can be done by good shooters, but the old phony shooters didn't take a chance. They mounted s small fragile target on either side of a knife blade which faced them and pretended that their bullet would be cut in two by the knife blade. Both targets broke at the sound of the shot, but the secret of this one is that there was always a steel plate behind j the knife. Lead bullets splatter on steel and will break fragile targets even though they may miss them by as much as five inches. The cigarette trick, Ernie Lind points out, was the safest stunt the trickster tried. An assistant held a lighted cigarette between his hps, while the trick shooter pretended to shoot off the ashes. This was the stunt performed with a blank. When the blank was fixed, the assistant merely blew through a tube in his specially-constructed cigarette and off flew the ashes. These phony stunts are no longer performed. They were entertaining but modem genuine marksmen canj perform just as entertainingly using real skill and real ammunition, Lind says. |