I saw this on some TV show. Somebody discovered a box of her ammo, and it appears that for some of her tricks she was using something similar to the birdshot shells you can currently buy for pistols. If she was, I don’t know that I would say “much easier”. She’d still have to be damned good - the shot would just give her a bit of edge so that she wouldn’t have to be spot on accurate in some impossible seeming tricks.
Just a minor nitpick, but no, it could not. Actually, the recoil from a .44-40 or a .44 special is not even close to this. In truth, citing my own personal experience, even the m ighty .44 Maqgnum is not even close, and I have fired enough of these, bot SAA replicas, and S & W Model 29s to absolutely know this.
The .44s are actually quite pleasant to shoot in their SAA configurations. The gun does recoil, yes, but it rotates inyour hand, and also reaches for the sky. The combination of this with the relatively mild recoil, actually makes for a rather pleasant experience.
Modern double action revolvers, like the Model 29, tend to not rise and twist so much, allowing one to get back on the target quicker, so they are much more "vicious"if you will, than theold “hog legs.”
But there ain’t no way you are gonna get your wrist broken or eve sprained.
Now, you go to some of the bolt-action , single-shot pistols chambered for RIFLE cartridges, then yeah, you hold them wrong, or shoot them a whole lot, you might have a little pain at the end of the day. But even these are NOT gonna break your wrist or anything even close.
Sitting here, bored, I did the math but then realized we’re talking 30 yards. A dime (0.7") at 30 feet is equivalent to 1.9 yards height at 1000 yds (a decently tall enough person, though most of them aren’t 1.9 yards wide either).
Of course with the dime at 30 yards, he’d shrink to 2 feet.
On preview, I read jake1964’s link to find out it was 30 feet and a stationary dime held in someone’s hand. So, plausible (but I bet that 19th-Century Jack Black was pretty nervous nonetheless … on the other hand, it’d be more believable if there was no chance of collusion).
I thought the same, but did not bring it up.
I have 40 acres that I shoot on. Heavy and light rifles and pistols. I’ve been shooting for 35 years. There is just no way, even if Annie loaded her own .22s (I’m assuming rims here)and had a perfect gun, that these kind of feats could be repeated before a crowd. There are two many variables to allow it to be done today, much less over a hundred years ago.
I suspect trickery, and playing to the crowd. With some good shots inbetween.
Sorry Annie. The claims I am seeing just can’t be done.
His line of thinking is not correct.
Oakley really did shoot as well as she did; that’s recorded fact. However, her shooting was done under controlled conditions with very little stress. Police officers do their shooting under massive amounts of stress - someone is usually trying to kill them, which causes things like massive adrenaline dumps, loss of fine motor skills, tunnel vision, and usually a loss of bodily function to the point where one can shit through a screen door and not touch the wire.
I don’t think Oakley would have shot very well under those conditions, either.
That entire quote about her shooting the dime from between the fingers, etc, was taken word for word from publicity info put out by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows in the 1880’s/90s. So whether it was true or embellishment I have to wonder. I found this info in an 1896 newspaper article.
shooting 5,000 balls in one day, loading the gun herself. In this feat she used three 16-gauge hammer guns; the glass balls were thrown from three traps 15 yards rise; out of the 5,000 shot at, she broke 4,772
That’s what? 95%. I can hit 90% but I have only shot about 50 at a time (and I don’t practice). 5000 rounds in a day? That is very impresive, but. I think the big part about Annie, is that she was a women, in a time when women didn’t competively shoot.
For the record, I thought we were talking about hitting a stationary dime. Hitting a dime thrown in the air multiple times is a whole nother ballgame.
Recorded by whom? The people in the audience that saw some slight of hand? She may have been a good shot, but the things that are claimed are beyond the ability for any good shot anywhere then and now.
It was a circus, an act, a show, nothing more.
If you ever get the opportunity to visit the Cody Museum in Cody, Wy., it’s a fantastic place. I think that’s where I learned some things about Annie Oakley. She did, indeed, use shot for some shooting. They also use unfired pottery for targets, ie: throwing saucers in the air that she would shoot, sometimes from moving horseback.
You need to also remember that Cody was a showman who created illusions for people’s entertainment. Add to that the fact that feats such as this often get exaggerated and you have a legend. Not to say she wasn’t good, but perhaps not quite as remarkable as the stories would have us believe.
I have been reading a lot about Annie Oakley as well as the history of firearm technology because of this thread. I just read a whole chapter in the Book of the Rifle from my own library devoted to barrel making pre-1903. It is all quite interesting.
What I gather is that Annie Oakley was one world-class person and a very interesting one. She didn’t embrace feminism movement although she seemed to embodied all its objectives. I also gather that she was a truly talented marksman and loved guns very much.
However, some of the stunts that were accredited to her are basically impossible. This phenomena is pretty common and can be seen in the folklore from Davy Crockett to Daniel Boone. It seems that travelling acts took someone who was very accomplished and extended their feats to the unbelievable through embellished show stunts.
As a side note, firearms instructors have told me that females make better students in terms of technique than male students. The story goes that they have fewer macho ideas about proper shooting technique and that their fine motor control is better both of which are key to precision shooting. I don’t know if that is true. Are there many females at the upper edges of shooting? I would think that it is a sport that females could excel at much like Patty Wagstaff did for precision stunt flying.
Here is a more basic question:
How does a showman find and identify a single dime that has been shot by a solid bullet?
He looks in his pocket :D.
How does Annie compare to Adolph (“Ad”) Toepperwein?
Ad was amazing.
In 1907, he shot at 72,500 wooden blocks that were thrown in the air. Each block was 2.25" x 2.25" x 2.25". He was using a Winchester .22.
He missed nine.
Nine. :eek:
Here is a photo of him sitting atop the pile of blocks.
Amazing.
I thought it was probably more about enderence than accuracy.
This presumption that 19th century blackpowder weapons were not capable of tremendous accuracy has no basis in reality. I suggest you study up on the Creedmore matches for some period records. Today, you might consider the annual Coors Schuetzenfest as a good indicator of what those old blackpowder guns can do.
Again, I am not saying there weren’t some pretty accurate guns during that time. I am saying that they weren’t capable of consistently hitting a dime or card on edge from 30 yards especially multiple times in a row. There are problems like barrel fouling and heat warping over multiple shots that make this extremely unlikely. Good modern gun designs really didn’t come into being much until shortly after 1900.
I agree that more than a bit of the western lore is romanticized, but at the same time people used to be able to do really interesting things with firearms. I remember at one of the ranges we went to when I was younger they had a paper target that someone had shot until there was a clear outline of an “Indian’s” head, complete with feather. The guy who did it wasn’t really anyone famous or special, just the Remington sales rep. He used a .22 rifle and completed the whole thing in less than a minute. I don’t know too many people who can do that today. People used to be a lot better shots, methinks.
Good and modern are not synonyms when we are discussing guns. Have you ever seen a benchrest match? They proceed at a glacial pace specifically because of the constant scrubbing to remove fouling from the barrel and to avoid heat warping. Modern guns are no more immune to those problems than the blackpowder weapons were. The dedicated target arms of the 19th century were, and are, very much capable of doing those things. You can go to blackpowder matches and see it with your own eyes. The key to that level of accuracy is that the shooter chooses the weight of projectile and charge of powder that gives the best accuracy in his rifle. He then loads it with extreme care. This is exactly what reloaders do with cartridge rifles.
If you mean that a .22 lever action or pump action from the late 19th century wouldn’t be capable of that accuracy, you may be closer to the truth. I will state, though, that I have in my personal possession a Winchester .22 pump from the early 1900’s that will consistently hit a 50-cent piece at 30 yards with the cheapest Wally-World .22 ammo I can buy. I don’t shoot it much due to its age, but I am willing to bet that with better quality ammo selected for accuracy, the old gun will do better than that. Even more so if it were new, tight, and had fresh rifling rather than 100 years of wear.