Ed McGivern's Book of Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting

As a novice shooter I bought this book partly hoping to find some tips to improve my shooting. At first I was disappointed to see that most of the book deals only with 'fancy shooting' but after reading a few chapters I realized that between the lines there is invaluable information about how to train for and how to think about this skill. In addition there is a wealth of fascinating gun history and of course, the fancy shooting which is amazing.The bad:He is a total windbag and not a gifted writer. His approach to writing seems to be "why use one word when five will do the job?". He uses very long sentences with many parenthetical clauses, a sort of faux Victorian style. Some of his sentences constitute a whole paragraph! It is something of an effort to chew through his prose.He spends a lot of time crowing about how he showed the pundits of the day to be wrong in their opinions.There is a whole chapter devoted to the psychology of competition which didnt reveal anything that is not common knowledge.The book is exclusively about revolvers and quite a bit of space is devoted to arguing for double action revolvers in accurate speed shooting. I guess DA was fairly new in his day and there was lot of skepticism it. Today there is no controversy, SA revolvers are confined to recreational shooting.Some of his tricks were damn scary, like shooting targets out of an assistant's hand or a coin held between a lady's fingers! Today this would be considered recklessly dangerous and probably illegal. Those were different times.These are quibbles really.He was an implacable enemy of dogma and tradition "the rule of dead men" as he call it. He shoots down the pundits of his day using hard facts for bullets. He had total contempt for any opinion not based on facts. And he had the facts. Every claim he makes about shooting, he supports with facts. Either he would show data that others had generated, or if that was lacking (and mostly it was) he would construct careful meticulous experiments to test ideas himself. My impression is that he had little formal education yet his methods are a textbook application of the Scientific Method - test your ideas against the data. He devotes a whole chapter to the electronic timers that were constructed specially for his experiments. These kinds of instruments are abundantly and cheaply available today but it shows the lengths he went to to gather accurate information.His central claim is that anyone can shoot 'fancy'. He insists that he had no special talent. All it takes is methodical practice. To learn DA shooting, first master SA. To master SA dry fire thousands of times. Practice slow deliberate fire. Analyze every shot. To shoot long range, start a few feet away from the target and slowly work back! For one aerial shooting stunt he mentions that he fired 30,000 rounds in practice! More than most shooters fire in their whole lives. One talent that he could not have denied was his enormous capacity for hard work.He dismisses dogmatic rules about stance too. Everybody is made differently, why should one stance suit all? Find the position that is comfortable for your body, one that can be assumed quickly and held with out strain, and refine it as needed.He was very involved in developing training programs for law enforcement officers, insisting that they learn to shoot competently in all situations: while running, lying on one's back, on the right shoulder, the left shoulder etc. He describes some of these training schedules and it couldn't hurt to follow his advice. This was a pressing problem in his time, the days of Prohibition, when police officers were being killed at the rate of 2 or 3 per day!I read somewhere that Ed McGivern was a sign painter. It sort of fits. In those days, painting signs by hand required meticulous yet deft hands. Yes he was a pompous windbag, but I came away enormously impressed with the quality of this man, his integrity, his unyielding commitment to honesty and common sense in his work and his mind boggling capacity for hard work. He was a special guy. You don't often meet people like him and it was a privilege to do so.

This is an amazing compilation of a lifetime spent asking...what would happen if...McGivern spent a lifetime training, experimenting and demonstrating the possibilities with a sidearm. He was an extraordinary exhibition shooter but much of this book focuses on training law enforcement officers.The writing style is typical of the period - very descriptive.Not just a book for revolver shooters. McGivern covers a wide range of topics and most are not related to the type of firearm - i.e. gun control laws, law enforcement training, sight picture, trigger control, modifying firearms, carry positions, etc...There are "pearls of wisdom" in every chapter, if not every few pages. Some of sections, gun control laws for example, are very relevant today and give you the sense that not much has changed in the last 70 years.

If you have any questions as to how one correctly sights a pistol this is literally the bible. I have never seen such a concise bit of work on the subject. Clearly Ed McGivern was as good as they come on the topic of pistol shooting. Thankfully for us he was also solid at prose because his instruction is clearly wrote with the laymen in mind.

the best and most comprehensive book ever writen on revolver trick shooting. But be forwarned. He drops J. Egar Hovers name at least two dozen times or more. One other caveat. All of his timed stunts are timed from the discharge of the first shot, minor complaints. There is a real wealth of information here and I don't mean to disparage it, sure he was a little crusty, but his knowledge is worth a little aggrivation. If you could master a quarter of it, there would be few alive who could match you.

For youngsters (people under 50), this will be a tedious read. It contains some great information on fast shooting, but is written in the prose of the 1930's, which in Ed's style, were overly verbose. That doesn't take away from the fact that Ed was a remarkable quick shot, and once you learn to read his particular style of writing, there are things to le learned, plus it's a chance to glimpse into the era he lived in and how he pioneered the measuring of speed shooting timing.

The author offers much proof of his accoplishments in the field of exhibition shooting.The instructional advice could be condensed down to 10 or so pages. It is worth it for the insights offered though.The author is a bit flowery and old fashioned in his language. McGivern also states his opinion about the value of highly trained LE officers in our society. All in all a nice read.

When a person of Mr McGivern skill and knowledge utters or writes a word it behooves anyone who would learn from him to pay close attention. His tome , Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting is a found treasure for my library.

Worth its weight in history and what can be done with a revolver from a guy who did it. I will not use everything in it, but his methods and proper way of training make it a worthy read.

Good book, a must for shooters enthusiasts. Good service from Amazon.

Ol' stumpy and his fantastic shooting prowess! Unreal shootist and even the best today have not surpassed all of his feats. Good material for the future shooters. Wouldn't catch me holding targets bare handed for anyone to shoot and any distance though. Just a little too much for me to risk. Great read and great material for study.

Diese Buch kann man getrost vergessen. Es hat keinerlei Informationswert für mich gehabt. Das sollte man lieber etwas moderneres kaufen. Nicht zu empfehlen.

My husband really liked this book.