Ed McGivern

Edward ('Ed') McGivern (1874-1957) from Lewistown, Montana, was a famous exhibition shooter, shooting instructor and author of the book "Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting". McGivern also performed extensive research into the art of handgun shooting, particularly with the double action revolver.

Book

The book "Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting", first published in 1938, is still printed by [http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/ Skyhorse Publishing] as a reference to handgun shooters. In it McGivern covers his career from early experimenting with single action revolvers, his career in exhibition shooting, his police training, and his experiments in long range revolver shooting.

Exhibition shooting

Ed McGivern is renowned as one of the best handgunners that ever lived. His Guinness world record for "The greatest rapid-fire feat" (set in August 20, 1932 at the Lead Clube Range, South Dakota) still stands. This feat consisted of "firing two times from 15 feet five shots which could be covered by a silver half-dollar piece in 45/100's of a second".

Mr. McGivern was capable of many amazing shooting feats, most of them well documented in his book."Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting", Ed McGivern, 1938 ISBN 0-8329-0557-7] To name just a few:

* He could break six simultaneously hand thrown clay pigeons (standard trap targets) in the air before they hit the ground.
* He could hit a tin can hand thrown 20 ft. in the air six times before it hit the ground.
* He could shoot-drive a tack or nail into wood.
* He could shoot the spots out of playing cards, or even split a playing card edge on.
* He could shoot a dime on the fly.

All of these executed with either hand using a factory Smith & Wesson M&P double action revolver (puportedly his favorite handgun).

Competition shooter Jerry Miculek has attempted, and broken, some of McGivern's long standing records, such as the record for 60 shots fired from 10 revolvers. Miculek is one of the world's fastest revolver shooters, holding a number of records, such as 8 shots (from an 8 shot revolver) in 1 second, but his attempt to beat McGivern's 5 shot record resulted in a time of .57 seconds. [See Jerry Miculek] A testament to McGivern's ability was the fact that the 5 shot record was set in 1932, when McGivern was 58 years of age. Soon after that point, arthritis ended McGivern's competitive shooting career.

Long range shooting

McGivern, along with his friend Elmer Keith, were instrumental in pushing the envelope in the early days of magnum revolvers. While Keith was primarily interested in hunting, McGivern was more interested in police use of the revolver. McGivern demonstrated that with proper sights and use, the .357 Magnum could be used on man-sized targets at ranges of up to 600 yards. McGivern experimented with different types of iron sights, including peep sights, and telescopic sights. His preferred type of iron sight for this use was a small diameter rear aperture and a post with a gold bead for the front.

References