Why did people only use one hand when firing pistols up until the 20th century.

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I’m pretty sure it’s not just Hollywood, I’ve seen old drawings and paintings of people in battle or duels and they always only use one hand to aim and fire pistols, even after multishot revolvers and pistols are developed.

Why? It’s not like using two hands only became more supportive and stable after 1910.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

This was answered 4 years ago on this thread in r/history

People shooting pistols with one hand
by inhistory

Basically switching to two hands allows for speed gains when shooting multiple times at targets.

Single hand is fine for shooting slowly at a single target, but is not as efficient at shooting at different targets.

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