The men's rapid fire pistol was one of the five sport shooting

Shooting sports

A shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency using various types of guns such as firearms and airguns . Hunting is also a shooting sport, and indeed shooting live pigeons was an Olympic event...

 events on the Shooting at the 1896 Summer Olympics

Shooting at the 1896 Summer Olympics

At the 1896 Summer Olympics, five sport shooting events were contested. These events took place at the newly constructed shooting range at Kallithea. They were organized and prepared by the Sub-Committee for Shooting...

 programme. With the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Paine brothers disqualified from entering due to their armament not being of the required specification for the event (only muzzle loading pistols of .45 caliber were allowed), only four shooters entered the fourth shooting event. Three nations were represented. Each shooter fired five strings of six shots at a target 25 metres distant. The competition was held on 11 April and resulted in the top two places going to the Greek marksmen. Nielsen took third place and Merlin did not finish.

Results

Place	Shooter	Score	Hits
1		344	23
2		249	20
3		Unknown
–		DNF