The general approach to shooting was so much more relaxed before.

The pictures below are from the shooting range inside the Swedish National Bank, where officials trained with their pistols. Apparently hearing protection was not invented and no-one cared, the staff looks happy as the four Gentlemen fire away. I suppose they were part in some kind of National Guard to protect the National Bank in case of trouble.

The pictures are taken by Mr. Lennart Nilsson, world-famous since the 1960s with his amazing photographs of human beings. His wish was to show things no-one had ever seen before, for instance with the amazing book “A Child is born”. 

In the mid-1950s, he gained access to closed workplaces like this secret shooting range. The images were published in the years around 1952-55.

Lennart Nilsson’s negatives from the “Riksbank” has been stored in the bank’s archives since the 1950s.

Some of them were recently displayed in an exhibition in Sweden. What we could be looking at are bank directors practicing with their handguns, and as you can see they all have their own personal style.

Entry to the hidden shooting range.

You can find the source of the pictures here. The photos are taken by Mr Lennart Nilsson, pictured below.