294 CHOKE-BORES. 



Boston gunsmith, several guns, all of which were 

 strongly choked, and sent them to Fred and others, 

 shooting friends in the West. Their shooting quali- 

 ties were very similar to the first one sent. Two were 

 single-barrelled muzzle-loaders, pigeon guns — one of 

 them made by Tonks and known among Eastern 

 match-shooters as " the old referee." With this gun 

 I also put 76 pellets of No. 4 in usual target 40 yards, 

 and 27 B's, using 50 to the charge. The other gun 

 was made and bored by Schaefer, and with it I tried 

 No. 3 shot of Tatham's manufacture, charge l^ 

 ounces, powder 4 drachms, and at 40 yards recorded 43, 

 52, and 59 pellets in the square. I fired my own gun 

 once at the time, target, powder, and distance the 

 same, and with IJ ounces of No. 8 Tatham'shot put 

 182 pellets in the mark. I give these records of 

 actual targets simply to show that these guns were 

 fully equal to any bored at the present day. 



The next season I did not hunt ; Fred had removed 

 to Young America, now known as Monmouth, 111., 

 and there carried on the lumber business. In the 

 latter part of the shooting season, the spring of '72, 

 he took a short pleasure trip with a party of five oth- 

 ers to the Sangamon River, and there made the score 

 I have mentioned on page 180 of this book ; and to 

 show the superiority of the choke at long ranges 



