54 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 
reloading as a difficulty and recapping an impos- 
sibility, the large, easily handled cartridge is a bless- 
ing that he will never forget; and any one who, hay- 
ing used a breech-loader, will pretend that it cannot 
be loaded on the average infinitely faster than the 
muzzle-loader, is guilty of prevarication. In truth it 
can be reloaded in less time than the other gun can 
be recapped. 
“With regard to refilling the cartridge-cases, the 
makers warrant that the discharged cases may be 
refilled and used again with the same facility and 
effect, some of them two or threetimes. This, how- 
ever, is not always so; on the contrary, the cases 
expand so much on explosion of the powder, that 
when refilled they are sometimes not only difficult to 
thrust into the barrel, but on second explosion they 
stick so fast that in many instances the copper end 
comes off, on the case being attempted to be with- 
drawn, and the paper is left inside. . And then, unless 
a loading-rod.is at hand with which to force out the 
paper case, your breech-loader is powerless.” 
Were it not for the next clause, one could suppose 
that Dead Shot had never heard of an extractor, 
which is a little instrument not so large as a cone 
wrench, always carried in the shooter’s pocket, and 
with which the paper can be pulled out in about two 
seconds’ time, without possibility of failure; until 
this is done, and for those two seconds, “‘ your breech- 
loader is indeed powerless.” 
‘‘ None but those who have experienced the dif- 
ficulty of extracting a bursted cartridge-case, which 
