5O0 DUCK SHOOTING. 



powder, when but one and a quarter ounce of shot is 

 used, gives but a sHght increase of velocity, while it 

 destroys the pattern. 



If one fires a charge of shot over the water, he sees 

 that the pellets which compose that charge travel at 

 varying velocities and for different distances, and reach 

 the water in a string fifteen or twenty feet in length ; 

 and in the same way, when one fires at a target, he finds 

 that the charge of shot spreads out more or less irregu- 

 larly over a circle whose diameter may be three, four, 

 five or more feet, according to the distance of the target 

 from the gun's muzzle. The pellets are most thickly 

 clustered about the centre of the target and are greatly 

 scattered near its edges. 



Theoretically, the pellets of shot in a cartridge 

 should leave the muzzle of the barrel in the same order 

 which they occupied in the cartridge, each individual 

 pellet then taking its own course. Those on 

 which the greatest force is exerted, and which for any 

 reason are least retarded, go the straightest and with 

 most velocity, and reach the target first. Those which 

 are held back by any cause, or which, by crushing, have 

 been deprived of their spherical form, lose much of 

 their velocity, and soon drop out of the direct line of 

 flight. No gun-barrel, as bored to-day, is a true cylin- 

 der, but toward the muzzle all are drawn down so that 

 they are sections of cones; the pellets of shot there- 

 fore are violently jammed together just before they 

 leave the barrel, and more or less of them are upset — 

 that is, crushed, so that they lose their sphericity. Such 



