GUNS AND LOADING. 50I 



pellets become at once ineffective. Shot manufacturers 

 have endeavored to compensate for this by hardening 

 the shot, so that it is less easily smashed than the old 

 soft shot, and have succeeded so well that chilled shot 

 is now almost universally used by men who are espe- 

 cially anxious to do effective shooting-. 



It is thus evident that at ordinary shooting distances 

 only a portion of the pellets in any charge is effective. 

 What this portion is depends on the gun and the load 

 which is used in it. It has been stated that in a true 

 cylinder barrel the killing portion of the load is less 

 than 50 per cent., the remainder of the pellets dropping 

 to the ground, or flying off at an angle, or losing their 

 velocity very rapidly ; but in modern guns the propor- 

 tion is much greater, some guns sending 70 per cent, 

 of the shot to the target at 40 yards. 



It has been determined by experiment that about 5 

 per cent, of the pellets of the charge simultaneously 

 reach a target at forty yards distance from the gun. 

 Very close after this 5 per cent, follows from 25 to 30 

 per cent, of the charge, and then the remainder of the 

 effective pellets. In his "Breech-loader and How to Use 

 It," Mr. Greener states that in a cylinder-bore gun 

 shooting forty-two grains of nitro powder and one and 

 an eighth ounce of No. 6 shot, the leading pellets 

 reached the target at forty yards in .138 of a second 

 from the time at which they leave the muzzle, while the 

 last pellet to reach the target arrives in .187 of a second 

 after the discharge. In other words, the difference in 

 time is about .05 of a second. 



