178 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADER^. 



made in the minutiae of the manufacture ; and now 

 it is the general impression of those acquainted with 

 the arm, that the breech-loader, with a slight addi- 

 tional increase of powder, shoots both stronger and 

 closer than its rival. In the pigeon-matches, with 

 scarcely an exception, held both in this country, of 

 late years, as well as in Great Britain, where it is 

 to be supposed that the best implements the country 

 could furnish would be used, and where some of 

 the shooting was done at thirty yards, the favorite 

 and most successful weapons have been breech- 

 loaders. With all allowance for the quality of the 

 marksman, the quality of the gun that wins a match 

 at English ''blue-rocks" must unquestionably be 

 good ; and this, the universal experience of those 

 matter-of-fact John Bulls, who test everything by 

 success, has entirely confirmed. 



A trial of guns was made in 1859, and the results 

 were published in tabular form in The Shot-Gun 

 and Sporting Rifle, by Stonehenge, p. 304. The 

 targets were made of double bag-cap paper, 90 Ibs. 

 to the ream, circular, thirty inches in diameter, with 

 a centre of twelve inches square, and were nailed 

 against a smooth surface of deal boards. The centres 

 were composed of forty thicknesses for forty yards, 

 and twenty for sixty yards, and weighed eighteen 

 and nine ounces respectively, with such slight varia- 

 tion as will always occur in brown paper. The 

 powder was Laurence's No. 2, the shot No. 6, con- 

 taining 290 pellets to the ounce, and the charges 

 were weighed in every instance. 



