ABOUT SPORTING AND MILITARY WEAPONS. 73 



owing to the needless excess of windage, the 

 ballistic energy of, at most, two and a half drams 

 of powder was applicable to propulsion of the 

 bullet, and the rush of the gases of the rest of the 

 powder past the projectile ensured all possible in- 

 accuracy and a very short range. I had the curiosity 

 to try one of these obsolete weapons with the service 

 cartridge, and the result was that it was just possible 

 very occasionally to hit a rock, six feet by three, 

 at one hundred yards. The same weapon fired 

 from the shoulder, and reasonably loaded although 

 clumsily sighted, and with the worst possible 

 " come up " and " pull," would, at a hundred yards, 

 put every bullet into a fifteen-inch bull ; even at 

 three hundred yards shot quite well enough to 

 entitle it to rank as a very useful implement in 

 military operations. 



Mutatis mutandis the same appetite for inutilities 

 is still rampant; our troops are now armed with 

 a rifle whose life ends in infancy, not to mention 

 numerous minor defects carefully elaborated to 

 ensure inefficiency. 



Owing to the vast improvements in modern rifles 

 in the direction of increased powers of penetration 

 and of low trajectory, the modern gunner is in a 



