405 



APPENDIX D. 



SPORTING RIFLES AND AMMUNITION. 



It has been my practice, in each of my books, to say some- 

 thing anent sporting rifles — if only to show that I was not 

 unwilling to move with the times. I cannot help smiling 

 when I re-read my warm advocacy, in my first work, of the 

 old 12-bore rifle; but, indeed, it is no bad weapon even now. 



In a later work I find the following : — 



"A •400-bore rifle, carrying a hollow-pointed bullet not 

 under 350 grains weight, and burning about 48 grains of 

 smokeless powder, will, in my opinion, be the all-round 

 sporting rifle of the future." 



These words were written some seventeen years ago ; and 

 except that I slightly underestimated the powder charge, the 

 ideas I then expressed have been triumphantly vindicated. 

 The double •400-bore is still the rifle I recommend to young 

 sportsmen, and it is especially suitable for India. It is true 

 that it has been a good deal superseded by the cheaper maga- 

 zine rifle of almost identical calibre ; but I have always pro- 

 tested against the use of these, holding them to be essentially 

 military, and not sporting, weapons.^ I am aware that I here 



^ Mr Leslie Taylor, who has been kind enough to look over this Appendix, with a 

 view to giving me the benefit of his superior knowledge, writes : " It (the •400-bore 

 rifle) has not been superseded, as you state, on account of the introduction of 

 magazine rifles, but because cartridges of superior calibre, fired by double rifles 

 alone, have been introduced. A brief note that the "465 and the '476 have been 

 subsequently introduced as improvements upon this bore would put you right." 

 Mr Taylor has possibly overlooked the point that my recommendation was that 

 of the "400 as an all-round rifle, and even that bore, as the reader of the fore- 

 going pages has noticed, is unnecessarily powerful for such game as wild sheep. 



