210 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 



denying the fact. Of course, we do not remember these 

 miss-fires as being of serious account, for the object "snapped " 

 at may be merely a partridge, rabbit, or so on. The punt-gun 

 miss-fire may be at hundreds of fowl — something worth re- 

 membering as a very bitter experience indeed. Rarely as 

 "snaps " do occur with the best of shoulder guns and ammuni- 

 tion, they serve as good instances to show that they are equally 

 probable with punt-guns, and as the latter have to be used 

 under atmospheric conditions greatly against the protection 

 of gunpowder, we venture to say that it is only when every 

 care is taken that a discharge can with any degree of certainty 

 be relied on. Otherwise, nothing but dissatisfaction can be 

 expected. 



All punt-guns should be designed so as to have an ignition 

 arrangement according and suitable to the size of bore and the 

 charge of powder to be fired. We have seen punt-guns, and 

 large ones, too (muzzle-loaders), which were fitted with single 

 horizontal pillar nipples of not more than half the size they 

 ought to have been. Consequently, these guns never satis- 

 factorily shot the charge they should have done. Their owners 

 admitted that by experiment they found these weapons fired 

 a small (i.e. for the size of bore) charge best. And why 

 wonder otherwise, for it was evident that a heavy, or even 

 correct, load could never be properly ignited in these guns, 

 owing to the undeniable fact that their nipples were of such a 

 character or design, that the flame intended to fire the gun 

 could never be developed sufficiently strong to flash into the 

 body of the main powder charge, as it should do to give good 

 results. One of these guns here referred to, which we have at 

 the present moment in our mind's eye, was, we are rather 

 proud to say, altered in its ignition arrangement by the writer, 

 with such an improvement to its shooting, that its owner, who 

 had used it for many years, in the first three shots after the 

 alteration bagged more fowl than he had been able to do in any 



