GUNS AND SHOOTING. 77 



So far it is presumed that tiie would-be buyer has been fortunate enough to have been 

 personally fitted with a reasonably priced gun by a good gunmaker at home or that he has 

 been furnished with one in accord with the measurements and details sent from this side. 

 If, on the other hand, he has no alternative but to buy what he can pick up in China 

 he could not possibly do better than follow as closely as possible the suggestions to be 

 found in all the authoritative books on the subject. 



In the first place, then, he should try to pick up a gun that at once came up " fair and 

 square" to the shoulder, a l2-bore double-barrelled central fire piece that did not weigh 

 more than 6M lbs : and hammerless for choice. But " fit " is the chief consideration after 

 all. There is more difference in the proportions of men than there can by any possibility 

 be in those of guns, and "the gun that will suit a man with a long neck will never do for 

 a man with a short neck any more than will the same collar do for both." Consequently 

 in choosing a gun " it is necessary to put it several times quickly to the shoulder at an 

 object level with the eye, and if the sight taken comes up fair on the mark aimed at the gun 

 will probably suit, but should the sight come up under or over the mark aimed at then the 

 gun will never be a suitable or quick aiming gun to the shooter. — Badminton. 



Hence it can easily be understood how heavily a man is handicapped whose gun 

 does not properly fit him. He usually becomes a slow and more likely an ineffective shooter. 

 But considering the more or less haphazard way in which guns are acquired in China the 

 shooting on the whole is uncommonly good. Most men align with the right eye which is 

 commonly supposed to be stronger than the left. But very often such is not the case. 

 Most men shoot from the right shoulder, but if it should be discovered that the left eye is 

 stronger than the right the shooter is advised by the gunmaker to "close his right eye 

 when aiming, shoot from the left shoulder, or have his gun so made that it is alignable 

 with the left eye " (Greener) but there are difficulties in firing an ordinary gun, especially 

 if it be choked in the left barrel, for in the first place the rear trigger is pulled first and 

 the choke barrel consequently discharged first leaving the long second shot to the cylinder 

 right barrel. A test to prove the stronger eye is to take a finger ring, and holding it out at 

 arm's length look through it with both eyes open at some object twenty or more feet distant. 

 Then close the left eye : if the right eye still sees the object through the ring (which 

 must not be moved) the right eye is the stronger, and may be trusted to align the gun when 

 keeping both eyes open in shooting. Naturally, if the left eye sees the object the shooter 

 should shoot from the left shoulder. 



But the buyer, naturally will be anxious to find out what his gun will do at target 

 practice. And here pattern is everything and the wider its latitudinal expansion the better. 

 Penetration is of infinitely less value, for penetration often signifies little more than that the 

 shot have clustered in their flight 



When it was the custom to load one's own cartridges in China target practice was 

 particularly necessary in order that the shooter might discover the best loads for his gun, the 

 least quantity of powder required to drive light or heavy shot, the least quantity of shot to 

 make a good pattern. But now that home loaded cartridges are almost invariably used, of 

 unalterable measures of powder and shot, target practice for the purpose of determining 

 what the shooter might consider the best loads is hardly ever resorted to. 



