BARRELS. 19 



heavier than before. I then shot the gun about 

 twenty rounds, and the average was 



1st sheet. 12th sheet. 20th sheet. 



46 30 20 



by which it evidently appeared to me, that if the metal 

 is disposed of in length, it has the advantage over a 

 short thick gun. 



From having lOlbs. more weight of metal, however, 

 the Birmingham gun still had rather the advantage, 

 because it carried seventeen ounces pleasanter than the 

 other carried fifteen. 



Substance and length, therefore, are what we want in 

 as great a degree as can be used without inconvenience. 



For instance: Fire a fourteen gauge sporting-gun, two 

 feet eight inches, or forty-four diameters, at a gun- 

 maker's iron door, against one of three feet, and there 

 will probably be no difference. But go out in an open 

 field, and particularly on a windy day, with the two feet 

 eight inch barrel, and try it at sixty yards, and after the 

 shot have gone about two- thirds of the distance, they 

 will begin to open in oblique directions, where the three 

 feet barrel keeps the shot together. For instance : Take 

 a funnel (or a paper cut triangularly like one) four 

 inches in diameter : pin up a sheet of brown paper, 

 and stand at three or four yards from it. Then look 

 along either edge of the funnel, and you will see how 

 very wide a cylinder thus relieved carries the outer parts 

 of its circle beyond the paper. Then take a funnel of 

 the same diameter eight inches deep, and you will see 

 how much more of the funnel is filled with the paper. 



Now, as guns must be relieved in order to shoot 

 well, I take all this in the extreme, the more clearly 



