STANCHION, Oil PUNT-GUN. 341 



then occurred to me, that if this gun (of eighty-five 

 pounds weight) was fired with ten ounces from the 

 swivel, it might go so easy as not to interrupt the shoot- 

 ing. I accordingly tried it, and so little appeared to 

 be the recoil, that it could not be felt ; notwithstanding 

 which, by aiming at the mark, the charge was, as usual, 

 from the swivel, entirely under it. On the other ex- 

 treme, I saw a gun fired by the owner of it, Samuel 

 Singer, at Poole (which weighed 141 Ibs.). This was 

 on a swivel, and mounted very light forward, and he 

 told me, that he was always obliged to present very far 

 under the object, or his whole charge went over every 

 thing ; and that he should " douse" the swivel for a 

 rope breeching. The latter, however, is apt to break, 

 and has often proved dangerous. But, since the last 

 edition, I have used my 851b. gun with a rope breech- 

 ing that reaches all the way from, and goes through a 

 hole in, the stem of the punt. The breeching has then 

 so much play as, with the help of a padded but, at the 

 shoulder, to ease the recoil tolerably well. It is, how- 

 ever, not to be compared to the spring swivel ; though 

 the best plan, that I know of, to fire any gun, that is 

 not forged on purpose, for the spring swivel ; because 

 the fore part of the punt then takes the pull, upon the 

 same principle that an arch bears a heavy weight. It 

 was Singer who showed me this plan ; and, for my 

 mode of simply fixing it to the gun, vide plate of the 

 " Invisible Approach." The gun, with a breeching, 

 goes nearly as far back as the rope will stretch (say an 

 inch or two), and then springs forward again for about 

 afoot; unless checked by a notch in the stock, which 

 should butt against the gunning-bench. 



The question the grand object therefore is, how 



