54 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS; 



reloading as a difficulty and recapping an impos- 

 sibility, the large, easily handled cartridge is a bless- 

 ing that he will never forget ; and any one who, hav- 

 ing used a breech-loader, will pretend that it cannot 

 be loaded on the average infinitely faster than the 

 muzzle-loader, is guilty of prevarication. In truth it 

 can be reloaded in less time than the other gun can 

 be recapped. 



" With regard to refilling the cartridge-cases, the 

 makers warrant that the discharged cases may be 

 refilled and used again with the same facility and 

 effect, some of them two or three times. This, how- 

 ever, is not always so; on the contrary, the cases 

 expand so much on explosion of the powder, that 

 when refilled they are sometimes not only difficult to 

 thrust into the barrel, but on second explosion they 

 stick so fast that in many instances the copper end 

 comes off, on the case being attempted to be with- 

 drawn, and the paper is left inside. And then, unless 

 a loading-rod is at hand with which to force out the 

 paper case, your breech-loader is powerless." 



Were it not for the next clause, one could suppose 

 that Dead Shot had never heard of an extractor, 

 which is a little instrument not so large as a cone 

 wrench, always carried in the shooter's pocket, and 

 with which the paper can be pulled out in about two 

 seconds' time, without possibility of failure ; until 

 this is done, and for those two seconds, " your breech- 

 loader is indeed powerless." 



" None but those who have experienced the dif- 

 ficulty of extracting a bursted cartridge-case, which 



