ON THE CHOICE OF SHOT GUNS 25 



and a letter to the maker, giving the number and description of 

 the gun, will probably be the cause of detection of any fraud 

 of this kind. 



In order satisfactorily to buy second-hand guns, a shooter 

 should know exactly what bend, length of stock, and cast on or 

 off he takes, and should also be able to measure these dimensions 

 for himself; for it is not wise to have a second-hand gun altered 

 to fit, not even if it is done by its own maker. 



The best way is not to throw up a gun in the shop and buy 

 it by the feel. There it may feel to fit when it does not do so ; 

 and it is possible to discard as ill-fitting the very gun that is 

 exactly right. It is only out of doors at moving objects that 

 most people handle a gun as they do at game. Consequently 

 it is cheap in the end to go to a shooting school and be 

 measured for a gun. There the beginner will be tested in every 

 way and for every class of shot and angle of aim. It is not 

 intended to suggest that shooting schools do not make mistakes, 

 for they do. But the wise man will not be satisfied until he 

 has been able to handle the try gun in a satisfactory manner 

 when bent to his proposed measure. That is to say, the school- 

 master and the pupil have got to agree before either are 

 likely to be right, and if the pupil cannot agree with one master 

 he can try another. 



The author knows one fine performer who placed himself 

 in the hands of two experts in close succession. The stock 

 measurement of one was cast-on, and a good deal of it ; that 

 of the other was cast-off, and also much of it. He had guns 

 built to each. Naturally one might say they were both wrong, 

 but as a matter of extraordinary fact they were both right ; for 

 this fine shooter performs equally well with both guns, and 

 would probably do so with any other weapon. Of course he is 

 the exception, and it would be unwise for others to attempt to 

 shoot alternately with two guns as different as these are, 

 because the practice with one would be unlearning for the 

 other. 



The object of taking much trouble to get a true measure, 

 in writing, is that the testing of many guns, by putting them 



