30 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



long shots are not much wanted, and quick, hard shooting and 

 an even, large pattern are required. But with game, accuracy 

 of aim is preferable to extreme quickness, if either has to be 

 sacrificed to any great extent. You go out to shoot to please 

 yourself, and nothing will accomplish that pleasure so certainly 

 as constantly killing game at distances that other people cannot 

 reach. Tall pheasants and high wild duck try a gun as well 

 as a gunner, and if the latter can keep in the line of flight he 

 can shoot at some angles and at slow birds twice as strong with 

 a choke as with a cylinder, but the timing of the shot is not as 

 easy for one as for the other. 



The shot spreads laterally nearly half as much again for 

 the cylinder, but if you can keep your gun in the direction of 

 the line of flight, that extra lateral spread will only help you 

 for fast birds crossing at right angles. This is the least difficult 

 thing to be done in killing driven game. The most difficult 

 is accurately timing the shot, and here the gunner has the 

 advantage of the longitudinal spread of the shot ; in other 

 words, a column of pellets some 30 feet long, at 40 or 50 yards, 

 is sent in front of the game, which has to fly through the column 

 as the latter passes the line of flight. The cylinder has slightly 

 the longer column, and the column is slightly thicker through. 



Correct timing implies that no part of the column of shot 

 passes the bird before his head is in it, or after his legs are 

 out of it. But this absolute accuracy of measuring the allow- 

 ance in front, as well as timing the "let off," must be very 

 unusual. 



It may be said that it is not easy to keep the gun in the 

 direction of the line of flight, but the author cannot agree to 

 that, except when the game swerves after the " let off." If it 

 does that, a spread of shot the size of a barn door would 

 probably miss it, and the one-third bigger lateral spread of 

 the cylinder than of the choke bore will not assist once in a 

 hundred times. 



These views, although not perhaps expressed, are largely 

 acted upon in practice. Soon after choke-bore guns came in 

 they became very unfashionable for game shooting, and the 



