ON THE CHOICE OF SHOT GUNS 31 



author was himself dreadfully unfortunate, for his form dropped 

 50 per cent. But the reason was that his first choke bores 

 were not central shooters, and it was then very difficult to get 

 guns of that boring that were true. That it was no fault of 

 choke bores as such, the author proved by having his guns 

 rebored, and although they afterwards shot even closer than 

 before, they killed in the new condition. 



One fault which is very bad in choke bores, and counts 

 against shooting straight-going and straight-coming game well, 

 far more than with cylinders, is that of patches without any 

 shot in them in the outer edge of the circle. What is meant 

 here is not a misdirection of the load but an erratic spread of 

 it. In a close-shooting weapon this fault is almost as bad as 

 a misdirection, but differs in this, that the patch varies its 

 position with each shot. These patches sometimes extend 

 from the outer edge to very nearly the centre of the pattern, 

 and consistent shooting when they occur is impossible. They 

 are not chance happenings, and can be obviated by good boring 

 and good loading. The author thinks they most often occur 

 when the shot can be shaken in the cartridge, and it may be 

 that a size of pellets which do not lie evenly on the outer circle 

 on the wad assist in deforming the pattern. 



But theory is of no use, and it is the gun-maker's business 

 to sell a gun that he can show has none of these faults. 

 Whether he overcomes them by a change in size of shot, 

 quantity of them, or in an alteration of brand of powder, 

 matters nothing to the shooter, and is not his affair. Enough 

 has been said when the gun-buyer is placed in a position that 

 it took the author many years to arrive at in regard to the 

 choke bore, namely, that everything on the plate that is bad is 

 not the fault of the shooter, but of the gun-maker. 



There is another advantage of the choke bore. It shoots 

 No. 5 shot at 50 yards as hard as No. 6 is shot by a cylinder 

 at 40 yards, and the pattern will be quite equal at 50 yards 

 with the large shot to that of the cylinder's small shot at 

 40 yards. 



This is very important in shooting at straight coming or 



