SINGLE-TRIGGER DOUBLE GUNS 53 



overcoming the difficulty, without being aware of what really 

 occurred. 



In the autumn of 1902 the author contributed some 

 letters to The County Gentleman, which explained the 

 difficulty ; but his discovery, for such it has proved to be, was 

 hotly disputed in a correspondence led by some of the leaders 

 of the gun trade. This was by no means wonderful, although 

 it is disconcerting for a discoverer to be treated as " past hope " 

 when he is so unfortunate as to make a find that can do him 

 no good, but ever since must have saved much in work and 

 patent fees to the gun trade. 



The accepted view of involuntary pull prior to this 

 discovery was that after the shot from the first barrel, recoil 

 jumped the gun away from the finger, and then the shoulder 

 rebounded the gun forward on to the- stiff finger, which, being 

 struck by the trigger, let off the second barrel. The author 

 for some time previous to 1902 had become conscious that 

 this explanation was open to question. However, it was not 

 until he sat down and worked out the times of recoil and 

 finger movement, that he felt safe in challenging so generally 

 accepted a statement. But this calculation proved to him 

 that, so far from rebound causing the unwished-for " let off," 

 the latter occurred in one-twentieth of the time occupied 

 by the recoil backwards. However, the author's powers of 

 persuasion failed to convince everybody, and for this reason 

 the editor of The County Gentleman, with the assistance of 

 Mr. Robertson, of Boss & Co., and of the late Mr. Griffith, 

 of the Schultze Powder Company, formed a committee of 

 experts to test the point by chronographic examination. 

 Results were published in The County Gentleman on 

 December 6, 1902, and were to the effect that the second dis- 

 charge came in one-fiftieth of a second after the first discharge, 

 but that the recoil backwards, before rebound could occur, 

 took from four different shooters respectively .32, .29, .34, and 

 .38 of a second, or, roughly, an average of one-third of a 

 second. So that it was demonstrated that the rebound from 

 the shoulder had nothing whatever to do with the involuntary 



