324 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



of these may shoot perfectly true if loaded with small 

 charges and lighter balls. 



The first kind, or the regular jump of the barrel to 

 the same position, may be either downward, upward, 

 or to one side, but in most all cases is apparently up- 

 ward. In a nine-and-a-half-pound Maynard, seventy 

 grains powder, thirty-two-inch barrel, .44 caliber, 

 ounce long ball, that I once owned, the recoil invari- 

 ably threw the barrel downward. A Sharps .44 

 caliber, seventy-seven grains, eight and one half 

 pounds, round barrel, twenty-eight inches long, did 

 precisely the same thing. Both these rifles at twenty- 

 five yards threw the ball four inches lower with the 

 full charge than they would with half a charge, 

 or than they would throw a round ball even with 

 full charge. On sighting the empty barrel with the 

 level sight, and then looking through it, the axis of 

 the bore was plainly seen to point four inches above 

 the center, and on the exact spot where the balls fired 

 with half a charge were massed. 



So interesting was this question that I once spent a 

 long time in trying to make these rifles kick in some 

 other direction, or to vary in some manner the per- 

 fect regularity of their downward motion. I tried 

 hanging the muzzle in a scale, hanging breech in a 

 scale, strapping them to heavy cross-pieces under the 

 muzzle and breech, hanging very heavy weights on 

 the breech while the muzzle rested on a solid beam, 

 and having the weight just touch the surface of a pan 

 of water, with an attendant to watch it; in short, every- 

 thing I could think of except a vise. In no case, how- 

 ever, could I make them vary a particle. The full 

 charges sent the bullets invariably into the same hole 

 both these, especially the Maynard, were very ac- 



