348 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



it may make a hundred and fifty yards in the same 

 time the long-range ball makes a hundred, and thus 

 add fifty or sixty yards to the point at which you will 

 be able to hit your mark without in any way allowing 

 for or thinking about its distance; in other words, in- 

 crease what is unphilosophically but popularly called 

 "the natural point blank" of the rifle. 



This is what is now called the " express" system; 

 although it is commonly confounded with the expan- 

 sive principle, owing to the fact that the bullets for 

 the " express rifle" are generally made expansive also. 

 The "express" or high-speed system concentrates all 

 the power of the gun on the first hundred and fifty or 

 two hundred yards, a thing you will in time deem 

 eminently wise if you take the trouble to measure 

 your distances instead of guessing them, and practice 

 target-shooting at a mark between seventy-five and a 

 hundred and fifty yards, with the mark changed from 

 twenty to forty yards in distance between each shot. 

 This high-speed idea is supposed by many to be an 

 English notion. But it is in fact nearly as old as 

 American rifle-shooting; although there were few of 

 the old hunters who ever put powder enough behind 

 the light sharp-pointed cones short, sugar-loaf-shaped 

 balls that they used for the purpose. 



For measuring the velocity of balls an instrument 

 called the chronograph is used. But there is much 

 reason to suspect its accuracy in registering high 

 velocities. At all events, it is expensive and difficult 

 to use. It is far easier, and better for your purpose, 

 to measure it by the fall of the bullet below the mark 

 at certain points. This gives you the mean velocity 

 for the distance at which you shoot; a mean com- 

 pounded of the ball's initial velocity and its sustain- 



