LOADING AND MANAGEMENT OF RIFLES. 373 



to go once around inside the shell. Into this I push 

 the ball, and turning over the edges of the patch put 

 half a split wad upon the top to keep out dirt, etc. If 

 round balls loaded in this way are not as accurate (at 

 short range, of course) as the long ones, the fault is in 

 the shoulder of the rifle-chamber. It is either too 

 sharp or too far from the end of the cartridge, or some- 

 thing of the kind. Buckskin makes even better patch- 

 ing than parchment, but is harder to use with full 

 shells. The best patching varies, however, with rifles, 

 and must be ascertained by experiment. This is true 

 even of the muzzle-loader, and even more so of the 

 breech-loader. 



Patched balls like naked ones should fit very tight 

 in the shell. And in order to get them in straight 

 and prevent swelling the shell so as to cause it to 

 stick, it is better where the balls are deep-seated in 

 the shell, as round ones generally are, to put the shell 

 into a solid tube of metal such as is used as a " loader" 

 to retain the shell when the ball is driven home. The 

 more lightly the ball sits in the shell the nearer it 

 comes to being in the grooves when receiving the first 

 blow of the powder, and therefore the better it will 

 shoot, all else being equal. In such case you may not 

 be able to drive the ball in with the loader without 

 damaging the patch, unless you use much care. But 

 with the loader you can get it in tighter and generally 

 much more true than by hand. If you use a double 

 rifle, the balls must fit tight enough to prevent recoil 

 throwing them in the next barrel out of the shell into 

 the chamber. 



The shoulders of some rifles, especially of those 

 made several years ago, may need some beveling off or 

 other fixing before they will shoot patched balls well, 



