404 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



before observed, the gun is too loiv-mounted for his handling. If, 

 on the other hand, the shot should fall below the target, the stock 

 may be too crooked, or, artistically speaking, the piece is too high- 

 mounted. 



A long stock, as above remarked, is generally preferable to a 

 short stock in the hands of most sportsmen, for sundry reasons, 

 one of which we have not yet named, which is, that those having 

 long stocks throw their fire with more power, from the circumstance 

 that the butt is always pressed more closely against the shoulder of 

 the shooter. Moreover, there is less recoil to be apprehended from 

 a long stock than a short one, more particularly if the stock should 

 be rather crooked as well as long. Many sportsmen ignorantly 

 attribute their indifferent shooting to the barrels, when they should 

 look alone to the stocking and mounting of the piece ; as we are 

 satisfied from long observation that "good shooting," in most cases, 

 depends far more upon these contingencies than it does upon the 

 shooting-properties of the barrels themselves. 



The old habit of shaving oif, or rather scooping out, the butt on 

 one side, to allow the face to come immediately behind the line of 

 the barrel, is perfectly unnecessary, in fact, is opposed to good 

 shooting, as we cannot but think that this shaping of the stock will 

 cause the sportsman at times to shoot very irregular. 



GUN-LOCKS. 



Without a good lock, a stub-and-twist barrel of the finest work- 

 manship will be of little avail, and the one is quite as difficult to 

 be obtained as the other. 



Since the introduction of detonators, however, sportsmen pay 

 much less attention to the workmanship of their gun-locks than they 

 did when flint-guns were alone in vogue ; for then it was absolutely 

 necessary to have the finest-finished and best^tempered locks that 

 could be manufactured by experienced artists, to insure the ra- 

 pidity and certainty in shooting which is so desirable. 



These two important ends could not, of course, be attained with 

 the old-fashioned flint or steel lock, unless the various portions of 



