428 lewis' AMERICAN SPORTSMAN", 



Great deception was practised in the getting up and sale of 

 Spanish barrels as soon as it was known that there was such a 

 demand for them in England, a demand in truth that could not 

 be supplied in the ordinary course of trade, as there was not 

 sufficient genuine stub-metal in all Spain to make these barrels 

 fast enough for their foreign, let alone their home consumption. 

 Inferior barrels consequently were imported from Spain, having 

 the names of the most celebrated makers of Madrid engraved 

 on them ; this was not the only deception practised upon the 

 public, for Spanish barrels were actually counterfeited in the 

 manufactories of Germany, and the country consequently soon 

 became flooded with the most worthless and spurious trash 

 imaginable, all purporting to be of real Spanish origin. 



There is considerable difference between a stub-twist and a 

 wire-twist, or a stub-twist and a plain-twist. All twists are not 

 stub-twists, neither is it necessary for all stub-barrels to be 

 twisted-barrels. Notwithstanding there is a wide difference 

 between all these terms, it is very usual for our dealers in guns, 

 as well as Sportsmen, to make little or no distinction in their 

 application. We do not, however, wish to find fault with our 

 Hardwaremen for the exhibition of such ignorance, when real, 

 as they have but few, if any, sources from which they can 

 obtain such information as would set them right on these 

 subjects. There are, nevertheless, some importers as well as 

 traders in guns among us who do know better than to impose 

 upon their ignorant customers in the shameful manner in which 

 they do, as they are well aware of the difference in cost, work- 

 manship, and quality, between a genuine stub-twist and a wire- 

 twist, and they should not boldly assert the one to be as good 

 as the other, when they know what they say is false in every 

 particular. Such conduct is very culpable, and more so when 

 they are fully aware that the weapons they are selling are im- 

 perfect and often really dangerous to use. 



WIRE-TWIST IRON. 



This is the next quality of iron used in the manufacture of 

 gun-barrels, and the mode of making the bar of wire-twist is 

 thus described by Greener : " Alternate bars of iron and steel 



