74: MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



shooting with guns six feet long, weighing twelve or four- 

 teen pounds. 



But a much farther compromise is necessary, and it is 

 now pretty generally conceded that the best and most 

 useful gun, applicable to all kinds of shooting, and service- 

 able in all, is one of fourteen gauge thirty-one inch bar- 

 rel, and 7 to eight Ibs. weight. Such a gun will carry 

 a charge of 1^- ounce of shot to about 3^ drachms of 

 powder, which is in the ratio of measure for measure, or 

 seven to one by weight, and do its work well, regularly, 

 evenly and effectively at forty yards dispersing its shot, 

 at that distance, over a circle of thirty inches diameter, 

 so evenly that, supposing No. 8 shot to be used, no wood- 

 cock, quail, or single snipe shall be within that circle un- 

 pierced by one or more pellets or, if larger shot be used, 

 no ruffed grouse, prairie-fowl, or wild duck. 



I do not intend, by any means, to indicate forty yards 

 as the extreme distance at which such a gun will do its 

 work fatally, but only as the distance at which it ought 

 invariably to do it, killing every bird clean, if it be held 

 so straight as to bring the bird aimed at within the circle. 

 Beyond this it will often, I may say constantly, kill some 

 shots at fifty, some fewer at sixty, and now and then one 

 at seventy yards ; moreover, such a gun will carry, when 

 required, an ounce and three-quarters or two ounces of 

 No. 1 or 2 shot, with 3 drachms of powder, with great 

 force and effect ; it being remembered, that when we 

 estimate by filling a measure of one capacity with pellets 

 of different sizes, the measure of No. 10 shot being almost 

 solid, will weigh at least one-third more than the same 



