450 lewis's AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



without understanding the very phrases they make use of. This 

 being the case, we shall endeavor to enlighten them on the subject 

 in as short a space as possible, as we have so many other topics to 

 treat of that we fear to dilate on any subject lest our work become 

 too voluminous for our sporting friends to wade through. 



STUB-TWIST BARRELS. 



These barrels are very scarce, — that is, the real genuine stub- 

 twist, — owing to the great difficulty of collecting the materials 

 from which they are manufactured, the cost of working, &c. This 

 may at first sight seem a strange assertion to some of our readers, 

 many of whom, no doubt, are under the impression that most of 

 the guns in the possession of their friends, as well as those they 

 have themselves, styled '^stub-twist," are really and truly as 

 genuine specimens as could be produced in any part of the world. 

 Stop a moment, however, my incredulous friends, till you have 

 learned from Greener of what a stub-and-twist barrel is com- 

 pounded, and how it is wrought into a gun, and then tell me if 

 you can expect to purchase one of these "rare gems" on this side 

 of the water, or even on the other side, for the paltry sum of 

 twenty-five or thirty dollars, lock and stock included. 



" Old horse-nail stubs have, for a great number of years, been 

 considered the best kind of scraps for the purpose of making the 

 most superior gun-bai-rels. Numerous attempts have been made 

 to find a composition of scraps to equal it, but so far without 

 success. At what time the practice of using old stubs was adopted, 

 we have no certain data. From the appearance of the oldest bar- 

 rels, I should venture to say that it was coeval with their invention. 

 It requires, however, no gift of prophecy to say that their use will 

 not long continue, from the difiiculty of obtaining them good, 

 being only now to be procured from the Continent, and that with 

 increasing difficulty. 



"Before proceeding to manufacture them into iron, women are 

 employed to sort and examine each stub, to see that no malleable 

 cast-iron nails or other impurities are mixed with them. They are 



