HUNTING-RIFLE, AND FLIGHT OF BALLS. 347 



when you find that a hundred yards for the woods, 

 a hundred and fifty yards for open hills, and two hun- 

 dred yards for the plain (plain rolling enough to be 

 worth hunting antelope on by stalking) are the dis- 

 tances within which five sixths of your opportunities 

 to kill game will occur, you will be still more con- 

 vinced that the higher the velocity the better the rifle 

 for hunting all else of course being equal, as it may 

 easily be, except very long-range power. 



For high velocity slow twist is best; but two things 

 are indispensable; viz., plenty of powder and a light 

 load for it to drive. 



Nearly all American sporting-rifles, as now manufac- 

 tured, are low in velocity. They are chambered for 

 too little powder, nearly all the makers furnish molds, 

 loading-tools, etc., for too long a bullet, and the bullets 

 in the factory ammunition are all too long. A long- 

 bodied bullet is indispensable for a long and steady 

 flight, and hence is essential for long-range accuracy. 

 But making a ball three or four times the weight of 

 the round ball of the same caliber acts precisely like 

 doubling or tripling the charge of shot in a shot-gun. 

 It cuts down immensely the speed with which it passes 

 up the barrel, and decreases immensely the amount of 

 powder that can be endured by the shoulder. It gains 

 only in momentum or continuing power. And though 

 by virtue of this it will make a thousand yards in about 

 half the time that a round ball from the same gun could 

 make it with any amount of powder, the round ball 

 will, on the other hand, make seventy or eighty yards 

 or more in half the time the other does, and therefore 

 make much less of a curve. And if the weight of the 

 round ball be increased one half by making a longer 

 ball, and the charge of powder be doubled behind it, 



