THE RIFLE. 549 



make accurate shooting at all ranges. But if you misjudge your 

 distance at all, or even if you know it and have not time to elevate 

 /our back sight to its proper height, you will certainly either shoot 

 over or under your game. With a short range rifle proportioned 

 as we have described, the drop of the ball, owing to its great veloci- 

 ty, is so little, there is absolutely no judging of distance required. 

 Whether you are at twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five or one hundred 

 yards, all you have to do is to draw a little coarser bead the farther 

 off your game is. Practice will soon show you how much. Your 

 ball should not deviate more than a couple of inches above or be- 

 low, and this does not exceed the limit of accuracy heretofore laid 

 down. 



The faults of modern American breech-loading rifles intended 

 for sporting use were : i — not large or heavy enough projectile to 

 make a disabling wound on an animal as large as an old buck deer. 

 2 — not enough velocity of ball, owing to too little powder being 

 used, and too great friction resulting from an unnecessarily quick 

 twist. The muzzle-loading hunting rifles that were made twenty 

 or thirty years since avoided the second of these faults. Their 

 calibre was smaller than we should now use ; but the reason was, 

 that in those days a hunter had to prepare his own ammunition, 

 and he liked to make it go as far as possible. Now, everything 

 is changed. We have fixed ammunition and automatic actions, 

 and instead of single-loading rifles we have repeaters which 

 carry magazines of many cartridges, so that a hunter at close 

 quarters is never hors de combat. Of the latter, there is 

 the splendid Remington magazine rifle, Keene's patent, the 

 heavy Hotchkiss repeating rifle, sporting model, 45 U. S. 

 Standard cartridge; and the various Winchester models of 

 1866, 1873, and 1876, of calibres 32, 38, 44, 45, 60, 45, 75, and 50 

 express, the latter taking 75 grains of powder and 350 grains 

 of lead, being the heaviest known hunting rifle, and very 

 effective on grizzlies and other big game. The Brown rifle 

 is a new candidate for favor, and is rapidly taking prominence 

 on the Creedmore range as a winning rifle. At 1,100 yards 

 it burns 100 grains of powder, and throws 500 grains of 

 lead. It can hardly be called a sporting rifle, however. The 

 Winchester models are all the same, that of 1876 having 



