GUNS. 427 



they are better game-killers, and that is because these 

 shoot more regularly, and make evener, more sieve-like 

 spreads. For instance, a gun may place with one barrel 350 

 No. 8 shot in a thirty-inch ring, at forty yards, and only 

 300 with the other. It does not follow that the 300 barrel 

 is the better one, for it may leave great gaps, and put shot 

 on in bunches, while the 350 barrel will give quite as 

 large a spread and a much more killing one all over. 

 Hence it is that the tags which accompany a gun, though 

 of great value in establishing its shooting qualities, yet 

 do not reveal the spread and manner in which the gun 

 delivers its load; so here again comes in the importance 

 of fully testing a gun before purchasing it. Furthermore, 

 so long as all guns are not tagged from the same basis, i. e. , 

 at the same range and same sized circle, it is absolutely 

 impossible to draw any but the vaguest conclusions as to 

 their relative merits. 



English guns are targeted at forty yards at a thirty- 

 inch circle, and all first-class ones with Curtis & Harvey's 

 powder if black, Schultze or E. C. if smokeless, and 

 nearly altogether with chilled shot, ISTo. 6 of a certain 

 make, generally Newcastle, that runs with great evenness, 

 so that here we can at a glance see how two Or more guns 

 compare — ^provided their tags represent the actual work 

 done by the gun. 



With us it is different. Some of our makers use one 

 kind of powder and shot, while another, living in another 

 State, loads with entirely different ammunition, and nearly 

 all of them lean toward coarse, slow powder, totally unlike 

 that usually used by sportsmen or men who shoot much at 

 the trap; hence it is that tags, while serving as a capital 

 guide as between guns of one make or factory, are yet, 

 when fastened to the trigger-guards of half a dozen 

 different makes of guns, of very little value in establishing 

 accurate comparisons between them. 



