80 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



judges, several guns the work of responsible makers, and 

 in the hands of dealers on whose faith he can rely ; and 

 from among these to have selected some two or three, 

 which he has ascertained, by testing them according to the 

 instructions on pp. 46, 47, to suit him, as to weight, curva- 

 ture of stock and trigger-pull — the last can be altered, if 

 too hard, by the touch of a file. He should now proceed to 

 try them by firing them in the open air, with a full charge 

 of powder and shot, as prescribed before, at a distance of 

 forty yards. The mark should be twenty-four sheets of 

 thick tarred brown paper, large enough to contain an inte- 

 rior circle of thirty inches diameter. 



Into this circle the gun ought to put its whole charge 

 point-blank ; I mean without more elevation than that 

 given by the rib. The shot ought to be dispersed evenly, 

 not strewed here in clusters of a dozen or more close to- 

 gether, and there with spaces of several inches intervening. 

 A gun doing the first may be depended upon for killing, if 

 held straight. With one planting its charge, as the second, 

 it is hit or miss by luck. If a small part only of the 

 charge is lodged in the mark at that range, and those wide 

 apart and much dispersed, the gun scatters too widely, and 

 consequently shoots weakly ; discard it, therefore, on the 

 instant. 



If, on the contrary — but that will very rarely happen, 

 at forty yards — the charge should be much, though evenly 

 concentrated, in the centre of the mark, especially if it 

 have put a great proportion of all its pellets through all 

 the 24 sheets of paper, the gun is a wonder. 



It is possible it may shoot too closely, that is, may tear 



