vill TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
good for duck-guns. Length, weight, and gauge of guns considered ; the 
old system; the new system; Colonel Hawker's system; the best general 
gun; its size and execution; what it will do; why I prefer it; short guns; 
where they fail; double-barrelled duck-guns ; their size and service ; heavy 
single duck-guns; what they will do; what they will cost; how to choose 
a gun; the trials; close shooting guns; scattering guns; cartridges; charg- 
ing, and its effects; trial of duck-guns; what is a crack shot. « 
THE GUN, AND HOW TO USE IT. 
The art once obtained, always available; once a master, always a master; with 
one system, with all systems; improves with improvement; three heads in 
the use of the gun: safety, effect, service; what is meant by safety; 
when a loaded gun may be called safe; always liable to casual discharge ; 
safety stops ; why not useful; how to carry aloaded gun safely ; how to carry 
the locks safely ; on the nipples; at half-cock; at full cock; Low to load safely ; 
powder-flask and shot-pouch; how to ram home; how to save a maimed 
hand; how to cap your piece; wadding; gunpowder; ducking powder; 
copper caps ; sizes of shot; a gun, how safe in a carriage ; how safe ina house ; 
idiotic accidents with loaded arms. The criminality of such accidents; the 
proper penalty for such; how motto draw one’s ramrod; how not to test its 
being loaded ; how to blow one’s brains out. How tocleana gun; the effects 
of foulness ona gun; when most injurious. When to cleana gun; whoshould 
clean it; who not; to wash the barrels; to cleanse the barrels; to air the 
barrels; to dry rub the barrels; to clean externally ; when not to clean the 
locks; why; to polish the stock; to put by the gun forthe season. Per- 
cussion locks, When necessary to remove them. To take them off. Bar 
and back-action. How to dissect the lock. How to clean it; how to recon- 
struct it; how to preserve barrels when laid by. How to restore. Loon- 
skin oil, The rifle. The old-school rifle. Its gauge and length. Cause of 
its adoption and success. Infancy of the art. Its natural defects. Gradual 
improvements. The short yager rifle. The English double-barrelled sport- 
ing rifle. American rest and target-shooting. The two-grooved rifle. The 
Minie rifle. The Enfield rifle. Breech-loading arms. Perry’s patent. Re- 
volvers and breech-loaders useless as shot-guns. Military revolvers; sport- 
ing do.; Colt’s patent; pistols; rifles; Porter's do.; military breech-load- 
ers; sporting do., rifles; Perry’s arm; described; its qualities; its princi- 
ple; Sharpe’s arm; where and why defective; my own choice; single 
rifles; English double rifles; how to choose a rifle. How far men can be 
taught to shoot by precept ot tev- *f6 oe eg 84-12T 
HOW TO LEARN TO SHOOT. 
The great difficulty. The Oakleigh shooting code; how most men miss, Why 
they do so. Keep the eyelow. When a stock fits. The main point. My 
opinion of this. The art to be acquired. Common error in this country. 
Shooting too well sitting. What must be unlearned. Not so in Europe. 
Effect of this cause here. What makes the rifleman miss the flying shot. 
Mastery of the gun. Positian for practice. To raise and cock; to lower 
and return to half cock. To shoot quick. Both eyes open. Practice with 
caps only—with powder. Candle practice. Practice at a mark—without 
