116 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
It is therefore, at best, a weapon which can only be used 
effectively at one, known and given, distance; and is 
utterly useless at any other range, until the difference 
shall have been calculated, and the machinery rearranged 
—an operation requiring time, and, of course, utterly in- 
consistent with field service. 
Of breech-loading pieces, we will say that they are the 
great desideratum of military gunnery; that the superior- 
ity of them to muzzle-loading arms is greater than that 
of percussion to flint-and-steel locks; perhaps as great as 
that of musketry to archery. 
For sporting, however, the gain is not so great. No 
breech-loading rifle has probably ever been made, with 
which the best and most rapid marksman cont fire two 
shots, loading for the second, at one animal running at 
speed away from him, or across him—unless it were, once 
in a thousand times, on a perfectly open and level plain, at 
a very large object—much less could bring down two 
animals in quick succession, leaping up and taking flight 
at the same moment. 
In point of rapidity of firing, therefore, for sporting 
purposes, no breech-loading rifle can ever equal, much less 
surpass, a finely made, accurately-sighted, double-barrelled 
hunting rifle, such as are turned out by Purday, Lang, 
Moore and Gray, and other London makers. 
The obstacles to the success of all former breech-load- 
ing arms have been—First, the difficulty of so arranging 
the juncture of the chamber with the barrel, as to prevent 
the escape of the gaseous ignited fluid, at the moment of 
discharge. If this subtle fluid escape, it will speedily eat 
