56 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADEES. 



It happened that one hammer of the writer's breech- 

 loader was broken and so badly mended that it did 

 rot fall true upon the pin, and yet the only miss-fires 

 he has ever met with arose from his own neglect, in 

 omitting, to recap one or two of the discharged 

 cartridges before reloading. The average of miss-fires 

 with ,1 cartridge is asserted by Mr. Eley, the cele- 

 brated gun-maker, to be one in a thousand — an asser- 

 tion openly made, and, as yet, uncontroverted, and 

 which is confirmed by the experience of the writer 

 and his friends. So far from the . pin's being liable 

 to fall out by any exertion whatever, even if the 

 sportsman turned acrobat for the nonce, it is simply 

 to be said that it cannot be withdrawn with the 

 fingers, and requires a small pair of pliers. 



" If in drawing out an unexploded cartridge the 

 brass end comes off or breaks away from the paper 

 case, it will not be advisable to use the cartridge in 

 that state : it cannot be safe to explode it in the 

 barrel of a breech-loading gun ; in fact, it would be 

 almost as unsafe as a loose charge of powder. And 

 in the event of the cap tnissingfire in a breech-load- 

 ing cartridge, it is not desirable to recap the car- 

 tridge. When once the brass and the pasteboard 

 part company, the power of retaining the explosive 

 force within the case is considerably weakened, and 

 so is the expulsive force." 



On reading the foregoing, one would suppose the 

 author of such statements had never seen a breech- 

 loader. Where the brass end breaks away from the 

 paper case, the cap comes off with it, and the car- 



