30 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 
afternoon on waterhen or rabbits, and found it shoot well— 
though for such work, or for driven birds, one naturally prefers 
a gun weighing 63 lbs. to one weighing 74 lbs. 
No wildfowler can afford to be without a heavy 12-bore 
chambered for the ‘‘ Perfect” brass cases. Here is a gun, of 
all others, which is indispensable. 
No less an authority than ‘‘ Fleur-de-Lys” has recorded 
his opinion in an unmistakable way. Writing in the Fze/d, he 
says :— 
‘¢Sir,—With regard to C. P.’s query in last week’s Fveld, I think 
he could not do better than go to Messrs. J. and W. Tolley for one of 
their wildfowl 12-bores chambered and bored for the long ‘‘ Perfects.” 
I am using one of these brass case guns now for the second season, 
and its power is simply astonishing. I gave up the larger bores 
principally because of their unsuitability for quick shots at single 
birds (especially snipe). My<Tolley’s 12-bore weighs a little over 
8 lb., and has 30-in. steel barrels, choked to give the closest possible 
shooting. It performs extremely well with 50 grs. Amberite or 3 drs. 
black, and 14 oz. No. 1 or No. 4 Newcastle chilled shot. With the 
ordinary short paper cases it also shoots well, and I always use these 
for snipe and cripple-stopping. I have not found that changing from 
an 8-bore to a 12 has at all diminished my sport among the ducks, 
for the lighter gun shoots No 1 so admirably that one is able to com- 
mand almost the same range; and shots into big flocks, where the 
heavier 8-bore charge would tell, are such rare events with the shore- 
shooter nowadays that they need scarcely enter into his calculations. 
Last winter I several times got two, twice three, and once four duck to 
one barrel, and that at ranges of from fifty yards to sixty yards ; for the 
fowl along the foreshore where 1 shoot are much harried. For snipe- 
shooting the gun is just as handy as a light paper-case twelve—at least 
I miss about the same proportion with either weapon. It adds immensely 
to one’s pleasure being able to tackle single birds; and for this reason 
alone I consider the 12-bore is immeasurably superior to the 8 or Io. 
Messrs. J. and W. Tolley can build a 12-bore to put about fifty pellets 
of No. 1 into a foot square at forty yards: and No 1 is, I am convinced, 
the shore-shooter’s trump card; an ounce and a half contains 156 
pellets, and at eighty yards they will go through a duck like bullets, 
while the pattern at this distance is so satisfactory that a shot into a 
