468 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[JANUAKT 12, 1882. 



cut, frayed, or have an edge doubled over by collision with 

 the shoulder of the chamber or the place where the barrel 

 first tightens upon ihc ball, which even if bevelled would, 

 under such violent speed, have nearly the effect of a square 

 shoulder. It is also nearly impossible for the ball to adjust 

 itself so evenly to the grooves as where it is done slowly and 

 gently. Thrown iu at such a speed, if its point be turned a 

 hair's breadth from the centre line of the barrel, one side 

 will strike the grooves hist. That side is sure to be bruised, 

 and the opposite side of the butt of the ball shares the same 

 fate. It may go out of the barrel in this way, with its point 

 deflected from the line of flight ; or it may be bounced and 

 jammed nearly into place by bounding against the other side 

 of the barrel. But two things are certain. First — That 

 when the ball is left in the grooves this cannot happen. 

 Second — When left below the grooves and passing over an 

 open space that is wider than the ball in order to reach them 

 this must occasionally happen. 



There are other causes of the superiority of the muzzle- 

 loading rifle to the common breech-loader as generally 

 treated by its owner. But space allows consideration only of 

 this one which is, by far, the most important, and is, in fact, 

 the only fundamental difference between the two. The 

 problem for the rifle maker of the future is th'S: How to 

 adjust the ball fully, firmly and gently to the grooves before 

 firing, and do it quickly enough to retain the gn at advantage 

 of rapidity of fire. The accuracy of the breech-loader keeps 

 even pace with the approach to this. The long-range rifle 

 owes its accuracy mainly to Us hall being pushed iu so far 

 before firing, and the 22-cal. owes its accuracy to the ex- 

 treme lightness and lack of momentum in its bullet. It can- 

 not jam so badly as a heavy one. 



Until such an invention comes to the front, there is one 

 sure way to accomplish the same result, viz : — Load from the 

 muzzle whenever you have plenty of time. This plan 1 now 

 follow with my double rifle. By care in loading shells 1 can 

 make it shoot as well as any sporting breech-loader 1 ever 

 saw. But its very best performance when loaded from the 

 breech is nothing compared with its work when loaded from 

 the muzzle, than it is the old muzzle-loader in every respect, 

 and with all its advantages. I keep it loaded with two round 

 balls patched from the muzzle in the ordinary way. I carry 

 a rod in a long pouch like a quiver over my shoulder, and a 

 few bullets and patches. Iu my belt I carry some shells 

 loaded in the ordinary way for quick loading, and a few 

 blank ones for muzzle-loading. These blank ones are loaded 

 to the end with powder and wads. When there is no need 

 of haste in loading, I take out; the rod, wipe out the gun and, 

 loading from the muzzle, push a ball nearly to the shoulder. 

 Then putting a wad in the breech, I put in the blank car- 

 tridges, close the gun and then push the bullet gently home. 

 If one of those balls fails to hit, I know positively that the 

 fault is solely and exclusively my own, for, fired f r«ni a rout, 

 they will all enter the same hole, at forty yards. 



The wad, 1 speak of putting in ahead of the blank enr- 

 tridge, is to insure, the stoppage of the ball before it comes 

 to the slightest looseness in the barrel at the shoulder. So 

 necessary is this that if the bsiJl drops a trifle too low, or 

 whore there is the slightest widening or bevelling at the 

 shoulder, its accuracy will be at once affected. 



In this way the round ball and the old fashioned cone, two 

 of the best balls iu the world for lhO and 250 yards, re- 

 spectively, can be shot as well as from a muzzle-loader. 

 These balls, as well as a cylindrical one with very short 

 bearing, it is nearly impossible to shoot well from a breech- 

 loader without great care in loading. And the cone — the 

 truest and swiftest ball ever known for from 200 to 800 

 yards— cannot be shot at all. It is impossible to get a ball 

 with so short a bsaring delivered true into the grooves with 

 a violent jam. 



Any breech-loading rifle, if cut straight, bevelled a trifle at 

 the muzzle, and furnished with a ramrod can thus be given 

 all the advantages of the muzzle-loader without losing any of 

 the advantages of the breech-loader. A ramrod should be 

 carried anyhow for wiping, if for nothing else. A jointed 

 rod is good enough, and cau be eirried iu a pouch hung to 

 the cartridge-be It behind. The first section may be used as 

 a "starter," a countersunk ferule being put on the end of the 

 handle. If I were a rifle-maker I should quickly have on the 

 market a muzzlr-Uiad'mn brecah-hadtr of this sort. Any rifle 

 and any action will do. Then the hunter can put in a hand- 

 ful of powder behind an express or light conical ball, and 

 have Ihe highest velocity attainable. He can have one shot 

 or two shots if he has a double gun that will forever and 

 eternally go where the gun is pointed, and not occasionally 

 somewhere else. 



If "Iron Ramrod" will try a few more rifles in the same 

 way he will find that the. fault is not in the rifles, all of which 

 are now cut well enough, not in the factory ammunition, 

 which is now made as nearly perfect as possible, not in the 

 bullets, all of which will always go well when loaded from 

 the muzzle, and often badly 'enough when loaded from the 

 breech. .Everything else being equal, of course the difficulty 

 lies in the ball being violently smashed into place. This 

 may be partly, Ihough not entirely, remedied by excessive 

 hardening. 1 have fried as high as" forty per cent, of tin with 

 steady increase in accuracy, but still there was a tendency to 

 occasional wildness of (light. 



The repeater has advantages that will always commend it 

 to many, and it will always be a popular rifle. But there is 

 a large class of hunters who demand absolute precision. 

 Probably, no repeater will ever shoot well enough to suit 

 them. For such I believe the rifle of the future will be the 

 combined breech and muzzle-loaders. And many of this 

 class will rest satisfied with nothing short of a double ham- 

 merless breech-loader, built just like a, shot gun, neat, light 

 and well balanced, having a ramrod beneath the barrels. 

 Use shells with moveable anvils, so that nothing but a bit of 

 stick is needed to de-cap and re-cap them, and such a rille is 

 good anywhere where powder and lead can be obtained. It 

 will cut a squirrel's head as neatly as the old Kentucky rille, 

 and will be, if recoil be made even, a short range, express 

 and mid-range rifle at your pleasure, and still can be fired as 

 fast as a repeater. This is my lea/u ideal 61 shutting rifle 

 I can hardly conclude without saying to that numerous 

 personage who owns a choice breech-loader (one of those 

 that, " shoots exactly where you hold it;" 1 have seen lots 

 of them and owned them myself,) teat if he wants a little 

 conceit taken out of him, let him try il against itself, loaded 

 both ways and fired fifty times at a hole of its own calibre at 

 fifty yards, with telescopic sights. But see that it is not 

 choke-bored too much, that the muzzle is not sharp enough 

 to cut the patch, and that the ball does not get into the 

 shoulder in the least. T. S. Van Dyick. 



Oamdwt, N. .1., Fee., 1881. 

 There bftB been, coosideralilo discussion from time to lime, 



about the relative merits of the breech-loading and muzzle* 

 loading rifles for Short range hunting and target practice. 

 The lru.g range theory has In en clearly demonstrated by the 

 wonderful success of our national teams, against the crack 

 shots of other nations armed with muzzle-loaders— the breech- 

 loaders invariably winning, and making a better score when 

 both kinds were shot by one person. 



For short range— from fifty to one hundred yards or even 

 under -the champions of the muzzle-loader claim much finer 

 shooting than can be done with any breech-loader. If we 

 carefully cousider the conditions to which the average breech- 

 loader is subjected, we have no cause to wonder that il does 

 not go quite as well. In the first place it has a much greater 

 charge of powder than is necessary for one hundred yards, 

 the conical or cylinder-conical bullet gives a greater recoil, 

 disturbing the aim for getting a fine bead on any thing, anel 

 the high block on which the foTe sight is set, cannot be 

 caught as easily by the eye for snap-shooting. 



The muzzle-loader, on the other hand, had low sights, 

 the front one being the broad knife-blade style, made of silver 

 or uickle, and in the rear was one of the Rocky Mountain 

 pattern in ; he shape of a buck horn. The muzzle-loader also 

 could ha.ve the powder e;harge regulated in a second for the 

 distance fired at, and the round patched bullets gave ro re- 

 coil, enabling a person with a rest to make a dozen cut in the 

 same hole at twenty yards. The advantages of round balls 

 are so apparent at short range in shooting small game and 

 in fancy markmanship that I have often wondered "why cart- 

 ridge companies do not make their shells of the regulation 

 sizes, filled with half the ordinary loadof powder and around 

 ball, of course I refer to rim-fire, as those who shoot cential 

 fire rifles can re-load them in any desired way. Many do not 

 do so though, because they imagine nothing is better than 

 conical and cylinder shaped bullets, often saying that only 

 muzzle-loaders are good for round balls and the patch must 

 be used invariably with them. 



Some years ago I had a small muzzle-loading rifle, taking 

 one hundred balls to the pound, and which, when loaded 

 carefully, was very accurate at close distances. This I tried 

 against a Ballard and Maynard rifle with their conical bullets, 

 and il beat them badly, but as soon as the cartridges of the 

 latter were loaded with round balls there was no apparent 

 difference between them all in accuracy. Lately, I have 

 tried round balls with extremely light charges of powder, in 

 a regular .45 calibre Government cartridge shell, giving excel- 

 lent results at the distances where they were fired. Using a 

 paper wad over the powder, and bullets fifty to the pound 

 slightly greased, I loaded, for fifty or under, with five grains 

 of powder, at one hundred feet ten grains, and at fifty yards 

 fifteen grains. 



These loads made no perceptible report, the charge of five 

 grains, in fact, could be fired in the house, as il was not any 

 louder thau a Flobert rifle. 



The round balls and small charges of powder will prevent 

 pistols from rebounding as much as they do now, besides al- 

 lowing persons to aim directly at an object instead of a foot 

 or two below it, which is now necessary, as any one knows 

 who has shot with a revolver of modern limes. I loaded the 

 shells of a Smith & Wesson improved .44 calibre with half 

 the usual load of powder, and a round ball, fifly-five to the 

 pound. There was no kick to the weapon then ; it shot up 

 to fifty yards nearly twice as well as before, and could be 

 aimed directly at the mark. With these cartridges on one 

 occasion it struck an ordinary^ telegraph polo off-hind three 

 limes in succession at fifty yards, whereas with the factory 

 made ammunition it woidd not hit more than tlitee out of 

 five. Pistols more than rifles would be benefited by shorter 

 size cartridges, insleael of the long ones now in use, which 

 have more powder than is necessary to kill a man when held 

 straight, besides giving so much recoil that it has to be aimed 

 almost at persons' toes at fifty feet to hit him in the head. 

 There is a special short size .33 eilibrc cartrhlge made, which 

 Ihave fired inarifleaud pistol with favorable results, bul the 

 bullets seem to be too small for the barrels of other than the 

 particular pistol il is intended for, and, of course, will not 

 carry as far as it might. 



In conclusion, 1 wish to say that if more persons favoring 

 muzzle-leiading rifles would load with round halls and slight 

 charges in their breech-loaders, letting us know what are the 

 resulls, there would be a change of opinion in those who ad- 

 mit the convenience of the breech-loader, but doubt its accu- 

 racy at short ranges. Cons. 

 > — .«. — • 



TREEING VS. WING-SHOOTING. 



FaKMSBirjiGB, Vt., Dec. 31, 1881. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



Now that the grouse have become so scarce that one can 

 hardly got. three shots in a ten hours' tramp, it is late in the 

 day to learn how to shoot them, but 1 like. " iron Ram- 

 rod's" idea of sin oting with both eyes shut. Wheu one 

 gets the hang of doing this successfully he may reasonably 

 expect to become a fair wing shut, on ruffed grouse even in 

 such cover as they are often found in here, that is among 

 low evergreens and thick white birch and poplar sprouts, 

 where half the time the only evidence one has of having 

 flushed a bird is the whir and clatter of its flight through 

 the maze of branches. If one could learn to shoot straight 

 at the r ickct, and had a gun that would drive its charge of 

 shot through fifteen or twenty yards of brush, he might de- 

 light to have a grouse do its most in such places. But for 

 my part, with my lack of skill, I would rather have the 

 grouse make il as easy for me as possible, and would not 

 think him running what a life insurance agent would count 

 any great risk at that. 



Our wise legislators have made it unlawful to use dpfgs in. 

 the hunting of grouse, making no diseriminat ; on between 

 curs and cookers or setters and pointers, so in Vermont the 

 law-abiding sportsman must find and flush his own birds, 

 and the law-abiding pot-hunter must still-hunt his. Yes, 

 most gentlemanly sportsmen, if shooting ruffed grouse sit- 

 ting makes one a pothunter, such an auomaly as a law- 

 abiding pot-hunter docs exist. Without shame 1 con- 

 fess myself such a one. I shoot ruffed grouse wherever I 

 find them, on trees or on the ground, and blaze away at them 

 :mi [in wing every time they give men chance, sometimes" 

 getting them, of tener not. But though 1 had carried a gun 

 more years before there was any law for their protection in 

 Vermont than I shall again this siele the happy hunting 

 grounds, 1 never yet shot one out of season, nor did I ever 

 kill any name bird, animal or fish at any tune or in any 

 manner prohibited by the laws of the hind. But for all that 

 I suppose I am a pot-hunter, Il is lime some one arose 

 to explain the inconsistencies of sporting rules,- to tell us. 

 why it is more sportsmanlike to shoot into a huddle of 

 decks sitting on the water than a single grouse on a tree. 

 ! i'gitiuiato sport to shoot ti. deer ot a hare before 



hounds, and an outrageous act to kill a fox under like cir- 

 cumslanees. Why ducks and snipe may be shot in spring 

 and other game not, just because some of the ducks and snipe 

 do not happen to breed among us. Why it is a manly and 

 noble spirit to crust-hunt a moose, and not, as it certainly is 

 not, to crust-hunt a deer, and why it is fair to call a moose 

 and not fair to call a wild turkey, or fair to fool a fish with a 

 feathery semblence of a fly, and unfair to fool him with a 

 bit of metal that to him seems a minnow, and so on and so 

 on, almost without end. As L. I. F. says, "give us niOTe 

 light." I like his anel M. P. MeKoon's manly 'letters in the 

 last FoEBflT asd Si'fiEAM". in my opinion all the difference 

 in practices of those writers and those who kill their ten-out- 

 oS-SIX grouse ou the wing, and like to have 1hem go in the 

 worst, places, is that the first, tell just what they do, and the 

 others— well, if Ihey ever do forget themselves and "mur- 

 der" a treed grouse^ he can't tell of it, and they won't. 



R. E. Robikson. 



rh-ii.-l 



CAPERCAILZIE FOli AMERICA. 



New York, Dec. 28, 1881. 

 Foiext and Stream : 



Several years ago I suggested, through the columns of 

 FohbsT and Stream, the experiment of introducing the 

 Capercailzie into our Michigan and Maine pineries, where I 

 believe it would thrive and multiply largely, as it is a much 

 hardier bird than our native wild turkey and much shyer. 

 Our Canadian cousins are likely to take the initiative in so 

 laudable an effort, as the following extract from the Quebec 

 Chronicle shows -. 



"An application was made at the last monthly meeting of 

 the Literary and Historical Society, by Mr. Adam Wntters, 

 on behalf of a Scotch taxidermist," to exchange the duplicate 

 bird skins belonging to the Society for fine specimens of the 

 Scotch game, such as Scotch grouse and ptarmigan, black 

 cock, pheasants, capercailzie, etc. The Society had much 

 pleasure in giving its fullest concurrence to a movement cal- 

 culated to still enlarge the collections in its rooms. Though 

 the museum of the Society was twice destroyed by fire, it 

 has at tained such dimensions as to render it very valuable 

 for the study and identification of species. It is to be hoped 

 measures will soon be taken to increase its locale so as to be 

 In a position to exhibit the large denizens of Canadian 

 forests. The moose, caribou, wapite, red deer, long-tailed 

 deer, etc., woulel make a splendid group. Mr. Watlers 

 made a further n quest on the Society to obtain its counte- 

 nance in an attempt, likely to he made next spring, to intro- 

 duce the capercailzie in our Northern pine forests. The 

 capercailzie is a large and beautiful game brd of thn size of a 

 turkey. It is found in the Northern portions of the European 

 Continent, flourishes even in the intense cold of Siberia, 

 where Mr. Walters staled it was observed and noted by our 

 respected fellow-cUi/cn, Dr, Rowan. It existed of yore in 

 Scotland, and was, some years back, re-introduced by the 

 Marquis of Breadsdbane and Earl of Fife. It lives on spruce 

 boughs, etc., in winter— ants anel other insects in summer, 

 and roosts em the summit of the loftiest forest trees. If the 

 capercailzie anel Messina quail csm be added to our fauna, it 

 will indeed be a great achievement. Mr. Watters thought $50 

 or $60 would suffice to bring over a large number of capcr- 

 cadzie eggs in April next, to he hatched under the domestic, 

 turkey or placed in the nest of the Canadian grouse. Tbe 

 Society was appealed to as being interested in Natural Bis- 

 toiy pursuits and asked to allow a subscription list to be 

 deposited on its tables in order to raise the necessary funds 

 for an experiment. We commend the Subject to our veteran 

 sportsmen, Col. Rhodes, Charles Temple, Mr. Gregory, 

 Messrs. Dobell, Becket, W. Jeffery, Col. D'Orsonnens and 

 others." 



Why not join forces with them and thus Insure the success 

 of the undertaking beyond a peradventuro of doubt ? 



G. M. Faikchiu), Jh. 



DEER HUNTING IN ARKANSAS. 



T AST evening I shot a " spike" buck, at about seventy 

 I 1 yards, with my 5-bore, 13 pound gun, charged with 

 8 drs. of powder and 8 oz. of No. 3 buckshot. This gun is 

 choked especially for buckshot, and shoots them closer than 

 any gun 1 have ever seen. I can put an average of twenty- 

 two No. S buckshot in a foot square at 40 yat els. She shoots 

 larger sizes in the same proportion, and when loaded as she 

 was hist night, she makes the hair fly. But seventy yarels is 

 a good way to kill a deer dead in his tracks, so he rattled off 

 through the brush at a lively gait. I saw he was hit very 

 hard, but as it was getting dusk, and the White River bot- 

 tom is not by any means a pleasant place to get lost in, and 

 as the ground was strange to me, and I was a long way from 

 camp, I concluded to let him go until morning. This an >m- 

 iug I took his trail autl founel him about two hundred yards 

 from where I shot him, hung him up, aud concluded to 

 " blaze" a trail to a hike two miles away. I traveled along, 

 marking the trees with my hatchet, and when within about . 

 four hundred yards of the lake, while going along without 

 auy care whatever, I saw three deer raise up in a patch of 

 green briars to my left, about eighty yards away, and moved 

 diagonally to my right behind a tree top. I sprang forward 

 quickly aud softly a few steps, expecting them to "lope" off 

 in the direction they started, but I saw nothing of them. 

 Stepping a few paces further, 1 saw four deer gazing at me. 

 Two of them were near breast to breast— a large doe aud a 

 yearling — about sixly yarda away. I brought the old gun to 

 bear oii ihcin so as to give each about equal amount of lead. 

 The young buck dropped in his tracks with a broken neck, 

 and struck with several other shot. The doe started off with 

 the others, but soon fell behind, and I knew she could not go 

 far, but still went out of sight. I took her trail, and so m 

 found her dead, not over one hundred yards from Where she 



:■■;'- 1, -it She had one shot square through the butt of her 

 heart, a shot through her back just behind the shoulder, her 

 left fore leg broken in three places aud a. shot through her 

 neck. She was very fat, and the heaviest doe Ihave ever seen, 

 weighing l4f! pounds after disemboweling. 



This proves thai the right kind of a sliot-guu is deadly to 

 deer, and that a deer can get over a good deal of ground 

 carrying a big load of lead." The buck shot last evening had 

 a thigh broken and four shot through the body — one of them 

 through the lungs. He had lived quite a time after lying 

 down. 



These incidents prove also how tame the deer are here, in 

 these immense White River bottoms. The buck, last even- 

 ing, 1 caught a glimpse of just as he stepped behind a large 

 Iree, i bout eighty yards away. [ moved up diagonally about 

 ten steps, so its to bring him in Bight. Wheu 1 shot, another 



