146 



RECREA TION. 



ipaper in the mould, so as to cause the ball 

 to flatten or mushroom, thereby making a 

 larger wound. 



I read all the articles on guns and ammu- 

 nition in Recreation, and am much inter- 

 ested in them. I agree with Mr. R. W. K. 

 as to hitting the brain. His gun may be 

 good enough for him but I will tell you 

 what I saw of it. It was in the early 8o's. 

 I was on Ten Mile creek, Colorado, look- 

 ing after some mines. Some friends of 

 mine, from New York, wanted to come out 

 and look at the mines, and have a bear 

 hunt; so I told them to come. 



At last they showed up, each with a 

 beautiful 44-40-200 Winchester. One morn- 

 ing I heard their guns going as fast as they 

 could work them. I ran down the moun- 

 tain to get sight of the performance. As 

 soon as the old bear saw me, he made 

 straight for me, in no very good humor. 

 I did not encourage him nor do a thing to 

 him, till he got within 15 yards of me. I 

 then pulled down fine on his frontal, and 

 handed him my card, endorsed by " old 

 reliable " 40-90-370 Sharps. He received 

 the same in the brain and sat down. We 

 all sat on him and talked of " old reliable " 

 and its work. They had hit the bear 8 

 times — I hit him once. 



30-40 VS. 45 "9°* 



Syracuse, N. Y. 



Editor Recreation: I saw, in May 

 Recreation, the article " Big Bores for 

 Big Game " and should like to tell of my 

 experience with large and small bore rifles. 



I have always used a 45-90 and it does its 

 work well. Have found it good for all 

 game, from a woodchuck up to a moose; 

 but of late— since the 30-40' s and 30-30' s 

 have become so popular I have studied 

 these guns with great care and interest. 

 From the tests I have made of them, I have 

 been convinced and have lain aside my 

 45-90 — probably for ever. 



To consider each point of advantage in 

 the small bores, over those of the 45-9A is 

 the only way in which to thoroughly un- 

 derstand them. 



First: The 45-90 weighs 10^ to 11 

 pounds, when loaded; while the 30-40 

 Winchester, box magazine, weighs but 8 

 pounds. 



Second: There is great difference in the 

 recoil of the 2 guns. 



Third: The flat trajectory of the 30-40, 

 as compared with that of the 45-90. The 

 trajectory, or drop, of a 45-90 ball, in 300 

 yards, is 27.25 inches; while that of the 

 30-40 is but 14.14 inches. A man with a 

 45 calibre must calculate his distance on a 

 deer carefully; and if his calculation be 

 wrong he makes a clean miss. With the 



30-40 all he has to do is to shoot well up 

 on the shoulder and if he misses it's be- 

 cause he didn't hold steady. 



The little steel cased missile travels 

 through space with a velocity of 2,06^ feet 

 a second; while that of the 45-70 and 45-90 

 is between 1,170 and 1,480 feet a second. 

 High velocity materially adds to the pene- 

 tration. The 30-40 has a penetration of 

 58 dry pine boards; while the 45-90 cuts 

 through but 19. 



Another thing which is greatly to the 

 advantage of the hunter is the lack of 

 smoke, in the use of the small gun. I have 

 had the cloud of smoke, from my 45-90, 

 hang so long after firing that I have lost 

 many a deer that might have fallen to my 

 second shot, had I had a smokeless rifle. 



An important question as to the 30-40 is 

 its power to kill. From the tests I have 

 made I can truthfully say these are amaz- 

 ing. My first test was on an old horse, 

 which I first shot through the head. The 

 bullet entered a little to the right of the 

 centre of the head. The skull was smashed 

 to atoms. We were unable to locate the 

 ball, which cut through the neck and must 

 have lodged somewhere in the shoulders. 



After propping up the carcass I shot once 

 through the pouch and once through the 

 shoulders, and the results were wonderful. 

 The ball that passed through the pouch 

 never touched a bone. The hole where it 

 entered was hardly discernible but on the 

 other side we found a hole iy 2 to 2 inches 

 in diameter. The ball fired into the shoul- 

 ders passed through them, making a ghast- 

 ly wound and breaking the bones of both 

 shoulders. We recovered one of these 

 balls and it was mushroomed to the size of 

 a 45 or 50 calibre. 



I agree with Mr. Van Dyke that the 22, 

 32, 38 and 40 black powder cartridges are 

 too small for big game. They have not 

 the necessary power of penetration. Some 

 one may ask why a 38-55 or 40-70 has not 

 the power of a 30-40. This is easily an- 

 swered, when you consider that 40 grains 

 of smokeless powder is equal to 100 grains 

 of black. You can easily see where a 30 

 calibre ball gets its velocity and penetra- 

 tion. 



Mr. Van Dyke let a fortune slip through 

 his fingers when he neglected to preserve 

 the heart of the elk he shot, with his 45-90, 

 and that ran over 100 yards. His story 

 sounds fishy, when medical men claim that 

 if the heart be punctured with a needle it 

 causes paralysis and instant death.* 



I would like to hear from some one else 

 who has used and tried this 30-40 gun. 



Syracuse. 



* Mr. Van Dyke's story is not in the least improbable. 

 No modern medical man so far as I know, makes any 

 such claim. There are plenty of instances on record, of 

 large animals having run ioo or 200 yards after being shot 

 through the heart. — Editor. 



