37^ 



RECREATION. 



eral of the guides declared they had never 

 seen so effective a weapon, and each of 

 them ordered a similar one at once. 



To sum up its advantages : The ammu- 

 nition is light to carry, and cheap. It can 

 be found in almost any gun store. Be sure 

 to call for the 22 short, rim fire. The rifle 

 with 6 or 10-inch barrel takes but little 

 room. It can be carried in a side pocket 

 as easily as a toothbrush. A repeater is 

 unnecessary, as a second shot is rarely 

 needed. These advantages are so decided 

 and manifest that I understand anyone 

 who should be seen out after big game with 

 the old style Savage or Winchester, with 

 their .303 and 30-30 calibers, would be 

 laughed at by the guides. Several of the 

 European nations are considering the de- 

 sirability of discarding their present weap- 

 ons and adopting an arm using the 22 short 

 rim fire cartridge. 



D. L. Bodge, Middle Falls, N. Y. 



MORE PRAISE FOR THE TELESCOPE. 



I bought a telescope sight several years 

 ago because a defect of my right eye had 

 made rifle shooting almost impossible to 

 me. I selected a Malcolm IS10. 2 Imperial 

 and found I could see as well to shoot with 

 its aid as ever before. The field of this 

 instrument is not particularly large, but 

 the power is excellent. 



For a quick running shot a good sight 

 mounted on top of the telescope is, I be- 

 lieve, more practical and satisfactory than 

 the telescope itself, whet, er the field be 

 large or small. With this arrangement a 

 narrower field can be used, with conse- 

 quent higher power, which I consider one 

 of the essentials to accurate shooting. 



My first experience with the 'scope in 

 actual hunting was during a trip in North- 

 ern Wyoming about 2 years ago. I scarce- 

 ly claim to be even an amateur sportsman, 

 and when I started on that trip I had never 

 seen a live wild deer. Our camping and 

 traveling was of the roughest kind, and 

 my telescope gun was as easily taken care 

 of as any other, notwitnstanding that many 

 hunters claim these guns are not practical 

 on a hard trip such as ours. 



Though fortune, as all hunters know, is 

 a fickle dame, she certainly smiled propi- 

 tiously on me on that trip. My first game 

 was 2 buck mule deer, 6 and 8 prongs re- 

 spectively, at distances of 175 and 225 yards 

 in the breaks of the Little Powder river. 

 My only honor in the feat was in not 

 getting buck fever, for they were so big I 

 could not have missed them. 



My best practical test of the 'scope was 

 one day, when, having jumped a deer in a 

 rough section, it stopped at a distance of 

 125 yards in a thicket of scrub oak. So 

 dense was the cover that with the naked 

 eye I was unable to see any sign of him. 



By the aid of the telescope I detected a 

 patch of hair in the brush, at which I fired. 

 I found my deer, a fine 4 pronged brush 

 buck, dead, shot through tLe shoulder. At 

 another time, in a dim light, while. on an 

 elevation scanning the valley below, my 

 companion detected, at a distance of about 

 300 yards, the faint outlines of the hind 

 part of a deer in a clump of quaking asp. 

 My first shot broke the deer's hind leg; a 

 second finished him. One other excellent 

 shot I made was shooting off the head of a 

 grouse at a distance of 15 steps, after sun- 

 down, in a dim light. I tell of this merely 

 to show what can be done with a high 

 power 'scope in a dim light. 



I am but an indifferent shot, yet on that 

 trip I killed everything I shot at, and I 

 attribute mv successes mainly to my tele- 

 scope sight. 



C. P. Swarm, Oakland, la. 



QUESTIONS THE SKILL OF THE FATHERS. 



In March Recreation Old Hunter, Glen 

 Ellen, Cal., made a statement which I can 

 not refrain from taking exception to, de- 

 spite the fact that I am scarcely 1-3 as old 

 as he. I refer to that part of his article in 

 which he says that in old days any fair 

 shot could put a second bullet on top of the 

 first at 100 yards. 



There are only 3 ways in which that 

 could have been done: by usincr a telescope 

 sight ; by being able with the naked eye to 

 sight on the bullet hole at 100 yards ; by 

 sighting on the center of a small bullseye. 



The first of these need not be considered ; 

 there were no 'scopes in those days. 



As to the second, I do not believe there 

 is, or ever was, a man who could sight on a 

 bullet hole at 100 yards, as but few can 

 see it at all at that distance even under the 

 most favorable circumstances. 



When it comes to the last way. it could 

 be done only by the most exact method of 

 loading. The old style of loading, accord- 

 ing to Old Hunter's description, was any- 

 thing else, the powder being measured by 

 holding the bullet in the palm of the hand 

 and pouring from the flask a quantity suf- 

 ficient to cover the ball. By this method 

 there could not but be some variation in 

 the quantity of powder, granting that the 

 bullets were all the same size, which they 

 were not, as this is not true of bullets cast 

 in the best modern moulds until after swag- 

 ing. Add to this the fact that few men in- 

 deed can use anything like the same pres- 

 sure each time in ramming home a ball, 

 and it can readily be seen that the above 

 feat must have been extremely difficult 

 and rarely accomplished. 



I do not mean to insinuate that the rifle- 

 man with the muzzle loader was not an ex- 

 pert, but it seems the fashion nowadays to 

 magnify the achievements of our forefa- 

 thers and to belittle those of our own day. 



