
GUNS AND AMMUNITION. 
WHAT RIFLE SHALL I BUY? 
W. G. REED. 
“T am going to take up hunting another 
season, and want to know what rifle I would 
better buy.” 
I am asked that conundrum every little 
while. A dozen different men would give 
as many different answers, and all would be 
right. ; 
It is entertaining to those who have made 
a study of the subject, as well as disconcert- 
ing to anyone who has not, and who is 
about to purchase his first rifle, to read in 
the various sportsmen’s journals communi- 
cations from different men who wax enthu- 
siastic over the superior killing powers of 
the particular rifles which they have used 
on recent successful hunting trips. They 
dilate on the havoc to the vitals of a large 
bear or moose, and seem to think a man 
who carries any other make or caliber is 
doomed to failure. 
Plenty of such testimony has been pub- 
lished regarding the .30-30 Winchester, 
Marlin and Savage; the .30-40 Winchester ; 
the .38-55, .40-70, .45-70 and .45-90 Winches- 
ter and Marlin, and the .50-100 Winchester. 
This proves 2 things: 
ioe title that’ each sone wcarmieds aad 
ample killing power. 
2. The hunter was either a good or a 
lucky hunter. 
Many successes with such rifles are on 
record. The failures with each are doubt- 
less more numerous, but they do not get into 
print. The unsuccessful hunter does not 
brag of his misses. If he mentions them, he 
will be sure to also give the “ extenuating 
circumstances.” Many a man, expert with 
a .38 or .45, or with a target rifle on a range, 
on trying a .30 in the woods, has failed, then 
blamed the gun, when he had not learned 
how to use it. I know of a case where a 
man, an excellent marksman, accustomed 
to a large bore, carried a .30 for the first 
time. He saw a deer 150 to 200 yards away. 
He knew it was a long shot, and naturally 
‘““aimed high.” No movement. A second 
shot—the deer raised its head. It then oc- 
curred to the hunter that no allowance was 
needed for trajectory, and the third shot 
killed. Now if the deer had moved away 
after the first or second shot, the man would 
have blamed the rifle, but the result of the 
third proved that it was all right. 
Dr. Heber Bishop, using a Winchester 
.30-30, killed a 1,000 pound moose in De- 
cember, ’97, with one shot; and in Decem- 
ber, 98, a 1,200 pound moose, again with 
one shot. He fired 2 others into this last, 
but a post mortem showed that they were 
unnecessary. Now what is the use of any- 
one’s saying the .30-30 is not powerful 
43 
enough, because he found one or 2 of that 
size bullets in a moose he killed with a 
50? I know a man who killed a moose last 
October, and who found 2 .45-70 bullets in 
the carcass, with the wounds by which they 
had entered healed over. They had been 
there at least a year. Does some one say, 
“ Therefore, the .45-70 is no good?” No. 
The reputation of that gun is too well es- 
tablished. 
Failures with any of the guns I have 
named simply prove bad aim, occasionally 
due to circumstances over which the hunter 
had no control. I have heard of a man who 
condemned his .30 because he failed to hit a 
deer at 50 to 75 yards, when shooting from 
a canoe. It is a mighty lucky shot that will 
hit a mark under such conditions. Another 
fired at 2 moose that answered a call. It 
was so dark he could see neither the an- 
imals nor the sights on his rifle. He fired 
one shot at each, with a .30-30 and wounded 
them. A bloody trail was found and fol- 
lowed for some distance the next morning, 
but both got away. He condemned the rifle! 
Under such circumstances there is no rifle 
built light enough for a man to carry, that 
would have been any more successful. What 
astonished me was that he even hit them. 
I do not think he should have blamed the 
.30-30, for using the same caliber, though 
of another make, a year previous, in day- 
light, when sure of his aim, one shot killed.* 
I use the .30-30 Winchester because: 
1. It has ample power. 
2. Its trajectory is so flat that, set for 100 
yards, I shoot at anything within my hunt- 
ing range, without aiming high or low, es- 
timating distance, or manipulating sights. 
Any man will soon learn, intuitively, to 
know if an object is near enough for him 
to fire at with any prospect of success. That 
is his hunting range; it has little or noth- 
ing to do with the distance which the rifle 
will carry. 
3. Among those of ample power and flat 
trajectories, gun and ammunition make up 
the least dead weight to carry. 
4. It has very little recoil. One serious 
objection which I have to the large bore, 
heavy bullet, black powder rifles, is their 
kicking propensities, and consequent ten- 
dency to disturb aim. 
The hunter who has learned how to han- 
dle a large bore rifle successfully, does not 
need to change; but the man who is just 
beginning to hunt big game will, in my 
opinion, be well satisfied with a .30-30. 
When a man has tramped, waded, crept, 
crawled and wriggled himself to a position 
within 100 yards or so of a deer or moose, 

*He did wrong in shooting at the moose in the dark. No 
man should ever do such a thing.—Epb. 

