4 6 



RECREATION. 



Joplin, Mo. 



Peters Cartridge Co., 



Cincinnati, Ohio. 

 Gentlemen: — 



This letter refers to what I read on 

 page 378 of May Recreation. 



I condemn your action in withdrawing 

 your support from Recreation. Mr. 

 Shields publishes exactly what we want. 

 I for one think Mr. Radcliff is off, al- 

 though he is entitled to his opinion in re- 

 gard to your ammunition. 



I have 2 Winchester pump guns, a 16 

 and a 12. I do not like the Winchester 

 ammunition, so I use U. M. C. and Peters. 

 I have'* just paid $16.40 for a case of your 

 goods, 3 dr. V/i oz. .7 s. 



Where you develop one fault finder you 

 will find dozens of friends. 



If you insist?, on withdrawing your sup- 

 port from Recreation, I do not believe 

 I can support you. All sportsmen depend 

 on Recreation to give their experience 

 and tests. Yours truly, 



J. H. Dawson. 



Parker House, Boston, Mass. 

 Peters Cartridge Company, 



Cincinnati, Ohio. 

 Gentlemen: — 



I notice in Recreation a letter that 

 strongly reminds me of childishness, on 

 your part. The criticism printed, if at all 

 possible, should have been hailed with >oy 

 on your' part and the complaint looked in- 

 to and rectified. I consider that you 

 would have been the gainer, rather than 

 the loser.. The attitude you now assume 

 I take as *a personal affront to your friends 

 rather than to Mr. Shields. If such be the 

 case and you try to hide the matter by 

 such a cloak, the sooner the sportsmen of 

 the country find this out the better. 



I have fired several hundred of your 

 shells, and have nothing but good words 

 for your wares; but there are others, and 

 in this "I won't play in your yard" busi- 

 ness I hope the thousands of Recreation 

 readers will stand by Shields, as I shall 

 certainly do. Yours respectfully, 



H. B. Glover. 



HE STICKS TO IT. 



Armington, Montana. 

 Editor Recreation: 



I understand the Marlin Arms Co. has 

 filed a suit against you for allowing your 

 readers to criticize their rifles, and that 

 in their complaint they quote my letter, 

 which was published in Recreation about 

 a year ago. 



I shall stay with whatever I have writ- 

 ten about the unreliability of the Marlin 

 rifle. I have owned many of them, but 

 have never yet had one but what had a 

 faulty action. What I shall say here 

 about the Marlin rifle relates solely to the 

 (new model side ejector, 



The Marlin rifle has a faulty action. 

 The ejector and extractor are weak and 

 unreliable. While the extractor may ex- 

 tract with fair regularity, the ejector often 

 fails to eject at a critical time. What is 

 the result? The empty shell lies under 

 that much talked of solid top; the earner 

 tries to rise, but the empty shell is in its 

 way. The solid top prevents its escape 

 from the gun, the gun is spiked and for 

 the time being is no better than a club. 



We will suppose the ejecting mechanism 

 in the particular gun under discussion all 

 right. - Yet the gun will not extract. You 

 are after game. You fire one shot, throw 

 down the lever and jerk it back to place. 

 But no; there is an empty shell in the 

 chamber. The carrier rises by the clos- 

 ing movement of the lever; the cartridge 

 is brought up in the rear of the chamber 

 but can not enter. Why? Empty shell 

 in the chamber; and you have another 

 club on your hands. 



If the gun were a Winchester and it 

 failed to extract (but they don't) the trou- 

 ble could be easily remedied by pushing 

 the carrier down with the cartridge there- 

 in. Then by closing the lever and holding 

 the extractor down with the thumb you 

 could withdraw the cartridge. 



Here's another trouble with the Marlin. 

 We wijl suppose the particular gun in 

 question extracts and ejects every time, 

 like a Winchester. Still, there will be 

 trouble in another direction in rapid 

 shooting. When the lever is thrown open 

 and the bolt moves to the rear the cart- 

 ridge in the magazine is supposed to be 

 pushed back into the corner by the maga- 

 zine spring as rapidly as the bolt travels 

 rearward. The magazine spring is de- 

 pended on entirely to perform this act. 

 Usually it is quick enough; but it is not 

 positive, and right at a critical time when 

 the cartridge is only a part of the way in 

 the carrier and an attempt is made to close 

 the lever the carrier tries to rise. If the 

 lever could be closed something would 

 have to break. In any case, the gun is 

 effectually clogged for the time being. 

 The shell being partly in the carrier is so 

 badly deformed that the gun has to be 

 taken to pieces, and you have another 

 club. 



Some of the Marlins work so hard that 

 it is almost impossible to operate from the 

 shoulder. This is especially true of mod- 

 els '93 and '95. The Marlin rifles have 

 other defects, but as I have attempted to 

 name the main ones, I will not mention 

 others here. The defects mentioned have 

 been noticed by every man who has ever 

 used a Marlin and who knows a gun from 

 a pump handle. 



A few days ago I traded off a Winches- 

 ter rifle that I had fired about 10,000 times. 

 Most of this was rapid shooting, yet that 



