374 
come home at night with a lame shoulder 
or a headache either. 
Try it and let RecreaTIon tell us the re- 
sults. 
Quilp, Boston, Mass, 

CONDEMNS THE AUTOMATIC. 
I have. read in RECREATION several pro- 
tests against the automatic gun, and I 
heartily approve the sentiment expressed in 
those letters. It seems that the game hogs 
and some of the gun makers are determined 
to wipe out the remnant of our game birds. 
Not being satisfied with double guns and 
repeating shot guns, these men want still 
more murderous and destructive weapons 
so they can finish up the birds still faster 
than they have been doing. 
I am heartily in favor of the enactment 
of laws in all the States to prohibit the 
use of both automatic and pump guns, and 
I should be glad if all such laws provided 
long terms of imprisonment for men who 
violated them. 
I have lived in the West 35 years, and 
most of that time on the frontier, where 
game of various kinds was abundant, yet I 
never killed more than was necessary for 
subsistence and never killed an animal un- 
til the meat supply in camp was practically 
exhausted. One deer or antelope was al- 
ways enough for me* at a time. Many a 
day I have watched dozens of these ani- 
mals and buffalo feeding within rifle shot 
and never disturbed them as long as I had 
2 or 3 days’ supply of meat on hand. 
I was always content with 2 or 3 prairie 
chickens or one turkey for a day’s shoot- 
ing. 
In Routt county, Colorado, in 1891, while 
on a 5 weeks’ hunting trip with W. A. Giles, 
we killed 3 deer and one of them we gave 
to a ranchman who asked us to kill one 
for him because his sight was so poor he 
could not shoot successfully. 
During that time we saw as many as 50 
deer in a day, but no such number could be 
seen there now. The game hogs, head 
hunters and buckskin hunters have thinned 
them out until it would be difficult to find 
half a dozen deer in a dav on the same 
ground. The same is true of grouse in that 
country; yet certain gun makers are anx- 
ious to make it possible for the butchers to 
exterminate in short order the few coveys 
that remain. 
F. W. Hambledon, Pueblo, Colo. 

AN EXPERIENCE WITH NITRO. 
For some time I have followed up the 
reloading of my own shot gun shells, and 
have been rewarded by highly satisfactory 
results with the exception which I am about 
to state. 
I selected a number of solid and firm 
Winchester Leader shells, 234 inches long, 
RECREATION. 
12 gauge. These I carefully resized and 
primed with the long Winchester No. 4 
primer. I then charged them with 3 drams 
of Dupont nitro powder and seated firmly 
on the powder charge a Winchester grease- 
proof 12 gauge wad. Next a % and an &% 
inch black edge It gauge wad and 1% 
ounces of shot covered with a cardboard 
wad. The shells were then firmly crimped 
and I went rabbit hunting. 
I fired several shots which were effective 
in proportion to the accuracy of my aim 
and then came ‘a miss fire. 
It was the first one I had ever known 
the gun to make. When I examined the 
shell I found that the primer had exploded 
and that the crimp in the shell was nearly 
straightened out. As I had heard that a 
strong primer was necessary to ignite nitro 
powder, I concluded that was a weak one 
and had failed to explode the powder, but 
when I unloaded the shell I found the pow- 
der entirely burned up and the inside of the 
shell and the first wad badly charred and 
blackened. 
How this powder could have burned when 
so closely confined and not even expel the 
charge from the shell I do not understand. 
- Neither do I attribute it to any defect in 
the Winchester or Dupont goods, but to 
my own lack of experience in loading nitro 
powders. ; 
-If some brother sportsman could eluci- 
date this point and suggest a remedy for 
similar occurrences in the future, I should. 
like to hear from him through this maga- 
zine. 
G. L. Hale, Chardon, O. 
‘TOO MANY GUNS. 
During a recent stroll through the woods 
near this city it occurred to me that the 
supply of guns greatly exceeds all legiti- 
mate demand. The woods I speak of have 
long been stripped of every variety of game, 
yet firearms were being discharged on all 
sides. Most of the shooting was done by 
young fellows from the city, representa- 
tives of the great class of would-be sports- 
men who delight in killing anything, no 
matter how small, that wears fur or feath- 
ers. To this class may be charged the de- 
predations that are forcing all land owners 

near towns and cities to post their property 
against trespass. The posting of land has 
become so universal in some localities that 
the conscientious sportsman is entirely de- 
prived of privileges he formerly enjoyed 
and appreciated, but the hoodlum gunner 
respects no prohibition unless it is backed 
by physical force. 
Michigan’s law is framed to protect all 
song birds and insectivorous birds. But the 
forests do not teem with game wardens, 
hence all birds, migrate and resident, fall 
victims to the chap who carries a gun. 
