GUNS AND AMMUNITION. 



51 



perfect as can be made. What I take 

 exception to is the claim that it is the 

 only accurate smokeless .22 on the mar- 

 ket, as well as the further statements made 

 by him against the Peters ammunition. If 

 Mr. Cracknell wished to do justice to the 

 Peters Company when firing 25 consecutive 

 shots at a quarter inch center, why didn't 

 he place his gun in a vise instead of tak- 

 ing a rest? It may be that when shooting 

 from such a position with a cartridge in 

 which he had, apparently, no confidence, he 

 could not do so well as he did with the 

 U. M. C. cartridge, and his gun may have 

 wavered just before firing, as it certainly 

 does with a great many shooters. 

 During the season, in a new single shot 

 inchester, I have fired about 1,300 rounds 

 of the Peters .22 semi-smokeless short, 

 and 300 rounds of the .22 long, not the 

 long rifle. I never had one cartridge miss 

 fire out of the bunch. As nearly as I could 

 tell, from my experience both in the field 

 and the gallery, all of each kind were of 

 equal strength, and placed the bullet di- 

 rectly in the spot pointed at. I do not 

 mean by this that I hit the mark every 

 time, but when I did not it was neither the 

 fault of the gun nor the cartridge, but of 

 the man behind the gun. Of course, I do not 

 shoot from a rest, and were I not able to 

 shoot offhand I should not shoot in any 

 other manner. So with Mr. Cracknell 

 and the other critics ; the fault has always 

 been in the man and not in the gun or the 

 ammunition. From experience we know 

 that many of us are too prone to com- 

 plain and find fault when the trouble is all 

 with ourselves. For instance, a few weeks 

 ago a young lady in my office, with my 

 associate, went hunting. She used a Rem- 

 ington single barrel shot gun, with U. M. 

 C. smokeless shells, loaded with Dupont 

 smokeless powder. When she returned I 

 found that 15 of the shells had missed fire. 

 There was a splendid chance, through 

 Recreation, to roast the manufacturer of 

 the shells ; but I had used several thousand 

 of them in another gun and never found 

 one which refused to explode, so we sub- 

 mitted the matter to our former gun 

 dealer, who declared the heads of the 

 shells were sunken. A straight edge soon 

 disproved his theory, so of course there 

 was another opportunity of abusing the 

 Remington people for making a poor gun ; 

 but I insisted on the lock of the gun being 

 taken apart, and the next day we were in- 

 formed that the old oil in the lock had 

 gummed and caused all the trouble. Such, 

 no doubt, would be the similar experience 

 of all the kickers if they would only use 

 their heads a little more, and their pens a 

 little less. We find these difficulties aris- 

 ing not only with the gun and its ammuni- 

 tion, but with rods and reels, and in fact 



with all our undertakings. If Mr. 

 Cracknell wishes us to believe what he 

 says about the Peters ammunition let him 

 be more careful about the other state- 

 ments made in his letter. 



Mr. Truitt, one of our gun dealers here, 

 tells me he has used, this season, 1,500 Pe- 

 ters semi-smokeless .22 short, and that they 

 have given him entire satisfaction, as well 

 as their 12-gauge shot gun ammunition. 



I like your magazine very much, and 

 would not be without it. In fact, a few 

 years ago I discontinued the American 

 Field and subscribed for Recreation. 



If Mr. Harry Cranston will wipe out his 

 rifle, after shooting it, with 5 or 6 oiled 

 rags, or until the gun is perfectly clean, I 

 think it will not rust. Then if he wishes 

 he can wipe it dry, or leave it oiled. I like 

 olive oil the best. Ed. J. Anderson. 



THE MAUSER AND THE MAN. 



Quite a discussion has run through the 

 gun and ammunition department of Recre- 

 ation relative to the value of the captured 

 Mausers recently sold by the Government. 

 One correspondent claimed they were only 

 old junk, valuable merely as war souvenirs. 



My experience is the opposite of that 

 statement. For the benefit of several in- 

 quirers in our magazine, I beg to unfold my 

 tale. 



Last fall, on starting on a Western hunt- 

 ing trip, I bought 2 Spanish Mauser 

 military carbines, 19 inch barrels, one a 

 German model, 7 mm. box magazine, the 

 other the Argentine model, 7.65 mm. Lee 

 magazine. These I took with me. My 

 reason for choosing the carbines was that 

 they could be packed in my trunk. I also 

 bought 100 rounds each of German cart- 

 ridges for the 7 mm. and 100 U. M. C.'s 

 for the 7.65 mm. The former were all de- 

 fective, being split in the neck. 



Before going into the woods I tried the 

 guns on targets, and found them accurate 

 and powerful. Notwithstanding the de- 

 fectiveness of the German cartridges, they 

 proved much the better ammunition. The 

 U. M. C.'s invariably dropped the primers 

 in the discharge, thus clogging the action. 

 Besides, they were not nearly so powerful, 

 nor were they so accurate. 



I used the weapons for shooting deer, 

 and found them in every way satisfactory. 

 When the season closed I shipped them 

 home. 



Deciding at St. Louis to go farther 

 South, I bought another Argentine model, 

 with perfect German ammunition. Be- 

 cause of their great range, in trying these 

 I nearly always removed the bullet from 

 the shell, poured out Y> the powder, am' 

 then replaced the bullet. This was tc 

 guard against accidents which might at- 

 tend their long flight. 



