128 



RECREATION. 



Near by was another trail, and, knowing 

 the 22 seldom spills blood, I followed the 

 track. Within 30 yards 1 came on a large 

 doe, dead. In all 4 the bullets had passed 

 either through the heart or very near it. 



I have since killed 3 bu-cks with the 

 same rifle with one shot each. My wife, 

 also, killed a large bull elk with the little 

 gun. The ball went through shoulder, 

 heart, broke a rib on opposite side and 

 stopped against the skin. 



The rifle whose work I have described 

 has a somewhat remarkable history. Be- 

 fore I tried it on large game and while 

 shooting at a target, a ball became lodged 

 in the barrel, about 2 inches from the 

 muzzle. I blew it out with another car- 

 tridge, and in doing so swelled a well 

 marked ring in the barrel where the first 

 bullet had stuck. Later, while driving with 

 the eun leaning against the dashboard, a 

 sudden bump threw the rifle out and 2 

 wheels passed over it, bending the barrel 

 badly. When I got home I dismounted 

 the gun, knocked off the sights and threw 

 the barrel away, intending to send for a 

 new one. I neglected to do so, however. 

 After the old barrel had lain outdoors 

 several months, I chanced to speak of it 

 in hearing of my father. He said he had 

 often straightened bent crowbars by strik- 

 ing them over a log, and suggested that I 

 try that plan with the barrel. I said he 

 could strike 1,000 bent gun barrels over a 

 log without making one straight enough to 

 shoot with. Nevertheless, to humor him, I 

 hunted up the old barrel and tried my 

 luck. Two blows so much improved it 

 that I could see through the bore, which 

 before had been impossible. I continued 

 whacking the barrel on a log until it ap- 

 peared perfectly straight. I put on the old 

 sights, lined them by my eye, and getting 

 some cartridges tried the gun. To my 

 surprise, I put 7 consecutive shots into a 

 spot the size of a dime, at 15 paces. No 

 alteration has been made in the weapon 

 since, and my father never sees it without 

 reminding me that what is .srood medicine 

 for a crowbar may be equally good for a 

 gun. E. E. Van Dyke. 



THEY STILL WRITE TO PETERS. 



Philadelphia, Pa. 

 Messrs. Peters Cartridge Co., 



Cincinnati, Ohio : 

 Dear Sirs : — I have read in Recreation 

 the correspondence which has passed be- 

 tween yourselves and the editor of the 

 magazine, and I trust you will pardon me 

 if I say that in my opinion you are on 

 the wrong track. You will probably re- 

 member that P. T. Barnum once said, in 

 •effect, it didn't make much difference how 

 you became known, the main thing being 

 to get your name before the people. It 



seems to me that an occasional adverse 

 criticism, with its attendant host of let- 

 ters refuting it, is about the best sort of 

 advertisement one can get, both because it 

 is all free, and because it is placed in the 

 reading pages, where everybody will be 

 sure to read it. 



Supposing this man Radeliff had not 

 written the letter in question, but had told 

 a friend, and that friend had told another, 

 and so on and so on. You would never 

 have had the chance to contradict him, 

 would you? But when he comes out in 

 print, it gives your friends the opportunity 

 to call him down hard, and with such 

 positiveness that every reader of the mag- 

 azine is convinced the first chap didn't 

 know what he was talking about. 



Sportsmen, as a rule, are only too anx- 

 ious to tell about their favorite weapon, 

 ammunition, etc., but if you' were in 

 doubt as to whether your unknown 

 friends would defend you, how easy it 

 would have been to drop a line to a few 

 you do know, asking them what their ex- 

 perience had been with the gun and shells 

 in question, and suggesting that they write 

 Recreation direct, telling what they 

 knew. Recreation would have printed 

 every such letter, for it is the policy of 

 the magazine to print sportsmen's opin- 

 ions, no matter what they are ; and you 

 would have received a vindication, and an 

 advertisement tha't money couldn't buy. 



I trust you will pardon this letter, but 

 I am both a sportsman and an advertiser, 

 and, as I said before, I think you dis- 

 tinctly in the wrong. As a last word, the 

 controversy has had this effect on me: I 

 shall buy some of your shells in the near 

 future and try them in my Winchester 

 repeater. If they do not jam, I shall be 

 sure to write Recreation to that effect. 



Yours truly, E. Wager-Smith. 



Vincennes, Ind. 

 The Peters Cartridge Co., 



Cincinnati, Ohio : 

 Dear Sirs : — I noticed in Recreation a 

 statement .to the effect that your shells 

 have so little rim they can not well be used 

 in the Winchester repeating shot gun. Be- 

 ing interested in guns and ammunition and 

 regarding the correspondence pages of 

 Recreation as an open forum in which 

 persons of similar tastes are free to dis- 

 cuss questions of this kind, I expected 

 that you or some of your friends or cus- 

 tomers would meet this statement either 

 with a frank admission that your shells 

 were not adapted to that particular gun 

 or with an explanation showing wherein 

 the first correspondent was mistaken. On 

 receipt of the next number of Recreation 

 I was much surprised to find that your 

 only reply was the withdrawal of your 

 advertisement. I have neither the wish 



