130 



RECREATION. 



ment sportsmen receive who request of 

 them something special. 



I hold letters of refusal from both these 

 concerns for special work. 



E. E. Stokes, New York City. 



I thank Jack Pattern for his kind words 

 about my favorite, the Remington, even 

 though he condemns my taste in gun 

 mounting. The No. 5, whose beauty he 

 so strongly approves, I have not been so 

 fortunate as to see. It is one of my few 

 lingering hopes to own a Remington-Lee 

 30-30. I see that condemned by some 

 sportsmen as lacking penetration and shock 

 at long range. That does not disturb me 

 when I remember that if it possesses the 

 power to put a bullet farther than another 

 weapon of similar caliber it must have, 

 also, the momentum to shock proportion- 

 ately. 



I recently tried my No. 3 against 2 

 younger men, one of whom carried a Ste- 

 vens. Although I am nearly 60 I did not 

 have to hide when the day was over. The 

 grand old No. 3 showed itself equal to all 

 requirements, and although its owner has 

 been shattered by 24 j^ears of asthma, and 

 was also handicapped by blindness, it 

 hugged the bull's eye all the while, and 

 finally drove a clean center. I have a 

 new reloading kit from the Ideal company, 

 and intend to buy a telescope sight, which 

 will give me a new lease, maybe, on my 

 eyes. I advise young sportsmen to get 

 an Ideal reloading outfit. It will cheapen 

 ammunition and extend the range of ex- 

 periment. 



I used King's semi-smokeless powder,, 

 which proves itself a jewel for the sports- 

 man. I want to try Laflin & Rand's 

 smokeless once, and if the Robin Hood 

 Co. ever gets out a rifle powder as good as 

 their shot gun solid gas, it will find its way 

 to .the chamber of honest No. 3 at once. 



Let someone who has tried No. 5 in the 

 field, or the Remington-Lee at target or on 

 game, give his experience. Why should 

 all the Remington disciples "go 'way back 

 and sit down?" 



W. H. Nelson, Washington, D. C. 



FREAK SHOTS AND THE SAVAGE RIFLE 



Writing of what he considers a fault of 

 the Savage rifle, M. L. Parshall tells, in 

 October Recreation, of seeing a buck shot 

 in the head with that gun. The bullet 

 struck the skull and flew into bits without 

 penetrating the bone. If the buck was not 

 secured, who knows what the bullet did? 

 Again, in the case of the deer that escaped 

 after being "hit squarely in the shoulder," 

 how does Mr. Parshall know where it was 

 hit? 



All who have hunted much know how 

 easy it is to be mistaken in such matters. 



A friend, hunting with a Savage rifle, fired 

 at a small buck. The animal fell, but got 

 up again and ran. A second shot killed it. 

 Then it was found that the first shot, 

 which had apparently knocked the buck 

 down, had merely cut a crease in the hair 

 of the neck, without even touching the skin. 



One of a party of hunters fired at an 

 antelope on a hill half a mile away. The 

 animal jumped up and ran out of sight. 

 One of the party followed and found it 

 dead within 100 yards of where it had 

 been shot. The bullet struck just behind 

 the foreleg and came out at the brisket. 

 At no point in its course was it more than 

 an inch below the skin. And it was fired 

 from a Savage, too. 



One of my friends was hunting with his 

 brother. One carried a Savage ; the other 

 a 45-70 Ballard. They saw a bunch of 

 antelope and fired together, both scoring. 

 The 45 bullet hit just behind the shoulder, 

 yet the animal lived 15 or 20 minutes. The 

 Savage hit an antelope in the fleshy part 

 of the thigh, passing out through the op- 

 posite flank. The 'lope ran a short dis- 

 tance, but was dead when found. 



I shot at a deer in thick cover which 

 hid all but a small part of one hip. The 

 bullet cut the bone of the tail, an inch 

 from where it joined the body, paralyzing 

 the deer so it could not get away. 



From all this I conclude that it is hard 

 to tell beforehand just what a bullet will 

 do ; but I am satisfied there is no gun more 

 deadly than the Savage. 



If Mr. Parshall wants to find how little 

 resistance is required to expand a soft- 

 nosed bullet, let him suspend 25 or 30 sheets 

 of wrapping paper an inch apart by a string. 

 Fire through them and note the size of the 

 hole in the last sheet. 



In shooting at a running deer about 100 

 yards distant, I always try to hold on his 

 shoulder and fire just as he strikes the 

 ground after a jump, or hold a little high 

 on his neck and fire as he rises 'from the 

 ground. W. B. Parker, 



Pony, Mont. 



In October Recreation M. L. Parshall 

 finds fault with the Savage. It appears 

 the only fault it has is with the. ammuni- 

 tion. I believe if soft point bullets were 

 made with a thick jacket around the base, 

 or at least around the middle, they would 

 spread only on the point no matter how 

 big a bone was hit. The only thing I 

 should like to see changed in the Savage 

 is the finger lever. There is too big a space 

 between it and the trigger, and I find it 

 a little awkward to close when operating in 

 the shoulder position ; it seems too near the 

 shoulder and too nearly horizontal. Can 

 you tell me if the Savage Arms Co. won 

 any prizes at the Buffalo Exposition? 

 Gordon Sproule, Montreal, Can. 



