GUNS AND AMMUNITION 



AN OPEN DOOR. 



An open, free discussion of all guns and 

 ammunition calls forth no objection from the 

 broad-minded manufacturers of these goods. 

 None of them fear the consequences of such 

 a discussion, for it is safe to say that all of 

 them are susceptible to improvement. In 

 truth, when a gun reaches perfection, the end 

 has come not only to guns, but to the world 

 itself, for the law of the universe is constant 

 progression. 



It is as useless to try to stop the improve- 

 ment in arms now as it was in the time when 

 the bowmen in Lincoln Green attempted to 

 cry down the use of firearms altogether, or 

 as it is for the man who dearly loves his 

 high-stepping horses to stop the advance of 

 automobiles. 



It hurts the feelings of any right-minded 

 man to see some selfish, greedy, low-minded 

 man shooting promiscuously into a flock of 

 birds ; but the fault is not with the gun, but 

 with the law, which does not limit the num- 

 ber of birds a hunter may kill. 



In the "good old times" of our Colonial 

 forefathers, the waterfowl were so plentiful 

 that when they took wing they made a noise 

 like the deep-rolling thunder and our ances- 

 tors thought that the supply was inexhaust- 

 ible, so they shot them in such numbers that 

 it was customary to send their "niggers" with 

 ox-carts to bring home the dead birds ; yet 

 this was in the days of muzzle-loaders and 

 flintlocks ! 



Every free-born American claims his con- 

 stitutional right, not only to carry a gun, but 

 to carry one of his own selection, and he 

 will do it ; so it really makes no difference 

 whether some of us approve or disapprove of 

 the improvements in firearms, for, like the 

 auto-boat and motor-wagons, they are here 

 to stay; but it rests with the reader and the 

 community to see that the game is protected 

 by limiting the bag which can be taken in a 

 day or season ; not by attempting to prohibit 

 the use of any particular type of gun. 



Every sportsman and every patriotic Amer- 

 ican loves and reverences the long-barreled 

 rifle of a few generations back. 



But few of us know the history of its ori- 

 gin and evolution. Somewhere in the early 

 part of the eighteenth century a big, awk- 

 ward, clumsy rifle of Tyrolean model made 

 its appearance in this country, probably im- 

 ported from Germany. 



It must have had some advantages or it 

 would not have been used, but when one 

 knows that the bullets were hammered into 

 the mouth of the gun with a mallet and then 

 forced down with an iron ramrod, one can 



not help wondering what the game, or the 

 other fellow, was doing during this laborious 

 operation by the gunner. 



That there was a call for this clumsy arm 

 is known from the fact that somewhere about 

 1730 Peter Dekard made them in Philadel- 

 phia, and a man named Leman, in Lancaster, 

 Pa. It must have been the accuracy of these 

 rifles that created a demand for them, but 

 whatever their merits or demerits, the guns 

 made by these two pioneer American gun- 

 smiths were the Adam and Eve of the Amer- 

 ican rifle family. Gradually the barrel was 

 lengthened, the stock made lighter and of 

 more graceful lines until the. "Kaintuck" 

 model was evolved. The patch was then in- 

 troduced and was found to be a great im- 

 provement over the mallet and iron ramrod. 



About 1740 a manufactory for hunting rifles 

 was started at Charlottesville, S. C, by work- 

 men from Leman's factory at Lancaster. 



John Paul Jones, founder of the American 

 Navy, says, in a letter to a Mr. Hewes, that 

 his faithful overseer took "the fine Lancaster 

 rifle" and joined General Morgan. "It is the 

 best rifle in Virginia," and "could not be 

 sighted by a steadier eye," adds Paul Jones. 



All the buckskin men soon adopted this 

 long-barreled rifle, and the double-trigger 

 was introduced some time during the Revolu- 

 tionary War. One of General Morgan's rifle- 

 men, who was also a gunsmith of the Char- 

 lottesville works, went to Harrodsburg, Ky., 

 and made the first real Kentucky rifles. 



Daniel Boone's rifle barrel was made of 

 imported horseshoe nails. 



The Revolutionary backwoodsman had no 

 quartermaster, no commissary, no surgeon, 

 no chaplain; but with a Dekard on his 

 shoulder, a cow's-horn powder-flask, a skin 

 bullet-pouch, tomahawk and hunting knife, he 

 made a formidable foe. 



While we are talking improvements it 

 is interesting to know that in 1777 there 

 came to America the Junior Second Ma- 

 jor of the Seventy-first Regiment of High- 

 landers, Patrick Ferguson, Brevet Lieu- 

 tenant Colonel, Local Brigadier-General of 

 Militia under General Cornwallis. This 

 poor Britisher was killed early in the 

 battle of Kings Mountain, but it is not his 

 titles or his death which is of interest in 

 this department of Recreation, but the fact 

 that Ferguson invented the breech loading 

 rifles which were issued to the picked body 

 of men. September nth, in 1777, our sharp 

 shooters met these British, and the rapidity 

 of the fire of the red coats was even 

 more astonishing to the Americans than the 

 accuracy of their aim. 



This is probably the first instance of breech 



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