GUNS AND AMMUNITION 



4*3 



carbine to unlatch gates, using the foresight 

 as a hook to slip under the latch. Such 

 treatment would permanently injure a deli- 

 cate weapon. 



Since the advent of modern high powered 

 ammunition, there has been a continual ten- 

 dency toward a shorter barrel. - The old Ken- 

 tucky rifle had an enormously long barrel, 

 and even ten years ago the average barrel 

 was several inches longer than it is to-day. 

 In the case of magazine rifles for high pow- 

 ered ammunition, the barrel may be cut down 

 to twenty-four or twenty-five inches, the 

 weapon remaining an extremely accurate 

 and powerful one at all ranges. A single 

 shot rifle should have a longer barrel than a 

 magazine rifle, otherwise, either the rear 

 sight will be too near the eye, or else the 

 distance between the sights will be so short 

 that it will be difficult to aim accurately. 

 It is true there is a way around this diffi- 

 culty; we may use the Lyman or other peep 

 sight on the tang, but in very rough travel 

 these excellent sights sometimes come to 

 grief. It is not always the sight that is the 

 best in the gun store that will prove most 

 valuable at the end of a three months' shoot 

 in the Rockies. Personally, I prefer the Ly- 

 man sight for actual shooting to any other, 

 but there is no denying that it occasionally 

 comes to grief owing to its exposed position. 



There are innumerable sights, many of 

 them possessing considerable merit, and for 

 target shooting any one of them may be 

 chosen, but for game shooting where strength 

 is requisite, it does not do to select the sight 

 that, however admirable, is easily broken. 



I have no use for the so-called buck-horn 

 sight. In fact it seems to me to possess about 

 all the bad qualities that a rear sight can pos- 

 sibly have. It creates a blur and it hides the 

 game, while it is very difficult to always take 

 in the same amount of foresight, so that there 

 is apt to be a good deal of vertical error in 

 the shots. I prefer a square topped sight, 

 with a small "V," and a single platinum line 

 leading to it from the center of the barrel. 

 This enables you to catch your sight quickly. 

 I consider that the Mauser and Mannlicher 

 rear sights are better patterns than anything 

 manufactured in this country, and I should 

 like to see American manufacturers adopt 

 them. 



As the rifle barrel has become shorter, the 

 tendency has been to lighten the weapon. 

 The modern, high-powered rifle, burning 

 smokeless powder, recoils so lightly as com- 

 pared with the old-fashioned black powder 

 rifle, that we are able to dispense with two 

 or three pounds in weight, especially, as the 

 high-grade, steel barrels now manufactured 

 have a strength and tenacity utterly un- 

 known to the soft iron and steel tubes of 

 previous generations. The rifle as one finds 

 it to-day, is a very perfect and delightful 



piece of mechanism, but it has not, nor will 

 it ever, apparently, reach its final development. 

 After the single shot came the repeater, and 

 now the automatic is with us, and all the 

 great powers of the world are busily en- 

 gaged in trying to perfect an automatic 

 mechanism that will give them the advant- 

 age in the next war. And a man might as 

 well attempt to stop the tide from ebbing 

 and flowing as the march of mechanical im- 

 provement in this country, where more than 

 in any other the mechanic is king. 



Walter J. Edwards, Ontario, Can. 



THE PULL OFF OF SHOT GUNS. 



Editor Recreation : 



The lightest trigger pull I have ever known 

 of in a twelve bore gun was one and a half 

 pounds — and thereby hangs a tale. The gun 

 in question was made by a well known firm 

 of manufacturers, its weight being seven 

 pounds, fourteen ounces, and it had full choke, 

 hammerless, thirty-inch barrels, being intend- 

 ed for wild fowl shooting over decoys. Un- 

 fortunately I said nothing as to trigger- 

 pull, and when the gun came to hand I found 

 the locks discharged at barely one and a half 

 pounds pull. 



At a target the gun shot well and pleasant- 

 ly, and in the blind I had no fault to find, 

 although the extremely light pull-off bothered 

 me somewhat, accustomed, as I had been, to 

 a pull of four pounds, but one day last De- 

 cember I got all I wanted of one and a half 

 pounds trigger pull. 



The snow lay fairly thick in the swamps, 

 and the rabbits were making well worn 

 trails, being, as usual, especially active on 

 moonlight nights, so in company with a 

 young friend and a couple of rough terriers, 

 I went out one fine morning in quest of 

 B'rer Rabbit. I had loaned the new gun to my 

 companion and was carrying my old gun with 

 the four pound pull. 



The first shot fell to me. The lad rested 

 his gun against a tree at full cock with- 

 out slipping forward the safety bolt, and re- 

 trieved the rabbit. I, in the meantime, picked 

 up his gun and went to meet him with it. 

 Happily, I never allow a gun to point at 

 anything I do not expect to hit, or the result 

 would have been disastrous, for. as we met, 

 I let the butt of his gun rest lightly on the 

 snow, yet even this slight jarr caused both 

 barrels to go off, the charges passing between 

 our heads. 



The weather was cold, there being probably 

 about twenty degrees of frost, and the locks 

 were a trifle too well oiled, and no doubt the 

 viscid oil clogged the notches in the tumb- 

 ler, and so prevented the sear from getting 

 quite home. This, possibly, caused the acci- 

 dent, but I have never had such a thing occur 

 with a gun of ordinary pull-off. 



