GUNS AND AMMUNITION. 



Anybody can shoot all day, but a gentleman will quit when he gets enough. 



ANSWERS TO BRITISHER. 



According to the February number of 

 Recreation, Britisher wants points on 

 American guns, and he asks so many ques- 

 tions that it might be a good plan for us 

 Yankees to club together and lay out the 

 •work of answering, distributing the job 

 among those best qualified to decide. Many 

 men are of many minds. Especially is it 

 true on the subject of guns; and the great 

 United States is a nation of sportsmen. At 

 least, we agree in liking a gun. 



I prefer the Winchester repeating shot 

 gun. A 12 bore cartridge loaded with ball 

 will work through the action all right, if 

 it has a round instead of a square crimp, 

 and the ball is not wrapped in a patch so 

 tight that it bulges the shell; but no such 

 gun, though it be a cylinder, will shoot a 

 ball accurately. 



I began to experiment with a smooth bore 

 and ball when a boy and from the time I 

 first fired that old army musket up to the 

 present, though I have tried again and 

 again, I have never found a smooth bore 

 that would shoot a ball well. I notice what 

 the Ideal Hand Book says about "round 

 ball for shot guns" and, like others, I be- 

 lieve that anything printed must, of course, 

 be true; but I do not believe in anything 

 on the subject which is not put down in 

 plain type. 



My last experimenting was with a cylin- 

 der bore- pump gun, carefully measured 

 charges of powder, balls patched and lubri- 

 cated, and the same old result. 



In my locality a gun for large game 

 ought to shoot accurately a distance of at 

 least ioo yards ; it must shoot straight 75 

 yards. I can not do this with a shot gun 

 and a ball. Far better is it, on animals the 

 size of deer, to use buck shot. With a 

 good gun, choke bored and properly loaded 

 with buck shot, deer may usually be killed 

 at a distance of 75 yards if the gun is cor- 

 rectly pointed; while, at 25 yards to 50 

 yards, the scattering of the buck shot is a 

 great advantage on moving game. At a dis- 

 tance of less than 25 yards there is noth- 

 ing more fatal to deer. The first 4 deer I 

 ever saw shot were piled together almost in 

 a heap with buck shot at short range. 



L. I. Flower, in February Recreation, 

 says his Greener will make a closer pattern 

 with No. 7 shot than his friend's Ithaca, 

 but shoots BBs irregularly. That is simply 

 an indication that his gun has a closer or 

 more abrupt choke than the other. Large 

 shot will jam at the muzzle of a full choked 

 gun in the same way, though not to the 



same extent, that buck shot do, if factory 

 loaded shells are used. Of course this 

 spoils the pattern and is dangerous to 

 everything but the game. For goose shoot- 

 ing the shells should be loaded by hand as 

 carefully and in the same way as if loaaing 

 buck shot. Let Mr. Flower try it, and tell 

 us if he is not then satisfied with his 

 Greener. For using large shot, I prefer 

 the big gauge guns. 



If Britisher wishes a gun with which he 

 can shoot both large and small game, why 

 does he not get a 3 barrel gun. For mixed 

 shooting, they are unsurpassed, and he can 

 still carry some shot gun ball cartridges if 

 he wishes. 



I have a Daly 3-barrel, bored for a 38-55 

 cartridge and chambered to take the 38-90 

 Express cartridge. With Du Pont No. 1 

 smokeless and a 240 grain hollow point bul- 

 let of 1 to 10, it will do good work. Last 

 fall it killed 4 deer and 7 foxes. Tw^o of 

 the deer were shot through the heart, and 

 one through the head, at distances of 90 

 to 126 yards, paced. One deer was killed 

 on the spot with buck shot at about 40 

 paces. Every shot which struck him went 

 through. To head off a letter of inquiry 

 from the editor of Recreation, I hasten to 

 say I did only a part of the shooting. If 

 one prefers factory loaded ammunition for 

 his 3-barrel, either the 30-30 or the 45-70 is 

 a reliable and fairly effective cartridge. 



For deer, however, I like better a repeat- 

 ing rifle. I pass a few of Britisher's ques- 

 tions as being debatable. We can, however, 

 get in the United States a better American 

 than an English gun for the same money. 



The 50-100-450 and the 50-110-300 may be 

 shot from the same rifle with the same 

 sights, but not with the same sighting. The 

 rear sight requires more elevation for the 

 50-100-450 and a larger increase in the ele- 

 vation for the first 200 yards ; but it has a 

 much longer range. I use a modification of 

 the 450 grain bullet, being a hollow pointed 

 ounce bullet. I find it destructive on deer. 

 nor should I have any fear that it would 

 fail to kill anything on this continent. Of. 

 course, if long range and low trajectory are 

 needed, this is not equal to the high pres- 

 sure small bore cartridges; but it is a pow- 

 erful, easily reloaded, safe and fairly accur- 

 ate cartridge. I have some of the high 

 power, low pressure Winchester 50-110 car- 

 tridges, but have not tried them enough to 

 speak definitely of them. Still, for the 

 present, I hold this gun in higher esteem 

 since these cartridges were put on the mar- 

 ket. The 50-450 bullet is a little more ac- 



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