Iplll 



iff 



A Good Pistol Score 



The very remarkable shooting made on 

 April 7 by Mr. Marion Hays, of the Manhattan 

 Rifle and Revolver Association, shows to what 

 a pitch of excellence American pistols and 

 American marksmen have attained. Shooting 

 a 10-inch Smith & Wesson pistol, with coarse 

 pin-head front sight and a rear bar sight, and 

 using the .22 Peters-Pope Armory cartridge, 

 he succeeded in placing twenty consecutive 

 shots in the 10-ring of a standard American 

 target at fifty yards. The feat was performed 

 under regular practice conditions, and was 

 witnessed by several trustworthy persons, but 

 it cannot go on record, as the conditions were 

 not those necessary to insure the acceptance of 

 the performance as a record. 



Cylinders versus Chokes 



Until about 1875 all guns were cylinders, 

 so-called. They were not, of course, truly 

 cylindrical from breech to muzzle, being, 

 usually, considerably "relieve" at either end; 

 but the term may be conveniently used to dis- 

 tinguish them from chokes, which are smaller 

 at the muzzle than at a point a few inches back, 

 and generally smaller at the muzzle than at 

 any other point in the bore. The best shooting 

 it was possible to obtain was a pattern of 120 

 on the 30-inch circle at forty yards, using shot 

 running 270 to the ounce and loading with 

 i«- ounces of it. 



This satisfied our grandfathers, but when 

 chokes appeared on the scene, and with an 

 equal charge put upwards of 200 pellets in the 

 same sized circle, there was a great rush to buy 

 chokes. 



For close shooting and long shots, the choke 

 stands unrivaled to-day, but, unfortunately, 

 if our guns are better, our aim is not superior 

 to that of our ancestors, and so it has come 

 about that for covert shooting and general 

 woods sport there has been a steady drift 

 toward less close-shooting guns. A man snap- 

 shooting at woodcock or grouse in thick brush 

 is heavily handicapped with a full choke gun. 

 Where the choke shines is in the blind, or when 

 such tough birds as prairie chickens, full- 

 feathered and fast, as they are late in the season, 



have to be reckoned with. On live pigeons or 

 at the trap, where the elusive inanimate has 

 to be pulverized, the choke is king, but for an 

 all-around game gun a full choke is probably a 

 mistake. 



It is true that cartridges especially loaded 

 for snap-shooting may be had, but even with 

 these the choke is not so trustworthy as the 

 cylinder in the brush. 



Yet, if our admiration for the choke may not 

 be so full as was that accorded to it by the 

 sportsmen of the '80s, we owe it more than 

 many of us suspect. There is no such thing as 

 a cylinder offered by any reputable firm to-day. 

 Every gun is slightly choked, and the merest 

 suspicion of a choke will bring the average 

 pattern up twenty pellets, and, moreover, give 

 beautifully regular patterns, differing hardly 

 at all from one another, whereas the true 

 cylinder varies sometimes by thirty pellets 

 between high and low in a series of six shots. 



At forty yards the full choke puts 75 

 per cent, of the charge of shot into a thirty- 

 inch circle, whereas the cylinder (so-called) 

 puts in from 40 to 45 per cent. Yet each 

 is using the same number of grains of shot, 

 so that it is evident the total area covered 

 by the pellets is much greater in the cylinder. 

 This is why it makes the better brush gun. 

 Even the best shot cannot always be dead on 

 his bird when snap-shooting, and he finds that 

 out of a given number of shots fired he has 

 more to show in his game-bag when using a 

 cylinder than when using a choke. 



If it were not for trap and duck shooting I 

 am under the impression that few chokes 

 would be sold. Ralph Graham. 



Oyster Bay, L. I. 



Texas Shoulder Holster 

 Being a S. A. .45 gun crank, I am especially 

 interested in the most interesting section of 

 your paper, viz., Guns and Ammunition. 



I have not noticed many arguments for the 

 Texas shoulder holster, and think possibly 

 all of Recreation's readers are not as familiar 

 with it as we all are in my old home— Texas. 

 For an ideal way to carry an ideal gun the above 

 holster can't be beaten, as it is not in the place 



