SHOOTS A SMITH GUN 

 Editor Recreation : 



Last fall I bought a Smith Automatic 

 Ejector Gun No. 2, list price of which is 

 $95. The makers advertise this gun as 

 "just the kind for rough usage," and, after 

 two seasons' use of it, I feel glad to say 

 that their description is absolutely fair and 

 correct. While it is pretty enough to please 

 most men, it is the gun for a man to use 

 who wants value for every dollar, and 

 doesn't want to keep his gun in a glass 

 case all the time. My gun has 30-inch bar- 

 rels and weighs about 7^4 pounds. It is 

 full choke, as I use the U. M. C. 25-yard 

 range cartridge when after woodcock or 

 partridge in thick brush. For duck shoot- 

 ing I consider the full choke absolutely 

 necessary, as otherwise you wound your 

 birds instead of killing them dead ; and a 

 wounded duck is very apt to get away. 



To the man who has not studied guns 

 carefully all hammerless guns look very 

 much alike ; but, when you come to pull 

 them to pieces, you will find that there is 

 a great difference in the way they are put 

 together. A Smith gun is very simple. It 

 has locks that are almost the same as those 

 used on a hammer gun, only the strikers are 

 inside ; and I decidedly prefer this principle 

 to those in which the hammers are imbedded 

 in the action. All you have to do to clean 

 the locks of a Smith gun is just to take 

 out a screw and remove the lock. 



I am glad 'to see that so many men are 

 using stocks with less drop than was the 

 case ten years ago. I think we made a big 

 mistake when we ordered guns with over 

 a 3-inch drop. A man would need a very 

 long neck to require such a drop as that. 

 Most shooters will find they do better with 

 a drop not over 2^-inch or 2%-inch at 

 most. A gun should come up so that it is 

 a little difficult to get the eye right down 

 to the rib. If one sees about six inches of 

 the muzzle end of the rib when one shoots 

 at a rising bird, that bird is very apt to fly 

 into the centre of the charge. Nearly all 

 birds that are shot, over dogs any way, are 

 rising at the time the trigger is pulled, and 

 a gun with too much drop causes a miss 

 by shooting underneath. I should be glad 

 to hear from some other men who use a 

 scatter gun, as I think by exchanging ideas 

 we are all apt to learn something. 



Mark Reddy, Manistee, Mich. 



PREFERS THE SMOOTHBORE 



Editor Recreation : 



My favorite sport is deer and bear hunt- 

 ing in the cane brakes and, for this work, 

 I find that there is nothing better than a 

 double barrel shotgun, with the barrels cut 

 down to 26 inches and true cylinder bored. 

 I use a Remington 12-bore hammerless gun, 

 altered according to my own ideas ; and 

 have nothing to complain of. I put a Lyman 

 ivory gun sight on the muzzle and have 

 a folding "V" sight to fit in the rib eight 

 inches from the breach. This flap I only 

 raise for very deliberate shooting. I use 

 either ball or buckshot. 



For snap shooting in the canes such a 

 gun as this is far ahead of a rifle. Most 

 of our shots are very close and we want 

 something that will drop the game where 

 it stands. Rifles are all very well for long 

 range shooting, but they are not so good 

 as a smooth barrel for short range snap 

 shooting. We get a lot of snipe and duck 

 shooting here and a man gets accustomed 

 to handling a double barrel shotgun pretty 

 smartly, so that when he takes up such a 

 gun as I have for big game shooting it seems 

 to come up to his shoulder in a very handy 

 manner. 



Carl Hinman, Independence, La. 



THE MARLIN FOR HIM 



Editor Recreation : 



Most of my shooting with the rifle has 

 been at deer or the target. After trying a 

 good many of the old, black powder rifles, 

 of which I found the 38-55 and the 45-70 

 the best, I switched off to the smaller 

 calibres and I am now using a 25-36 Marlin, 

 which is giving every satisfaction. I like the 

 Marlin action, and I do not think that for 

 deer shooting, such as we have in the State 

 of Maine, it can be much improved upon. 

 If I were going to shoot moose or elk I 

 might want a 30-30 Marlin Smokeless; but 

 for deer I don't think one needs anything 

 more powerful than the 25-36. Its accuracy 

 is simply^ wonderful, and it will easily shoot 

 into a 6-inch bull's eye at 200 yards from a 

 rest. A great many Marlin rifles are in use 

 in this part of the country, and, so far as I 

 can find, they are generally giving satisfac- 

 tion. I have no interest whatever in the 

 Marlin manufacturers and I paid full price 

 for my rifle, but when a man gets a good, 



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