246 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



IAfkil 24, 1884. 



INCREASE OF MAINE LARGE GAME. 



A MOST cheering report to the sportsman and friend of 

 game protection comes from Maine. Moose, caribou 

 and deer are increasing. The information comes from good 

 authority and there is no huncombe about it. Protection of 

 these kings of game animals was not begun in real earnest 

 tlU the jack-shooters and crust-hunters had made a heavy 

 beginning in the work of utter extermination— was not thor- 

 eugbly begun till tbe winter of 1881-82, and followed up 

 witb a vengeance till the winter of 1882-83. But when early 

 last winter Payson Tucker, Superintendent of the Maine 

 Central Railroad, issued his remarkable order to forward no 

 more moose, caribou, deer, or other unlawfully-killed game 

 over his road or its branches, the backbone of Maine market 

 hunting was broken. He was immediately followed by a 

 similar order from the managers of nearly every other ex- 

 press and transportation company with line's leading out of 

 Maine. The result has been most gratifying. Instead of 

 nearly two thousand deer, forwarded from that State a year 

 ago, there to be wasted or sold for a mere pittance' the 

 winter is now over, the crust-hunting season is past and not 

 over fifty deer have been received in Boston. 



But the effect upon the game itself is most pleasing. ' A 

 gentleman thoroughly familiar with the history of the moose 

 in Maine, who has just returned from a trip through Aroos- 

 took county, says that the most noble of game is^surely on 

 the increase. Lumbermen report their tracks as more plenty 

 than ever seen before. The lumbermen have frequently seen 

 them. Alas! for the love of fresh venison they would prob- 

 ably have killed them, but the game wardens and detectives 

 made themselves too much of a terror a year aco, when they 

 suddenly "dropped into camp,'' helped themselves to moose 

 hides, and called upon the lumbermen to call at the countv 

 attorney's office and settle in the sum of $100 and costs for 

 every moose killed. Deer are reported as more numerous 

 than ever before in that county, and they have not been 

 molested by either lumbermen or crust-hunters. 



From Piscataquis and Penobscot counties the reports are 

 equally good. The game wardens have done efficient and 

 seasonable work, but the' moose and deer unlawfully killed 

 have been very few, while a few hours' drive from the city 

 of Bangor would bring anybody within sight, of deer tracks 

 as plenty as sheep tracks. Occasionaily moose also have 

 been seen. Though respeetable citizens of that city have 

 not been bitten by them, yet the question may be asked in 

 sober earnest, what would have been the result of the seeing 

 of a deer, or even his track, without the efficient arm of the 

 game law over him? 



But the good work has been done, and too much credit 

 cannot be reflected upon the earnest efforts of the worthy 

 fish and game commissioners of that State. The reports are 

 cheering, and only equalled by the fact that the admirable 

 code of laws, published already in the Forest and Stream, 

 have passed the Massachusetts* Senate without a single dam- 

 aging amendment. A veteran lover of the rod and gun in 

 Maine sends a greeting to the Massachusetts Fish and Game 

 Protective Association, and offers to extend it to the editor 

 of the Forest and Stream. He says, "Moose and deer 

 have made a decided gain in our State. I expect to live to 

 kill yet another moose by square still-hunting in open season. 

 And it now looks as though there were going to be enough 

 for all of us, Come down next fall, in open season, and 

 look over your trusty rifle barrel at the roots of a pair of 

 antlers that stand ten feet above the ground I" Special. 



Boston, Mass. 



THE CHOICE OF HUNTING RIFLES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Rifles and mechanics have been my hobby, and added to 

 this is an experience of fifteen years 'in rifle shooting. I have 

 hunted from Texas to the Canadas and used all kinds of 

 rifles in match shooting. I have owned one of each gun 

 worth anything appearing in the markft and have made 

 some barrels according to my ideas of rifling, twist, etc., so 

 this ipse dixit will have some solid basis. 



One correspondent advocates a bottle-neck shell. This 

 pattern has been long since discarded both by government 

 and long range-experts; it is a type of the past. The recoil 

 of a bottle-necked shell is fully two foot-pounds heavier 

 than that of the same charge in a straight shelL The pow- 

 der blow becomes more percussive (with equal charges) in 

 proportion as the chamber is shortened within practicable 

 limits. 



This percussive force we must get rid of and endeavor to 

 make the conditions as nearly similar to the accurate muzzle- 

 loader as possible, i. e., a ball so hard as to upset only for 

 one-fifth its length, and of the same diameter as the barrel at 

 bottom of grooves. Results of trials show same accuracy as 

 when ball is loaded from the muzzle in the grooves. 



Upon the subject of recoil another contributor speaks 

 with such temerity as in a measure to vitiate his opinion. 

 1 have used as much as 130 grains powder and 550 grains 

 lead, off-hand, and although case-hardened by firing thous- 

 ands of shots each year, can get better work from lighter 

 charges. The less the recoil the greater percentage of hits 

 will be made. It is a curious fact, too, that the closer the 

 shot the harder the gun seems to kick. 



We can expect only recoil and unaccountables from this 

 .40-90 bottle shell, and it seems a shame to spoil a good bar- 

 rel by chambering it for it. 



Use in its stead a taper shell of same length, loaded in the 

 following manner, which will give the same initial velocity 

 with 25 per cent, less initial pressure, and has 10 grains less 

 powder to dirty the barrel. I saw in au Ordnance report 

 that in the shell for the Austrian "Werndl" rifle a cake of 

 compressed powder was used, with a resultant gain of some 

 250 f . s. initial velocity over shells loaded with same weight 

 loose powder. This set me thinking, and experiment 

 indorses the following: Load with 20 grains FG in bot- 

 tom of shell, then put in a cylindrical cake of compressed 

 powder of 50 grains, then add 10 grains of a small-grained 

 quick powder, say FFFG. 



The primer bhbuld be No. 1 Winchester, as its safety in a 

 magazine is in proportion to the size, besides we want only 

 enough flame to surely ignite the base of the charge to get 

 the desired accelerative effect. 



The ball should be 300 grains,*4 canelures, with a point 

 terminated by a flattened spheroid, to get the maximum area 

 of striking surface. 



An alloy of -,\ is best, while the rings on the ball should 

 caliper same as the barrel at bottom of the grooves. 



Sir Joseph Whitworth and Dame Experience both tell ns 

 that to insure the rotation, a twist of one turn in twenty 

 inches must be used for a ball of three diameters in length. 

 The energy wasted in starting a ball not seated ia the 



grooves, and it cannot be in a repeater, is equal to a loss of 

 two inches in trajectory. 



On some balls fired in snow to determine this, the grooves 

 in the lead were from .01 to .10 inch wider than the lands 

 in the gun, and vice versa, I find that for a ball started not 

 in the grooves, an increase twist starting one turn in sixty 

 inches and finishing one turn in sixteen inches, will deliver 

 it most perfectly, giving at the same time so littlerecoil, with 

 a marked increase in accuracy and trajectory, as to recom- 

 mend its adoption. 



The number of grooves may be (5 or 8, .005 inch in depth 

 and twice the width of the lands. All corners should be 

 rounded off to reduce the area of friction and fouling. We 

 cannot choose a better action than the Winchester. 



To remove the fears expressed by some, I relate the follow- 

 ing: I use from 3,000to 10,000 Winchester cartridges in their 

 guns every year. Such was my faith in them that, to con- 

 vince a friend who doubted, I shot first 18 shots in 9 seconds, 

 with only one link; then fired from the shoulder a charge of 

 120 grains and three 200-grain balls on top «f it. He is a 

 convert. 



Every accident with these guns may be traced to home- 

 made shells and badly-seated primers. 



With a .76 inch Winchester, chambered for the taper 

 shell, adding thereto the modes of charging and rifling I 

 have advocated, we have a gun that has all the requirements 

 called for by expectant readers of the rifle column. 



Let us hear the criticism of some of your correspondents 

 who replace experiment with theories hatched in fertile 

 brains, and portray them with a more fluent pen than mine. 



W. DeV. F. 



Philadelphia. 



THE PERFORMANCE OF SHOTGUNS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In ante-railroad days in Arizona, together with several 

 others, I went to tbe first station west of town, known as 

 the Nine Mile Water Hole, to meet the incoming California 

 stage, upon which we expected friends. The place was at 

 that time kept by Colonel Whipple, a frontiersman of no 

 mean renown, who has since died from the bite of a rattle- 

 snake. In the immediate neighborhood ef the station was 

 an immense mesquital that swarmed with the birds common 

 to that neighborhood, and although it was July, many were 

 nesting. Among them was a thrush, at that time a stranger 

 to me, and as I had noticed the customary shotgun standing 

 behind the bar of the station, I took it and blazed away at 

 my bird. What exactly followed I cannot tell, but I have 

 and had then a faint recollection of being over-ended some 

 four or five times in rapid succession and finally of bringing 

 up with a bump against a neighboring tree with a bleeding 

 nose, an aching head and an almost dislocated shoulder. I 

 rested till I could properly get my bearings, then started 

 back with the gun, that during my'gyrations in the air had 

 never left my hands. On the way 1 met Whipple, and he 

 expressed surprise at my want of judgment in the use of a 

 gun that stood specially loaded for special purposes behind 

 the liquor bar of a station on a lonely stage road. He then 

 told me how much he had paid for it, and what 

 a good gun it was. It had, he acknowledged, 

 been pretty well filled up, and then added, by way of con- 

 dolence, that he liked to feel a gun when it went off, inas- 

 much as the result was always the more positive. I of course 

 felt satisfied that he was right, and am yet convinced by the 

 back action of that one load that the performance of shot- 

 guns is a something not to be despised. I afterward gathered 

 up the little remaining skin and feathers of the bird and sent 

 them to a gentleman in San Francisco for identification, and, 

 by way of apology for the rags sent, recounted my sad ex- 

 perience. In reply, he advised me to "load lighter and shove 

 a little on the breech." I regret much that 'I do not know 

 the weight and gauge of the gun, or the pounds of shot and 

 powder used; but it was a muzzleloader, and 1 have my own 

 experience and Whipple's word for it that the gun was a 

 good one. Amos. 



Tucson, A. T. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I hope I will be excused for stating facts, as my personal 

 experience has proven them to be, not guess work, in the 

 performance of shotguns, in points wherein the facts are at 

 variance with what many persons have stated as facts in late 

 numbers of this journal. Not that I believe that these per- 

 sons, any of them, would knowingly make misstatements of 

 facts, but have done so, by accepting as true a proposition 

 that at the time to them seemed self-evident, but which, put 

 to the crucial test of actual trial, would have been proven 

 erroneous. 



Let us take, for example, the most common of these mis- 

 statements of fact when speaking of shotguns both by editors 

 and correspondents, which is the expressir i , wJaen speaking 

 of charges, "The 10-bore will stand much heavier charges 

 than the 12 or 16-bore because it is the stro r e.-gun." Is this 

 a fact as written? Most certainly no. Tl . 16-bore, with the 

 same thickness of metal at the breech as i e 10-bore, is very 

 much the strongest, and the 20-bore in tae same way, very 

 much stronger than the 16. A tension that would lay a 10- 

 bore wide open would be easily witUtood by the 20-bore of 

 equal thickness of metal. The sti i gth to withstand tensive 

 force of your gun or your steam • oiler is in proportion to 

 the area of its inner surface, I greater the area the less 

 tension a certain thickness of r. ctal will stand. The dentist's 

 boiler of thin brass, four by & x inches, withstands a tension 

 of 900 pounds to the square i.u ,u as safely as the boiler of an 

 ocean steamer made of the best steel ten or twenty times the 

 thickness withstands twenty pounds to the square inch. 

 This I give as a sample, easily understood, of some of the 

 assertions of seeming facts that are not facts, and no one is 

 excusable for presenting them as facts. 



I will now take up in sequence some of the assertions 

 made in the issue of this journal in the number of March 13 

 and other sportsmen's journals that actual experience has 

 proven, and will prove in all trials, are not true. We will 

 take the assertion by "* * * *," on page 125; "A close, 

 hard-shooting gun * * * will kill with No. 8, 9 or 10 

 shot * * with remarkable certainty 45 to 50 yards." 

 This is not true of any shotgun, be it "hard-shooting" or 

 close, with No. 9 or 10 shot, and generally not so with No. 

 8. Try it and see. Put your quail up at 50 yards — measured 

 yards, not guessed at — and see how much shooting at with 

 No. 10 shot he will stand; if you can make him "lay down" 

 oftener than once in ten shots then 1 know nothing about 

 shotgun shooting. I think my experiments in the line of 

 testing the killing rauge of fine shot have been careful and 

 extensive enough for practical purposes, and I have found 

 it to be as follows ; For No. 12 Chicago shot, 26 to 27 yards ; 

 for No. 9, 84 to 36 ; for No. 8, 36 to 44 I mean that this is 



as far as any gun will injure a quail so badly sitting, as to be 

 retrieved Perhaps for one on tbe wing, if the gun be 

 properly held, 5 to 10 yards further could fee added. Try it 

 tlhT" in ? ??, mo . r? P s sib le to kill a goose 100 yards 

 with No. 10 shot than it is to kill one a mile with the same 



bv^ballin^' 8 Sh ° Uld in S ° mu W Cement t0 S etlKr 



t w^if ehaV £ in * esa T anicle: "But the larger the 

 shot the larger the pattern." The writer evidently means 

 the larger the shot the wider the spread, while exactly the 

 reverse is the tact with all shotguns. 



In the following article, by ' r Spicewood," we have ■ "If I 

 load my 26-inch gun with the coarser grade («f powder) I 

 find some of it blown out without being burnt" This is 

 truly wonderful. But as preposterous as it is, how often 



ve 

 , I 



— ng from here to 



the moon filled from end to eud with gunpowder of any of 

 the ordinary kinds, or extraordinary, and we set fire to' one 

 end of it, that each and every grain of that power would 

 be burned before that powder got rid of that lire. That , 

 gun can be overcharged with powder so far as to even reduce 

 its effectiveness is a fact that trial has proven. But -nm 

 powder is quite sensitive to fire, notably so, and never 

 becomes so disgusted and demoralized from misuse as to fail 

 to explode or burn when subjected to the white heat, of the 

 flame issuing from the muzzle of an overloaded gun when 

 fired. A. is out shooting when there is snow on the ground; 

 he accidentally overcharges his gun. When he fires it he 

 finds strewn on the snow in the line of fire something that 

 very closely resembles grains of powder. He at once con- 

 cludes without further examination that it is unconsumed 

 powder.^ What is it? Simply the loosened powder scale 

 left in his gun by former charges; and powder being a com- 

 pound substance, made up of three very di ff erent things, 

 with no two things exactly alike, some of them are con- 

 sumed or changed into gas instantly, while others (notably 

 those which have nothing in their composition but sulphur 

 and charcoal) burn very slowly and are projected on tbe 

 snow while still burning, and are "put out" by contact with 

 the snow, resulting in a pellet of charcoal looking very much 

 like powder, these being the only two kinds of powder ever 

 found on the snow in fiont of a fired gun. 



In the next article Mr. Alden seems to have struck a snag 

 with his first breechloader, when there wfs really no snag 

 there. He says: "It proved to be a very inferior weapon, 

 although 1 paid a high price for it." I suppose, of course. 

 he means that it did not shoot well. A remedy correcting that 

 is easily found. The art of manipulating shotguns has for 

 years reached that stage whereby the good gunsmith can, 

 with his reamer, give any well-built gun any desired close- 

 ness of pattern in reason that one may desire. Therefore, I 

 consider one shotgun as good as another, all other things be- 

 ing equal, if it only has metal enough to withstand the requi- 

 site reaming or chokeboring. 



A gunsmith with his reamer will manipulate Hie despised 

 muzzleloader as readily as a breechloader, then how is "38" 

 (in issue of March 13) going to beat it, all other things being 

 equal? The only, only advantage the breechloader has over 

 the muzzleloader, is its ease of manipulation, and its self-evi- 

 dent disadvantages are, that it "kicks" a little harder and re- 

 quires a little more powder to do the same work. 



"38" is very nearly as lame in his next paragraph, taken as 

 a whole. There is no measurable, or rather discernible, 

 difference in the shooting of a IS and a 12-bore gun. loaded 

 with 4 drams of powder and 1£ ounces of shot, all other 

 points but the bore being equal, except that the 10 gives ap- 

 preciably the most recoil in all the experiments that I have 

 made, and they have not been few. Why should the 10-bore 

 "cover more territory" than the 12, with same loads? 



Your correspondent, "Mark Ivel," has at last got a gun so 

 very much superior to the rest of the boys, and so far ahead 

 of any gun mortal man on this planet ever built, that I know 

 without asking that he had it built on the planet Mars to 

 special order. Does "Mark Ivel" himself believe that he 

 was writing facts when he wrote, "This gun, when properly 

 loaded, is sure to kill at 100 yards if held on the game"? 

 He may if the Alabama yards are short, very short. 



The next paragraph by Mr. New comb. Who can find any 

 fault with it? Not 1. There is not. I should judge, an over- 

 drawn statement in it. We have all made wonderful shots, 

 shots that seemed far beyond the range of possibilities, hut 

 we must leave the "kill every time" off if we wish to live 

 happily and go to some place when we die. Have our 

 mouths and pens chokebored, as it were, so that they may 

 not scatter so outrageously. 



The next man, "New Subscriber," will find plenty of men 

 to enter the lists with the 12-bore against his 10-bore, all 

 things being equal, except the bore, and many of them with- 

 out qualifications, and not get beat on any point. 



So much for the notes on "The Performance of Shotguns ' 

 in one number of Forest and Stream. If I have gone 

 beyond, in these remarks, the spirit of fair critieism, it is 

 not my fault, but that of the writers. My excuse is, we want 

 facts and nothing but facts. Yes, ouly one issue, but it has 

 been going on week after week and year after year. When 

 "Almo" says positively that he can kill a goose one hundred 

 yards with No. 10 shot, and the tyro, having purchased 

 an expensive gun and goes out to test it by this standard of 

 "Almo's," and finds that he cannot ruffle the feathers, or even 

 make the old gander dodge, or scarcely, if at all, find the 

 marks of his shot on a soft pine board that distance, he 

 is liable to throw away a good gun, or try to ruin the repu- 

 tation of its maker. Therefore I say, let us all get choke- 

 bored very frequently when writing on gunnery. Byrne. 



Lacon. 111. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I use 9J lbs., 10 gauge; load 44 drams powder, one paste- 

 board wad and one felt wad on powder, 1-J- ounces shot, one 

 felt wad on shot, and wads two sizes larger than bore. Find 

 good work on all sizes of shot ; No. 9 shot for snipe and quail, 

 5s chilled for ducks. I killed a mallard clean, and she struck 

 a treetop as the gun cracked, at eiebty-four paces. Of 

 course such shots are a scratch, but still the shot must fly 

 hard to kill at that distance. Wads. 



Lbwiston, tU. 



Arkansas. — Memphis, Tenn., April 16.— 'Messrs. W. A. 

 Wheatley ("Guido"), D, H. Poston and John H, Freeman 

 had some rare sport last week across the river, They bagged 

 167 game birds in one day and in half the next 130 fell be- 

 fore their unerring fire. " From 8 to 11 o'clock Saturday 

 morning, at Madison Station, on their way home, they killed 

 fifty-six. Nearly all were snipe, and a run of sixteen straight 

 kills (four doubles) was made. All their families and friends 

 had a feast Sunday morning. 



