AtJG. 20, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



65 



wealdisli and eels give us a good string and we row back to 

 the house. 



Now it is hot, certainly too hot to be outdoors, but when 

 our friend offers us a bu^gy ride to the head of the river for 

 a round with the doves, we are ready. Who wants to stay 

 indoors if he can find a shady spot to do his shooting from, 

 and this the dove meadows always afford. I will not give 

 the details, for 1 remember to have given you once before a 

 taste of this peculiar sport which affords full measure of in- 

 terest without weariness. As I lay in the shade beside a run- 

 ning spring taking the headers and missing the side winders 

 as often, my sympathies went out for those who, like your 

 friend "Coahoma," have to enjoy (?) dove-shooting in an 

 open field, without shade, where existence is only made toler- 

 able by means of a Senegambian perambulating the field 

 with a demijohn. And from beneath this one tree I have 

 beaten that leading score of Captain DeGaris, fifty-three. 



Now a ride back to the house. It is not sundown yet, but 

 it is twenty-four hours since I left the cars yesterday, and 

 twentjf-four hours of such sport is enough for one day. Shall 

 I not after a bath and tea spend the evening in a hammock, 

 the night in sweet sleep, and go back to business in the morn- 

 ing more refreshed, more rested, than if I had spent a month 

 in the tiresome routine of inactivity and fashion at the Buck- 

 ingham Arms or the Hotel Pall Mall? T, B. A. 



HlGHTSTOWN, N. J. 



THE CHOICE OF GUNS.-I. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I read with interest the article of "Medium" with the 

 above heading in yom* issue of June 4, and I indorse much 

 that he says. "He truly remarks that the requisite knowledge 

 for making judicious selection of firearms can only be ac- 

 quired by experience and by reading the articles from prac- 

 tical sportsmen, who from time to time record their experi- 

 ence and observation in the columns of Forest and Stream. 

 And in his estimate of the books which the tyro might 

 suppose to be safe guides, I, in the main, agree with him. 

 "Medium" says that Greener's book on the "Gun and its 

 Development""is pretty well "padded," and is hardly fair in 

 its ci'iticisms of the work of other makers. In this "Medium" 

 is certainly correct; but I will go further and say that, while 

 the book undoubtedly contains" much valuable information 

 not easily accessible elsew^here, it contains much more that 

 is unfair and misleading, and is by no means a safe guide to 

 the novice in matters pertaining to firearms ; that it is a huge 

 advertisement of the guns manufactured by Mr. Greener, 

 and the purpose of its publication was primarily and princi- 

 pally the extolmeut of these guns from beginning to end, 

 and, when necessary to effect his object, the author has not 

 hesitated to couceal'the truth or even to make positive mis- 

 representations in regard to the work of other gunmakers; 

 that other arms are considered mainly as they connect them- 

 selves directly or indirectly with the central figure, or furn- 

 ish an excuse for the praise of the Greener gun, and only 

 such space is "padded" with information about other guns 

 as could not be more successfully devoted to pashing the 

 author's guns in any other method. That the guns made by 

 Mr. Greener are excellent arms, and that he is a gunmaker 

 of repute, I am by no means the one to deny ; but these very 

 facts render the book more dangerous, for the reason that 

 his reputation is apt to cause the uninformed to rely too 

 implicitly upon the author's criticisms of other guns. It 

 therefore becomes important that those who are seeking for 

 information to enable them to form correct conclusions as to 

 the merits of different malics of guns should first have a 

 correct estimate of this work, so that they may not be mis- 

 led thereby. I have therefore assumed the somewhat thank- 

 less task of pointing out a few of the errors and omissions 

 of this book, not captiously or for the purpose of injuring 

 the book or the gun it advertises, but, as I trust, imparliallj^ 

 and to the end that at least a tithe of that justice which Mr. 

 Greener bestows upon his own gun may be extended to the 

 guns of other makers, and that my brother sportsmen may 

 see other makes of guns as they really exist, and not as Mr. 

 Greener has seen fit to represent them. 



If, on taking up Mr. Greener's book, you will, in the out- 

 set, regard it as advertisement of the guns of W.W. Greener, 

 and regard the discussion of other guns as so much "pad- 

 ding" inserted to bolster up the Greener gxms, you will have 

 a true conception of the purpose of the work and wUl not be 

 misled by it, but, on the contrary, will get from it much 

 valuable information; nor. in my judgment, will you deal 

 unfairly by this so called literary production in thus pre- 

 judging it. If, on the other hand, you take the statements 

 of the preface as true, and regard the book as the author 

 seeks to have you regard it — as an unbiased treatise on the 

 gun and its development, you will be continually led into 

 error. 



It would occupy too much space to undertake to go over 

 the whole of this large book, and I shall, therefore, only 

 briefly notice a few of the errors and mistatements in regard 

 to American-made guns. 



I have before methe second edition of this work, which 

 purports to be brought down to the date of publication, and 

 (in the language of the preface) to keep step with the ' 'con- 

 tinuous improvements tending to the perfectment of arms;" 

 to "report the minutest point of progi'ess," and to notice 

 "every invention pertaining to guns with, the author trusts, 

 perception and appreciation of merit wherever existent." 

 And the preface further states that the errors of the first 

 edition have been rectified, and that the "author has 

 endeavored to treat of every subject fully and with fairness." 

 This preface is dated, "Birmingham, Jan. 1, 1884." 



After these statements of the preface and the frequent ex- 

 hibition of superior knowledge and information found in the 

 body of the book, the defense of ignorance can hardly be set 

 up tor this author. He professes to treat of the arms of all 

 makers of all countries, and not exclusively of the guns 

 made by W. W. Greener, or of the guns made at Birming- 

 ham alone, or of English arms only. 



What then will the reader think of the fullness and fair- 

 ness of this book, and how safe a guide will he I'egard it, 

 when he is told that it does not so much as mention such 

 guns as the Fox, the Baker, the Davis, the Eemington. the 

 Colt, the Parker, the Harrington & Richardson, and several 

 others equally well known and in use long before the publi- 

 cation of this book? But it seems from certain remarks on 

 "Machine-made Guns," beginning on page 306 of this second 

 edition, that the product of the makers just named are not 

 guns at all and do not come within the purview of the work 

 of this eminent gunmaker and author. The author says : 



"Among the faults of machine-made guns are : Want of 

 proportion in the various parts, ill-shaped ribs, stocks and 

 hammers, bad fitting of wood against iron, indifferent fitting 

 in breech-action and locks; and in no machine-made gun 



that we have ever seen, of American or continental make, 

 have the barrels been straight either inside or out. The dif- 

 ferentia of machine-made machine-finished guns ai'e: 

 Rounded and countersunk screw and pinheads, 'gummy' 

 stocks, weight of gun not well between the hands, and a 

 general uncouth military musket appearance. * * * * * 

 Machine-made guns must be considered a production of me- 

 chanical engineering, not of gun-making, and from that 

 standpoint may give that satisfaction which from any other 

 point of view would not be forthcoming. " 



The above is pretty broad language, and thus unceremoni- 

 ously dismisses from consideration as unworthy further 

 notice the most popular makes of guns in the iTuited States. 

 But if the author is correct and his statements true, we should 

 submit to this wholesale denunciation of our favorites. If 

 the statements are untrue, Mr. Greener and his book de- 

 serve severe condemnation for their insincerity. 



While "comparisons are odious" and seldom establish a 

 fact, I have this to say, and my experience is not single: I 

 have seen a Greener gun costing more than $100 ($150 

 grade) that was inferior in fitting and material to any $80 

 Colt, Parker, Smith, Baker or Fox gun I ever saw. My ob- 

 servation is that American machine-made guns, so far from 

 being as Mr. Greener describes them, are remarkable for the 

 soundness of their material, their superior fitting, and the 

 excellence of their workmanship; and that no foreign gun, 

 either hand or machine-made, costing less than $75 or $100, 

 can be found that will begin to equal American machine- 

 made guns of the same or even a lower price in these par- 

 ticulars. 



Greener says he has never seen a machine-made gun 

 with straight ban-els. This statement puts him iu an awk- 

 ward dilemma. The guns he has seen have been the work 

 of the lower cla.ss Birmingham or German makers, or he 

 wilfully misstates the fact. If he has not seen the better 

 class of American machine-made guns he ought to have said 

 so, or abstained from including American guns in his sweep- 

 ing denunciation. If he has seen them he speaks what he 

 must know to be untrue when he makes the broad assertion 

 above referred to. 



The meanest guns on the face of the earth, barring possibly 

 one other class, are made in Birmingham— where Mr. Green- 

 er's works are located ; but it woiild be absurd and unjust to 

 condemn every Birmingham g\m because the great bulk of 

 the product is' worthless. It is equally unjust to condemn 

 every gun made by machinery because some English or Con- 

 tinental makers turn out bad ones. 



But the American manufacturers produce the best ma^ 

 chine-made guns iu the world, and Mr. Greener is inexcus- 

 able in his error. He did not have the poor excuse of having 

 been misled by seeing American machine-made guns of the 

 character he describes. The idea of saying that such guns 

 as Smith, Hamngton & Richardson, Parker Bros., the Colt 

 Firearms Co., and others make and sell at $50 net and up- 

 ward are not guns at all, but are the vile combinations of 

 wood and iron that Mr. Greener describes them to be, is 

 most unjust; and when the statement comes from one so 

 well informed as Mr. Greener, it is absolutely contemptible. 

 No people but the Americans could have such statements as 

 Greener makes palmed off on them for the truth. 



Take, for instance, what he says when he undertakes to 

 mention the Spenser repeating shotgun and compare it with 

 what he says about machine-made guns in general, as a test 

 of his sincerity. We find on page 309 this statement : 



"The magazine shotgun which is shortly to be placed on 

 the market in various calibers by the Sharps Company will 

 have an action and magazine mechanisms similar to Fig. 153, 

 will be a well-finished and perfectly fitted arm, but from the 

 fact that the balance will be altered at every shot, it will not 

 be likely to succeed well for wing-.shooting." 



The learned author does not know what he is talking 

 about. The "Sharps Company" were not about to make a 

 magazine shotgun that anybody ever heard of. The Spenser 

 Arms Co. have made a gun of this sort, and it is a success 

 of its kind. But this is not the point I am driving at. 



The gun, Mr. Greener says, "is a well-finished and per- 

 fectly-fitted arm." But how is this? It is a machine-made 

 gun. Are not the barrels crooked, the stocks "gummy," the 

 fittings bad, and its appearance that of a military musket? 

 Our author is inconsistent. If he tells the truth about the 

 Spenser, how can his diagnosis of machine-made guns in 

 general be correct? And if the Spenser is the perfect gun 

 Mr. Greener says it is, how about the Colt, and the Parker, 

 and the Smith, and the Harrington & Richardson, not to 

 mention other more expensive guns made in part at least by 

 machinery? Is the Spenser to be regarded as an exception 

 to Mr. Greener's differentiation? I take it the Spenser Arms 

 Co. will hardly claim that their gun is superior iu material 

 and workmanship to all the other American machine-made 

 guns. 



Does the solution of the mystery occur to the unsuspecting 

 reader? Does the reader happen to remember that Mr. 

 Greener is advertising his gun (I told you to bear this in 

 mind), and that he does not make a repeating shotgun ? Is 

 it not possible that praise of the Spenser would not seriously 

 affect the sale of Greener's double-barrels, while praise of 

 other machine-made guns might? And do you notice how 

 carefully our author has hedged off competition by the 

 Spenser, and thus rendered his praise of that gun harmless 

 to his own by saying the Spenser wUl likely prove a failure 

 for wing-shooting — the purpose of all others for which 

 Greener makes guns? 



For -ways that are dark, 

 And for tricks that ai-e vain, 

 The heathen Chinee is peculiar ! 



Now let us briefiy see what our author has to say about 

 American hammerless guns. On page 383 he gives what 

 he calls a cut of an Arnerican hammerless gun, and says 

 it is made by D. M. Lefever of Syracuse, N. Y. It is to be 

 observed, however, that he selects for this cut not the Le- 

 fever as it had existed for half a dozen years before this edi- 

 tion of his book was printed, but a model that Lefever had 

 long abandoned ; and yet Mr. Greener says his book is brought 

 down to date! The doH's-head extension of the top-rib and 

 the bottom lug fastening described by Mr. Greener had long 

 been abandoned by Lefever, and if Mr. Greener did not 

 know of this he should have kept his pen from paper. 



Greener's treatment is unfair, and not only iu wretched 

 taste, but in bad faith. There ought to be something like 

 honesty and candor even between rival gunmakers. That 

 Greener, a gunmaker and an author and presumably , at least, 

 a reader of such papers as the Forest and Stream, was 

 ignorant of the improvements which Lefever had made in 

 his gun, and had used for several years and fully described 

 in his catalogues, it is hardly fair to suppose. That he knew 

 nothing of the compensating features of this gun no admirer 



of our author can fairly allege; that he failed to mention 

 matters of so much importance is attributable to but one 

 motive, 



Lefever's first guns were made with a doll's head extension 

 of the top rib, and with bolts locking into the bottom lugs; 

 but his square-shouldered top-fastener had superseded these 

 arrangements long befoi-e Mr. Greener's second edition came 

 out. "The indicating pins of Lefever's gun have been for years, 

 at least (and so far as I know, always), placed on the lock 

 plates; but Greener's cut represeuts them as beina; on top of 

 the gun, where they certainly were not at the time he pre- 

 tends to describe the gun. The cut Mr. Greener uses shows 

 that the forward lug has an opening to receive the check- 

 hook, and yet neither here nor elsewhere in the book does 

 he mention that such a thing as a hinge-check exists or is 

 known to gunmakers. Now, I do not think it possible for 

 a perfect gun to exist without a device for protecting the 

 hinge-joiat from the strain of opening and closing the gun. 

 This little hinge-check is one of the most important of recent 

 improvements. Why does not Mr. Greener mention it? He 

 says his book notices "every invention pertaining to guns." 

 If I am not mistaken it had been in use ten years when his 

 second edition was published. But it is an American inveu- 

 tion, and it is not on Greener's gun. If he had mentioned it, 

 the inventive ingenuity of the Greeners (father and son) 

 would have suffered detriment; and if he had given it the 

 meritorious place to which it is entitled, he would have ex- 

 perienced some difliculty in satisfactorily accounting for its 

 absence from his gun. 



The distance from the standing face of the breech to the 

 hinge-joint is very short in the Greener gun, shorter than in 

 any other hammerless gun I know of; that distance in the 

 Lefever is longer than in any other haramerldss with which 

 I am acquainted. This distance is so much leverage impart- 

 ing strength. Why did not our impartial author say some- 

 thing on this subject? 



The ball and socket hinge-joint is peculiar to the 

 Lefever; it is one of the strongest of mechanical devices. 

 Why did not Greener mention it? 



Lefever's lock had been improved so as to make the strikers 

 and filing pins separate, but Greener did not say so. 



Lefever's outside cocking lever was very objectionable, 

 and it was very well for Greener to condemn it; but he 

 ought to have mentioned the many and great merits of the 

 gun. 



The Lefever is the only American hammerless gun Greener 

 pretends to describe, and this he apparently mentions only to 

 get an opportunity to ridicule it. He conceals its merits, 

 but is careful to hold up its objectionable cocking lever to 

 public gaze, and takes occasion at another place to refer to 

 it as an "antiquated specimen." Yes, the specimen Mr. 

 Greener fraudulently exhibits as the gun Lefever made when 

 he wrote, is "antiquated" indeed, and had gone out of use 

 when he wrote. To have been consistent and treated his 

 own gun as he did Lefever's, Mr. Greener would have repre- 

 sented it with underguard lever, and without the extension 

 rib fastening, which is the chief merit of his gun. 



That Greener knew of the existence of other American 

 hammerless guns is evident, for on page 385, in describing a 

 thing which" he calls the "Field gun," he says that "the 

 locks are raised to full cock by the act of opening the gun 

 for loading, and in a similar manner to that employed by 

 C. E. Sneider, of Baltimore, IJ. S. A., in 1865. Sneider 

 cocked his gun by a sliding rod moving diagonally in the 

 break-off, one end pressing against an eccentric from the 

 breech action joint pin, the other against the nose of the 

 hammer." 



This incidental mention of an "antiquated specimen" of 

 the Sneider gun is all J,hat he has to say about this most ex- 

 cellent arm, and the Harrington & Richardson, tiie Haskell 

 and other American hammerless guns, are not mentioned at 

 all, but page after page is devoted to extolling the Greener 

 hammerless. 



I do not find fault with a dealer for advertising his wares, 

 and he may even sell his advertisements if he can fairly do 

 so, just as many dealers do sell their large catalogues. Bat 

 when a man steps out of his shop and poses as an author, he 

 ought to try to treat the work of others fairly when he 

 comes to describe it. He has no right to sell as an impartial 

 treatise on firearms a book written and printed for the pur- 

 pose of advertising a particular weapon ; and still less has he 

 the right to pretend to present a full and candid exposition 

 of his subject so as to enable others to arrive at accurate 

 conclusions, when he has never heard of, or does not men- 

 tion, many of the most important of modern inventions. 

 How shall his readers know which of all the guns is the 

 best when the very existence of many is studiously con- 

 cealed. 



When he treats of American rifles, Mr. Greener is no more 

 accurate than when dealing with our shotguns. Take, as a 

 sample, his remarks about the Winchester — one of the best- 

 known American repeating rifles. If all we knew about this 

 arm was what we find in Mr. Greener's book, very few Win- 

 chester rifles could be sold. Indeed, it would be hard to get 

 a man to take one as a ^ift ; yet it is probable that more 

 game is killed with the Winchester than with any other rifle, 

 for the reason that its use is more general. 



Mr. Greener says that "several models of the Winchester 

 repeating rifle have now been manufactured," and he pro- 

 ceeds to enumerate as follows: 



Model 1873, 440 bore, 40 gr. powxler, 200 gr. lead. 



Model 1876, 450 bore, 75 gr. powder, 360 gr. lead. 



"A new express of 500 bore," and "theu- latest model, 

 32-cal." Now, the fact is, that the Winchester is made in 

 only three models, viz., 1866, 1873 and 1876; and the express 

 is a modification of the 1876 model, but it is made in various 

 calibers, so that instead of oulj' four, as Mr. Greener has it, 

 there are nine distinct guns, as follows: 



Model 1866, .44-cal., 28 gr. powder, 300 gr. lead. 



Model 1873, .44-cal., 40 gr. powder, 300 gr, lead. 



Model 1873, .38-cal„ 40 gr. powder, 180 gr. lead. 



Model 1873, .82-ca]., 20 gr. powder, 115 gr. lead. 



Model 1873. .22-cal., long and short cartridges. 



Model 1876, .45-75, 75 gr. powder, 350 gr. lead. 



Model 1876, .45-60, 60 gr, powder. 300 gr. lead. 



Model 1876, .40-60, 62 gr. powder. 210 gr. lead. 



Model 1876, .50-95, 95 gr. powder, 300 gr. lead. 



Mr. Greener's book is equally behind the times and equally 

 unfair on the subject of revolvers. On page 430 he gives a 

 cut of the old Smith & Wesson rim fire, single action, non- 

 ejecting pistol— another weapon that has not been made or 

 used for years— and says: "The size is .320, and the shape 

 will convey a relative idea of the size and appearance of the 

 American 'six-shooter,' of which it is a fair type. The 

 revolvers usually sold in England are .450-bore," etc. And 

 then our author proceeds to illustrate and describe English 

 ' pistols of the latest models. 



