186 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 1, 1885. 



took it migrlity easy. He could scarcely cook anything eat- 

 able, and hated cooking. I was a g,ood camp cook, and 

 liked to practice cookeiy. He. would giUl and hang up a 

 deer in five minutes, then dash oif after another on the lope. 

 I took an hour to dress a deer, and having saved one, would 

 usually start to hunt back to camp. He had a high reputa- 

 tion as a still-hunter. 1 had not; but on the day before 

 Christmas I had killed sixteen deer against his fifteen. He 

 got even by going out on Christmas Day while I staid in 

 camp. In fact, he got one ahead of rue. Whereat his soul 

 was possessed with'a great joy. It would have broken his 

 constitution had he been forced to quit witk the Little 

 Yorker one aliead, and I was content. Perhaps it was be- 

 cause we were so opposite that we got along'so nicely to- 

 gether. This Is digression. 



As to the guD question, I have a notion that the comiug 

 gun is to be .'lomething different from anything yet ofEered to 

 the sporting public. It will not supersede the double-barrel 

 shotgun with tliose who prefer pointers, setters and wing- 

 shooting to any other sport. Rather, an all-around gun for 

 general use in outing. Not heavy, weighing from 7i to 8i 

 pounds. Breechloader, of coiirse, for your modern sports- 

 man is too far advanced to tolerate a muzzleloader. Bifle 

 and shot. Barrels lying vertically, locks "over and under," 

 rifie barrel on top. The rifle may be .40 or .44-caliber ; either 

 is good, The shot barrel ] 6-gauge or even smaller. The 

 locks, especially the right lock, should go quick, crisp and 

 very light. No man can make fine off-hand shooting at short 

 range with a rifle that draws hard on the trigger, or, what is 

 as bad, creeps. Such a gun should answer all reasonable 

 requirements, while being liglit, handy, and withal pleasant 

 to use. 



I do not like a rifle and shot barrel side hy side. If the 

 right hand barrel be the rifle, and the sights are placed be- 

 tween the baiTels, the bullet must be on the right side of the 

 sights, and must swerve to the left in order to catch up with 

 the sights. The makers of such guns usually claim that the 

 bullet is intended to come exactly to the bead at 80 yards. 

 If this were precisely so — which it is not — a good shot would 

 miss tbe head of a grouse at 15 or 18 yards, while at 45 yards 

 the bullet would be past the head and going off into space to 

 the left. Tbe principle is all wrong. Even under the best 

 condition!?, where the sights are ranged perfectly on top of 

 the barrel, there is the curve, the trajectory, to reckon for 

 and overcome. And this is enough, without a continual 

 shunting off to one side, which destroys aU fine shooting for 

 the rifle. 



Let us have the coming gun. Not as a more destructive 

 weapon than any before the public at present, but as a neat, 

 handy, effective tool that a sportsman can learn to love. It will 

 come after a while, when the rage for 10-bore shotguns and 

 magazine rifles has somewhat abated through the scarcity of 

 game and the subsidence of the deer-hog and skin-butcher. 

 It will come in the shape of a light, artistic weapon that any 

 spoi-tsman may be proud to handle. It will not be the best 

 gun for any one special purpose, but, for an all-day hunt in 

 the quiet woods, where it is desirable to be heeled for any- 

 thing, from a squirrel to a deer, from a quail to a turkey, it is 

 likely to become a favorite with sportsmen as a most satis- 

 factory all-around gun. 



There are some valid reasons why such a gun may be the 

 best, under conditions; for instance. Any man who has 

 still-hunted for several seasons has had it happen that a deer 

 came by him at high speed, not hearing or heeding the weak 

 attempis to halt it by bleating, whistling, or any other of 

 the devices known to hunters. Of course, the cool hunter 

 takes chances on a flying shot, and almost equally of course, 

 he misses. 1 know all about the brag and lies of men who 

 seldom miss a running shot in thick woods. Shrubs, staddles 

 and tree trunks are plentier than deer. And a very small 

 bit of timber will stop or deflecfe a bullet, let alone that in 

 brushy woods the best shot will miss half the time anyhow, 

 on the merits of aim. But the best point on such chances is 

 that the sharp crack of a rifle is the very noise to stop a fly- 

 ing deer. And here comes in the advantage of the gun I have 

 been trj'ing to descril>e. 



Let us say you are still-hunting in the deep woods, in your 

 moccasins, shod with sheepskin soles, tannelJ with the wool 

 on, and the wool carefully clipped to a mat i of an inch 

 thick. This is for hunting on leaves. On snow you will 

 wear a pair of lumberman's nib hers, with two or three pairs 

 of heavy woolen socks; and in either case you will make no 

 noise to speak of in slowly picking your way through the 

 forest. 



in still-hunting silence is golden. Ergo; hunt still. 



Suppose your g-un is the improved repeater, and you have 

 crept silently thtough the deep, dim aisles of the foj'est for 

 the best jtart of the day without seeing a flag. At last comes 

 the supreme moment. Yom- ears catch the soft, velvety 

 thud of a deer's feet, jumping on wet leaves. There she is, 

 a big doe, running at speed and heading directly across your 

 bows. In an instant the rifle is at your face, and you try 

 your most seductive bleat. She does not heed, and you are 

 trying it again, louder this time; but on she comes, and is 

 crossing you within thirty yards when crack goes the rifle 

 and the next instant she comes to a dead stop with head 

 down, ears pricked forward, and her eyes on the spot where 

 that puff of smoke came from. 



Now, if you remain motionless as a milestone she will 

 take time to locate the danger either by scent or sight before 

 making her burst for safety. But the slightest noise or the 

 motion of a hand will send her flying. 



But you must throw in another cartridge, and down goes 

 the lever, ker-klui-7/k;l)ack. it comes, ker-JdunJc, and the doe is 

 sailing through the woods like a gray ghost, with the near- 

 est tree trunk directly in line with her tail and yom- front 

 sight. You lost the one chance of the day, A Hotchkiss 

 would not mend matters. A Mayiiard, Sharps, Ballard or 

 Remington would be nearly as bad. You cannot reload 

 without motion and noise. 



Now, supposing you are using the vertical barrels, locks 

 over and under. The mainspring of the under lock is also 

 the guard, and as your first tinger rests on the trigger you 

 have only to reach forward with the middle finger and draw 

 tbe hammer down without taking your eye from the bead. 

 It can be done in one second, and without the least visible 

 motion from the deer's standpoint, because the left hand in 

 front of the hammer effectually bides the slight movement 

 necessary to cock the guu. You can do it without alarming 

 and one .such certainty is worth a good deal of pumping 

 the deer that is looking straight at you within less than thirty 

 yards, and shooting. The locks can be made so that both will 

 stand cocked at the same time, and may then be fired one at 

 a time, with the single trigger. But it is better not. Be- 

 cause in that case they diaw harder, and what is worse, the 

 second barrel will draw the hardest. Moreover, it is .seldom 

 that a still-hunter cares to cock the second barrel until thy 



first shot is made. And it can be done much more quickie 

 than a person unused to such a gun would be apt to think. 

 As an instance, 1 once made two shots at a doe on Little 

 Pine Creek that struck her back of the shoulder, and the 

 shots were barely an inch apart, although there scarcely 

 could have been more than a second between the shots. She 

 was running down the bed of the stream, and passing me 

 within twenty-five yards as I made the first shot, and as the 

 first ball cleared the muzzle a wink of the middle finger 

 cocked the under barrel. She made one high convulsive 

 jump, and as her feet came down on the stones I let her 

 have the second shot. She sprang out on the opposite bank, 

 ran about thirty yards, and dropped dead, I gave her the 

 second shot partly because it was such a tempting chance, 

 and partly because I was using a pea ball of 120 to the 

 pound, which a deer would sometimes carry a good way or 

 get away with altogether. It was the quickest, neatest 

 double shot I have ever made with the rifle, and 1 remember 

 it with more pleasure than I do the lordly old antlered patri- 

 arch that I missed with both barrels as he was crossing me 

 at a steady lope about fifteen rods away, on the same hunt. 

 Such lost chances are painful to think of, even at a lapse of 

 twenty years. They do not come back— neither the chances 

 nor the years. 



As a special gun for deer hunting both barrels should be 

 rifled, and they should be so matched and put together that 

 either barrel will shoot plum center at 100 feet. At 300 feet 

 the bah from the under barrel will then go a trifle the high- 

 est, and at 100 yards it will have gained a rise of some two 

 inches. I used a rifle of that style for several seasons, and it 

 was the best gun for deer I have ever owned. It carried 

 seventy round or thirty six conical bullets to the pound, 

 weighed 9^^^ pounds, and the bidlets came just together at 

 100 feet. At 150 feet there was no perceptible difference in 

 ofl-hand shooting, and I missed fewer deer and lost fewer 

 wounded deer than with any gun I have ever carried. 

 1 had moulds made to run a shouldered bidlet, on the theory 

 that the sharp shoulder would cut harder and throw blood 

 more freely than tbe ordinary conical bullet; and the theory 

 proved correct. It is the best-shaped bullet for deer or bear 

 I have yet seen. It cuts its full size through skin, meat and 

 bone, but does not fly to fragments on striking a hard sub- 

 stance Uke the spatter bullet, I thinli it is the coming 

 bullet. 



There is a tide in the affairs of breechloaders and the 

 makers thereof which, taken at the turn, has led some men 

 on to fortune, while some others have got badly broken up. 

 The breechloader has come to stay. Nothing will or can 

 ever supersede the breechloading shotgun for birds, from 

 snipe to swan, though it is likely that time and larger expe- 

 rience will reduce the 4, 8 and 'lO bores to 14, 16 and 20, as 

 being lighter, pleasanter and much more artistic. 



The modern breechloading rifle, magazine or single shot, 

 is a more important factor in the affairs of nations than is 

 usually supposed. Armed with the Hotchkiss or Reming- 

 ton-Hepburn a regiment can defy a cavalry charge or demol- 

 ish a brigade armed with the old muzzleloading musket, 

 while it makes a bayonet charge simply ridiculous, and 

 changes entirely the savage front of war. 



The coming rifle will be primarily the one that can soonest 

 exterminate our large game, and make the best score at long 

 range. But the game is already so nearly extinct that the 

 skin butchers are quitting the business, complaining that it 

 does not pay. I notice that many of them propose to put in 

 the seasoon in shooting out the stallions from droves of wild 

 horses, with incidental "wolfing," i. e., hunting coyotes for 

 bounty and pelts. I hope they will succeed in "wolfing." 

 Then I hope the Apaches will get in their work, and have 

 equal success in scalping the human coyotes. If after that 

 the Government could manage to wipe out the Apaches, it 

 would increase my faith in the millenium. 



Hunting is miniature war. Oreedmoor and "Wimbledon 

 are simply the prehminaries of the battle line. 



The coming rifle is the one that will kill and cripple the 

 greatest number of men in the shortest possible time. This 

 as a military arm. 



For general sporting purposes the favorite weapon is likely 

 to be the double barrel I have described. And let me add, 

 it will not always be a breechloader. Rapidity of fire is not 

 so essential to success in sporting as it is deemed. One or 

 two well placed shots will, in most cases, leave the sports- 

 man ample time to reload from the muzzle, ond there is no 

 necessity for canying a backload of shells. 



The mechanism of the breechloader necessitates a lot of 

 metal about the breech, making the gun heaviest just where 

 it should be light, and in very cold weather it is most un- 

 comfortable to carry. 



] t is so handy, however, in loading or cleaning, and can be 

 so rapidly used, that none of tbe yoimger sportsmen of the 

 land are Ukely to give the muzzleloader any serious thought. 

 With them it is obsolete, 



for myself, I am rather on the fence, I have both styles, 

 and am heeled for bullet or shot with either. I incline to 

 the breechloader for shot, but rather tie to the old rifle for 

 ball. I can get nearer the center with it in off-hand .shooting, 

 and in hunting I can vary the charge according to the game. 



And after all, the discussion of the "best gun" is of little 

 account. We have guns enough and deadly enough. It is 

 the game that is lacking. Nessmuk, 



IN VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS. 



I NEVER see any mention of sora or rail shooting except 

 as detailed by sportsmen who himt them in tidewater 

 regions. The mode then usually seems to be that the gun- 

 ner is carried among the reeds and weeds in push boats and 

 thus beats the birds up and kills them. Persons used to that 

 mode of sport, believing also that the rail is not found out of 

 such localities, will with poor grace credit the fact that we 

 frequently, in this far inland section, have an autumnal visit 

 from these little birds. The altitude here is very great, 

 many thousand feet above sea level, it is the very comb of 

 th& great water shed, the mountains are high and sharply 

 defined. When the rail sojourn here they are usually found 

 in fields from which the grain has been harvested and which 

 has grown up with rag weed. The largest number I ever 

 saw here was on Aug. 27, 1879, when two friends and my- 

 self shot about seventy -five in two or three hours. The rail 

 ordinarily tarry here until the 1st of October; I have seen 

 them later in that month. When they are out of the swamp 

 and grass in meadows they afford pretty sport wdth dogs. 

 They give out strong scent, and in rag weed fields are not 

 hard to get up. 



The sun never shines on a lovelier country than we have 

 here in autumn. It is in verdure a second spring with us. 

 When the sun loses its summer burning power the grass, 

 that has been mown or grazed closely, takes new life. You 



may now stand upon one of our sham elevations, and not a 

 bare spot of earth will you see save the roads or freshly- 

 ploughed fields. The meadows, watered by our cool, clear 

 branches, are beautiful with their covering of dark and ver- 

 dant rich blue grass. 



With a friend 1 went out the other evening to shoot sora 

 I had one old and one young setter. We put them into the 

 branch, and soon the old f eUow, with all his best style, began 

 his low crouching points, the young dog stiffly backing him. 

 We w^ould go to put up the bird, and the old dog would ap- 

 pear worried that he would have to trail the little creeper 

 through the sawgrass, with a repetition of the points. In 

 such places dogs should not be allowed to worry with them. 

 I remember the young dog came to a beautiful stand on one 

 bird, in the old channel of the branch, grown up in sawgrass 

 and weeds. The place was circular, and he roaded the bird 

 entirely around to the branch fifty yards before we got it up. 

 We shot fifteen or twenty that evening. Then went into a 

 field of corn to shoot woodcock. The prettiest work of the 

 evening there was on a woodcock which was flushed and 

 marked down in a spot bare of corn— a small ledge of rocks 

 covered with short grass. We took the dogs to the place 

 and the old dog came to a stand, with that' upturned nose 

 you have seen when close on game, and there sat the cock 

 within an inch of the dog's foot, his bill really over the dog's 

 toes, with his weird pop eyes. The old dog at command put 

 him up, and he fell to a snap shot. 



Yesterday I was hunting, up a marshy swale, high in the 

 mountain, and a covey of partridges was flushed, when one 

 flew around a point and lit. I took the dogs to water near 

 the spot, and when they were through I sat down on a stump 

 and put the young dog to hunting for the partridge. He was 

 a little loo headstrong, so I called him in to chat about it. 

 He reared up, placing his forefeet on my knee, where I sat 

 on the stump. Suddenly I saw his eyes flash up. and he 

 gently slid himself off my knee and bent around the stump 

 in a stiff point. I kicked over some pieces of bark and out 

 came the partridge at the root of the stump— and here the 

 curtain falls. Giiaeisie. 



SouTHTTEST Virginia, Sept. 30. 



THE CHOICE OF GUNS.-VI. 



IT has already been sufficiently indicated thfk I am an ad- 

 vocate of the hammerless gun, and if you contemplate 

 buying a gun, and the flmit you have fixed wiU enable you 

 to reach the price of a hammerless, take my advice and get 

 one. There is a good deal of conservatism in sportsmen; 

 they do not readily take up with new things; they are some- 

 what inclined to old fogyism. This conservatism has, to a 

 greater or less extent, resisted eveiy step in the development 

 of the shotgun to its present stata, and the ii^troduction of 

 the hammerless gun — the greatest of the recent improve- 

 ments—has not met with the favor of man> who use the 

 shotgun. But the hammerless gun has come audit has come 

 to stay, and the gun with extern.al hammers must give place 

 to it just as surely as the flint-lock disappeared before the 

 percussion muzzleloader, the latter before the Lefaucheux 

 pin-fire, and the pin fire before the center-fire top-.snap breech- 

 loader. One obstacle to the early introduction of the ham- 

 merless gun into general use has been its price. For a long- 

 time none could be had below a hundred dollars, and even 

 now there are few made below that price. But the probable- 

 increase in number of the manufacturers of the hammerless. 

 guns and the application of the principle to a plainer class of 

 guns, will doubtless produce a decline of prices, for there is; 

 no reason why the price of the hammerless should much ex- 

 ceed the price of a hammer gun of corresponding grade.. 

 Until within the last few months the list price of a plain- 

 Harrington & Richardson hammerless was $100; but the 

 Colt Company put a similar gun on the market at ihe same- 

 price, and now the list on the plain Harrington & Richardsort 

 is |85, The price of Lefever's plainest gun was |100, and 

 that of Sneider's $180; but the Lefever Aj-rns Company put 

 on the market a plain gun at $75, and Sneider has now re- 

 duced his lowest grade to $100. 



I was myself one of the many in whose eyes the gun with^ 

 out outside hammers found no favor ; but this was because I 

 was unfamiliar with the appearance of the gun, and now 

 that the newness of the sight has passed, the hammerless is 

 far more graceful in outline to ray eye than the gun with 

 hammers. 3Iy experience was similar wlien the transition 

 was made from the muzzleloader to the breephloader, I 

 thought a gun without a ramrod had a particularly awk- 

 ward appearance. 



And, without a thorough knowledge of the subject, I was 

 prejudiced against the hammerless gun, becau-e I assumed 

 it was more complicated, no more convenient, !.nd less safe 

 than the gun with hammers. Like many othe_; I did not 

 even care to give it a trial. This prejudice WaS, however, 

 removed by enlightenment; and observation and experience 

 have shown me (as it will show you sooner or later, my 

 brother) that the hammerless gun is not only less compli- 

 cated than the gun with hammers, but far safer. And 

 when you have fairly considered its simplicity, and, conse- 

 quently, its durability, its safety, its convenience, and the 

 superior facility with which it can be used on sudden and 

 unexpected call, you will at once see the points of its supe- 

 riority over the hammer gun. For wing-shooting there is 

 no comparison between them ; a man wi*^h a hammerless will- 

 get many shots which a man with a hammer gun will lose, 

 and in quick shooting I am confident that nine men out of' 

 ten will do better work with the hammerless than with the 

 hammer gun. After using several hammerless guns of the- 

 best English makes and several American hammerless guns, , 

 I could not be induced to return to the gun with hammers,, 

 nor be induced to take an English hammerless when I could 

 get one of either of several American makers. 



The Harrington & Richardson hammerless gun is made' 

 under the Anson & Deeley patent. As already remarked,, 

 the list price of the lowest gi-ade is $85, of the next gi-ade^ 

 $100, and so on up to, I believe, $300. The lowest grade is. 

 really a "fine guu," very neatly but very plainly finished,, 

 entirely without engraving, but with good laminated barrels,, 

 fairly good stock, pistol-grip, checkered, rubber butt-plate, 

 and good mountings. In my judgment the $85 grade, or 

 the $100 grade, is the gun to buy, for the additional cost of 

 the higher grades is not justified by the superiority of 

 material or workmanship, A.nd it is true as a rule of all 

 machine-made and most hand-made g-uns, that after reaching 

 the price of a sound but plain gun, of good material, the 

 Improvement in quality docs not keep pace with the increase 

 of price of higher grades. ,^ 



The Anson & Deeley is a very simple and stroiig lock, one 

 of the simplest and strongest of all the hammerless locks. It 

 consists of but four pieces, namely, the dog, or cocking lever, 

 the mainspring, the tumbler, and the sear, and these are all 



