Feb. 18, 1866,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



67 



pects to recover in about six weeks, and he says that he shall 

 then return to Brassua ami go into camp again. He certainly 

 has an unlimited amount of pluck." 



I sincerely hope that no one, on reading this, -will be de- 

 terred from going into a winter camp if he feels so disposed, 

 as I can assure you that some of my pleasantest camping 

 days were spent in Camp Annie during last December aud 

 January. One thins I will urge, however— never go into 

 camp, winter or summer, alone. I camped once before by 

 myself in Colorado, during the winter of 1869-70, fifty miles 

 from the nearest known habitation, for five long winter 

 months, and I then was deprived by an accident of the use 

 of my left arm, and was obliged to snowshoe tliose fifty 

 miles alone in search of help. S"o you see I am fairly able to 

 judge of the disadvantages of camping alone. 



I should like to mentiou here the exceeding kindness I re- 

 ceived from all with whom I came in contact in the woods, 

 and I take this opportunity to thank them for all favors ex- 

 tended toward me. To some of them I undoubtedly owe my 

 life. I hope that our experience may serve as a lesson to 

 others to be careful while in the woods, and that Forest 

 and Stream may have no more "Midwinter Perils" to 

 chronicle. T. C. H. 



Jersey City, Feb. 9, 



LESSONS OF THE TRAJECTORY TEST. 



"f\LD Fogies to the Front" should perhaps be the title of 



\J this artieLe, for that is most certainly where we have 

 arrived, if I am any jud.se of arrivals. The test certainly 

 sustains in the fullest manner all that Major Merrill, Mr. 

 Romer, I or others ever claimed, viz , that the old American 

 muzzleloader, as an accurate rifle at ordinary hunting ranges, 

 has not yet been equaled, much h ss excelled by any rifle in 

 ■which the ball was started below the grooves' of the rifle. 

 It was commonly supposed, ten years ago, that the superior- 

 ity of the breechloader was settled by the international match 

 of 1876. But every American rifle in that match was loaded 

 as a muzzleloader. either by running the ball down the muz- 

 zle or shoving it up from the breech and pushing the shell 

 charged with powder after it. The only earthly difference 

 was that in the English rifles the breech-blocks were screwed 

 in and in the American rifles were easily movable. Iu every 

 long-range match ever shot since then the breechloaders have 

 been thus loaded, or the ball was so lightly seated in the shell 

 and so long in body that it was almost entirely in the grooves 

 at the time it received the first imnact of the powder. 



Directly after this match of 1876, up rose a set composed 

 of two classes— those who were earned away into blind idol- 

 atry by the superior speed of fire and convenience of the 

 breechloader, and those who had never shot a muzzleloader 

 and did not know what good shooting was. This set, tired 

 with that absurd and false spirit of progress which f< els 

 bound to decry as worthless everything old, suddenly dis 

 covered that the rifle of their daddies was not only inferior 

 at long rantre to the production of their own wondrous ag?, 

 but never did shoot anywhere at any distance; that the whole 

 art of rifle-making had, in fact, but just been discovered, aud 

 that anybody who thought otherwise was an old fogy, etc. 

 The fact that any such heretic constantly u=ed a breechloader 

 for hunting because of its convenience, as I did, and would 

 use nothing else, only made his offense the more rank. As 

 far back as ten years ago, to sav that the wonderful Ameri- 

 can breechloader was anything but perfection, was only to 

 prove yourself an ignoramus aud a bungler who did not 

 know how to shoot. 



The trajectory test has quietly buried all such questions. 

 Of course the report passes no judgment upon rides. It is 

 not expected to discriminate between any rifles or makers. 

 But the facts are all there and the couclu-ions irresistible. 

 We not only hear of no wild or corkscrewing balls from the 

 muzzleloaders, but are expressly told that they "maintained 

 a high degree of accuracy," etc. When a breechloader 

 comes up to the muzzleloaders we hear of it at once. It 

 happens, however, in but one. ca«e. On page 406 of Forest 

 and Stream, we read of the Ballard .40 70: 



"This arm is one of the fine, close-shooting, patched-bullet 

 weapons, and, so far as compact bunching of the shots on 

 the target, seemed to be fully equal to the high charged 

 muzzleloaders in the test." This was a patched ball, very 

 Ions; in body, with not over one-eighth of the ball sealed in 

 the shell; a rifle specially made for line target work. Its 

 accuracy was due to its approach to the muzzleloaders, fully 

 seven-eighths of the ball being in the grooves of the rifle at 

 the explosion of the powder. A careful reading of the whole 

 report makes it pretty safe to assume that if any other rifle 

 had equalled "the high-charged muzzleloaders" we should 

 have heard of it. On the contrary, it is full of apologies aud 

 explanations, but the muzzleloaders don't seem to need any 

 of them. 



But in reality the muzzleloader was far ahead of this Bal- 

 lard rifle, the difference in trajectory being for a hunting 

 rifle per se, a difference in accuracy. The Bomer rifle made 

 200 yards with a rise of about 4, B j ) - inches less than the Ballard 

 .40 70, The principal pait of the claim always made by the 

 old fogies was that no Ameriaan breechloader could shoot 

 from the shell with accuracy as short a ball with as heavy a 

 charge of powder as was done with the old muzzleloaders* by 

 those who knew how to load them. This claim is fully sub- 

 stantiated if anything is. That carries all else with it ;"for if 

 accurate with such charges, they certainly are with less 

 powder and longer balls, except for long range, for which 

 their twist may not always be sufficient. 



This point seems to have been overlooked by your London 

 correspondent "J. J. M.," who expresses surprise that I 

 should have thought it good shooting to keep on a half-inch 

 bullseye all day at twenty yards. I expressly said "with 

 four or five inches of powder behind the ball." Will he 

 show me a breechloader that will do it with that amount of 

 powder and the ball in the shell? He will find few in Amer- 

 ica that will do it with over one inch of powder and a very 

 long ball will be needed then, 



I was merely combatting the old idea that "too much 

 powder drives the ball wild," and showed that it did not 

 apply to many American muzzleloiders and was not neces- 

 sarily true. In the "Still-Hunter" 1 said that the "express 

 or high speed system is by many supposed to be an English 

 invention, but on the contrary is as old as the history of 

 American rifle shooting." 1 was trying to show that high 

 speed and accuracy were combined many years asxo. Almost 

 any rifle will shoot well with a very small charge of powder. 

 This is the cause of the great accuracy of the 22-caliber 

 rifles and it is the difference in the amount of powder that 

 makes the .22 short more reliable for a long series of shots 

 than the .22 loug. In spite of the fact that they do not fill 

 the chamber, they are still about the most acurate of all the 

 frreechloaders^a thing that would be almost impossible with 



[Cut this out, put it on a blank, obtain signatures and send to your Member at Albany,] 



A PETITION 



For the Continued Protection of Adirondack Deer, 



AND 



AGAINST WATER-BUTCHERY. 



To the Honorable, the Legislature of the State of New York: 



We, the undersigned, residents of County, respectfully petition that the 



law (Chap. 557, Laws of 1885) which makes it "unlawful to pursue any wild deer in this 

 State with any dog or bitch" may not be amended in any such way as to permit the use of 

 dogs for hunting deer at any time. The present non-hounding law is absolutely essential 

 to maintain the supply of deer in the Adirondacks. The use of dogs and water-butchery 

 would surely cause the extinction of the game. 



(Signed) 



a fair charge of powder. The combination of accuracy with 

 tip-top speed was the great point in the old muzzleloader, 

 and it will be a few days yet before it is beaten. 



Nor has "J. J. M." any real ground for surprise at the 

 statement of "Mississippi Lowlands" that two of the leading 

 American breechloaders missed a 2iinch disc at 40 yards, 

 the one five shots out of ten, the other three shots out of 

 ten, while a muzzleloader that was older than any of us hit 

 it every time. That is just exactly the trick that a breech- 

 loader can play, while a muzzleloader carefully loaded, never 

 does. Either of those breechloaders might at the next ten 

 shots hit it every time. But you can't depend upon their 

 doing it as they would if they were loaded as muzzleloaders. 



Another trick that a rifle can play when the ball is started 

 below the grooves instead of in them is that played by the 

 .30 express that "J. J. M." mentions which shot several balls 

 accurately at 40 yards, yet would not be accurate at 100. 

 Those balls at 40 yards must have been rotating a little off 

 the true axis, and their grouping in the mark may have been 

 accidental, a thing that wild bullets will often do, or else 

 he 40-yard target was exceptional and could not be repeated. 

 'J. J. 31." certainly will not assert that a bullet whose axis 

 of rotation is correct up to 40 yards could without touching 

 anything begin to wabble before it reached 100 yards. A 

 small round ball may do it, but any ball long enough to 

 make a good 150-yard target at all, if rotating on the proper 

 axis at 40 yards will still be there at 100 yards, unless de- 

 flected by something. 



These same principles will explain the accuracy ascribed 

 by "J. J. M." to smooth-bores. I used to see plenty of what 

 were once called "smooth-bored rifles" by the country folks 

 to distinguish them from "cut rifles." With a moderate 

 charge of powder, and tight, well-shaped round ball, they 

 will do fair shooting; and if you count out the wild balls will 

 do fine shooting. But they work just like the breechloaders 

 of fifteen years ago, throw so large a percentage of wild balls 

 that they are unreliable. They may also act like a good rifle 

 defectively loaded, throw a majority of the balls fairly in the 

 center and the rest far enough off to miss an elk at 100 yards. 

 All such work may be toleraied, provided we can get nothing 

 better, but only on such condition. 



The Forest and Stream deserves the sincerest thanks 

 of all riflemen for the careful, exhaustive and impartial 

 nature of this trajectory test. Its results will stand for many 

 a year as the arbiter of all disputes and the basis upon which 

 the trajectory of any new ride may be very nearly calculated 

 without actual trial. The most important of its lessons is, 

 however, one that is liable to be wrongly read by many, to 

 wit, the effect of low velocity in hunting or shooting at un- 

 known and ever-varying distances within such range as one 

 is likely to get a shot at any sort of game. 



It would be quite natural for one who gave little thought 

 to the question to say that the difference of a few inches in 

 the height of the curve at 100 yards would be but a small 

 matter, easily remedied by holding a little lower and not worth 

 half the fuss that has been made over it, and that on the first 

 and last part of the course the difference was still more 

 trifling. When we come to the trajectory for 100 yards, the 

 difference at 50 yards between any of the rifles there tested 

 seems still more contemptible, and by no means balancing 

 the increase of powder, noise and fouling. 



But this position would be founded upon the tacit assump- 

 tion that the hunter always aimed so as to hit above the 

 center at all objects between him and the point blank of the 

 rifle. Such persons figure in imagination an antelope stand- 

 ing at 100 yards, with several rifles sighted for 200 yards 

 aimed at him with the same sight as for 200 yards, with the 

 bullets striking 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 inches too high, some 

 missing entirely and the others only crippling the animal, 

 and quite naturally conclude that holding a little lower will 

 bring them all neaily even. Such would be the case if that 

 were the way the rifle were used in hunting. But that 

 is precisely the way it is not used; and the error is, in 

 fact, generally about four times what it thus appears to be. 



The hunter always wishes to hit his game in the exact 

 spot at which he aims. He never wants to hit it too high. 

 This is what the novice generally does when he hits at all, 

 and his improvement from a bungler to a good shot upon 

 game consists almost entirely in shooting lower without get 

 ting too low. He must make a center shot as often as pos- 

 sible. In other words, if the game does not happen to be at 

 the point blank of the rifle he must change the point blank 

 to suit the game. Whether he does this by taking a finer 

 front sight or by holding the sights below the mark the 

 effect is precisely the same as if he lowered the back sight 

 and reduced the point blank in that way. So that wnen 

 the crack shot shoots at the antelope at 100 yards with the 

 rifle sighted to a point blank of 200 and makes a center shot, 

 he does it by reducing the point Olank to 100 yards. His 

 ability to do this quickly is mainly what makes him a crack 

 shot on game. 



If now the game is a few yards closer than he aims for, he 

 hits it but a trifle too high. But if a few yards further off, 

 he hits it— -not the same distance too low that he would before 

 have bfeen too high-^hut a great deal more. Here is where 



he generally errs. The tyro will err the other way and 

 think his game is further than it really is, but the skillful 

 shot upon game has got over that error, and in trying to 

 avoid it, runs into another, less dangerous indeed, and the 

 lesser of two evils, but still an evil— underestimating dis- 

 tance. If game appears to be at 125 vards and there is the 

 least doubt about its being only 100, the careful hunter will 

 always decide in favor of the shorter distance. 



Now, not only does a difference of six inches at 100 yards 

 in the rise of two trajectories for 200 yards make a great dif- 

 ference in the difficulty of holding a finer sight or holding 

 lower for intermediate game or higher for game beyond the 

 point blank, but makes an enormous difference if the game 

 happens to be a little further off than the hunter thought it 

 was. To understand this last difference the rifles must be 

 viewed as fired, with sigh's set parallel with the axis of the bore, 

 and the fall of the bullets below the line of sight will quickly 

 show what actually takes place in hunting. The fall of any 

 bullet from gravity alone is, at any point, about four times 

 the height of the tra jectory required to make a point blank 

 at that distance. Thus a bullet requiring a rise of 6 inches 

 to make 200 vards would, if fired from a level, drop 4x6 or 

 24 inches at 200 yards. I use round numbers all through for 

 convenience, but they are veiy near. And the ball takinsr a 

 rise of 12 inches, would then fore drop 48 inches at 200. 

 Dividing these figures all by 4 again will give us very nearly 

 the figures for 100 yards, the two rifles having but \\ inches 

 difference at 50 yards by the ordinary way of measuring 

 trajectory, but actually four times this at 100 yards, or 6 

 inches as the hunter measures trajactory in the field. The 

 influence of air resistance we must leave out for convenience. 



Now, to whatever distance the point blank is set, either by 

 adjustment of sights or by taking an extra fine sight or hold- 

 ing under, this same result, the difference in the fall of the 

 bullets, begins immediately after passing it. N ow, draw your- 

 self a diagram of two trajectories, the one striking at 100 

 yards 6 inches below the center and at 200 yards 24 inches 

 below; the other at 100 yards 12 inches below and at 200 

 yards 48 inches below, and you will see exactly the difference 

 between the two or nearly all shots that happen to be further 

 off than you aim for. Yet the difference between the two at 

 100 yards as trajectories are ordinarily measured would be 

 but \\ inches at 50 yards, an error that many would quite 

 naturally say was of little consequence. 



Now, compare in this way the muzzleloader of Mr. Romer 

 with its 6-inch rise with the rim-fire .44 lone, shown on page 

 387 of Forest and Stream. This is the cartridge, I be- 

 lieve, of the old Henry and Winchester of 1866, and very 

 nearly represents the trajectory of the average breechloader 

 of 12 or 15 years ago. Its rise at 100 yards is 19 inches, 

 making a drop of 76 inches at 200 and at 50 yards its rise is 

 4i inches, making a drop of about 18 inches at 100 yards, 

 both about three times that of the muzzleloader. Were those 

 fools, old fogies, duffers, etc., who, ten years ago, pro- 

 nounced such things inferior in accuracy within hunting 

 ranges to the old muzzleloader? If any one thinks this dif- 

 ference overestimated let him try at unknown and varying 

 distance and at natural marks two such rifles up to 200 

 yards. He will be apt to say it is underestimated. 



Applying this test we can quickly see what our rifles, "for 

 small game," are worth. They are good for small game 

 only because they do not tear it. A rifle with a rise of 4 

 inches at 50 yards or a drop of 16 at 100 is a nice thing to 

 hit small game with, isn't it? 



It may be said that the fault of the breechloader is in its 

 ammunition. True enough. But if we complained of the 

 ammunition it could be said that the fault is in the rifle. It 

 is immaterial which way we look at it. 



The trajectory test certainly proves one thing which I 

 claimed several years ago in this paper — that a hunting rifle 

 should be made to shoot two different kinds of bullets and 

 charges, one a light bullet with a heavy load of powder for 

 all short range hunting, and also be fixed so as to be loaded 

 as a muzzleloader where extreme accuracy is needed and 

 there is no haste. This last is easily done by pushing a 

 patched ball through an empty shell into the grooves and 

 then inserting one filled with powder. This is the method 

 L have generally used as much quicker and more convenient 

 than loading from the muzzle with a ramrod. But it seems 

 an easy matter to invent some much better and quicker way. 



T. S. Van Dyke. 



San Diego, Cal. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have taken great interest in the trajectory tests conducted 

 by the Forest and Stream this winter. The reports there- 

 of have helped me out with one idea which 1 had spent some 

 thought and experiments upon before, but never with the 

 facilities j'ou had. That is the gyratory motion of some 

 bullets. 1 had heretofore formed the idea that the more 

 twist there is to the rifling the greater the danger of bullets 

 taking this motion, and your reports confirm me in that 

 opinion. But 1 cannot coincide with "Common Sense" in 

 his reasoning as to the cause of this eccentricity in some 

 bullets. JT. think the real cause lies in the fact that through 



