Aran. 8, 1886 j 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



205 



Then came the crowning efforts— the shooting at turkeys 

 at 175 yards, any rest. I shot 20 shots and got 4 turkeys, 

 each weighing " from 3, to 3i, to 4i pounds only. The 20 

 shots include (3 or 8 sighting shots. I did not get my (run 

 trained for good work until toward the last; 1 was shooting 

 a little too high every time and made the feathers fly, and 

 they said, "If you can bring feathers do not alter things," 

 but' I soon found that to get turkeys I had to get down to 

 the finest point, even below the pin feathers, which I did at 

 last. This fine work was in my fourth and last small turkey. 



At this very time the turkey man and my brother were 

 near the turkey and marking my shots, he saw the bullets 

 fall a little lower at each shot among that deceitful bunch of 

 feathers, and very much feared the nest shot. Behold it 

 came certain and sure when I centered the poor bird, and it 

 gave one grand spring and lofty flop into the air and was 

 dead. 1 had, you see, finally found the center of this flax- 

 seed figure belbw the pinfeather, and I was now ready with 

 my muzzleloader to proceed to business. The turkey man 

 saw this, for he had been at the turkey stand watching my 

 progress. 



Sequel.— When he saw the last shot, and witnessed the 

 last jump and flop of that little turkey, he said, "I'll be 

 hanged if I put up any more turkeys for that rifle." "Then 

 you" rule it out, do you?" "Yes." "All right. I have 

 nothing more to say, except the maker (when I bought it) 

 said it had been to one turkey shoot, where it was ruled out, 

 and so it happens you are only following the fashion in ruling 

 it out again." Nine turkeys in all were killed this day, and 

 I got four of them while shooting my strange rifle. This 

 will do for an unfashionable weapon, and one rejected by 

 the modern tyro. 



I left the others shooting at this same turkey ; they brought 

 it up nearer for three times, when one fellow finally got it. 

 It cost him $2 60 and it dressed 44 pounds. The others got 

 no turkeys at 175 yards, but four at 50 yards. The trouble 

 was their rifles were too fashionable, and scattered too much. 

 I beat them all with mine, and mine was a- second-hand one, 

 which had been exchanged with the maker by the fashion- 

 ables for a more fashionable one. You see the man of 

 fashion must have a fashionable gun, and no old-fogy muz- 

 zleloader will do for him. All right; the world moves, and 

 some go empty-handed while others reap. 



1 forgot to say my brother shot my rifle 60 cents worth 

 (10 cents a shot), and he took it all out, much to his mortifi- 

 cation, in feather. He is a kind of mathematician, and can 

 find the center of a small circle very readily; but you see 

 the flaxseed center of this bird was too much for him, he 

 did not get down below the pin feathers. The other shoot- 

 ers, full of pluck, banged away until near dusk, as fast as 

 they could push in the loads, but all this to little effect. 

 _ The proprietor of this shoot cleared $23 as his profit, be- 

 sides entertaining his good friends. You see the breech- 

 loaders contributed more than their proportion to the $23 

 most manfully. All praise to them and to mine good host, 

 and may he long live to give us many other good shoots in 

 the coming years. But leave the muzzleloader at home. 



While I consider my report now ended, yet many of your 

 readers will no doubt take an interest in a little more detail. 

 The breechloader men marked the striking of their own bul 

 lets. 1 could see them throw the mud at 175 yards plainly. 

 They all used fixed ammunition, except they loaded the 

 Winchester shells. 



My rifle was made by J. C. Welles, of Milwaukee, Wis., 

 who is an elegant riflemaker, and the same who made my 

 other good M. L. that was stolen, but never returned. He is 

 the maker of very many close shooting M. L. rifles of the old 

 type and style and taste, when a uniform accuracy was con- 

 sidered of far more importance than fashion. I cling to ex- 

 treme accuracy always, as accuracy is about all there is of 

 value in any rifle. 



Where game is so small as it generally is in this country, I 

 do not want nor will own an unsteady and weak-shooting 

 rifle, or one making a nigh trajectory and throwing its long, 

 gyrating bullets (many of them) wildly down the range, as 

 shown at the recent Forest and Stream trial of hunting 

 rifles. 



A majority of the elongated bullets fired from American 

 breechloaders have more or less a gyratory flight, and hence 

 they cannot hit the object aimed at, but fly around it or the 

 line of sight from the beginning to the end of the range, and 

 consequently we cannot hit what we aim at even by chance. 



My caliber is .42, length of barrel 33 inches, barrel of iron, 

 twist increasing, sights peep and globe, metallic bullet starter, 

 bullet conical-shaped, weight only 230 grains, with but two- 

 tenths inch pull (displaced), lead-bearing in barrel and only 

 eight-tenths of an inch long. 



The breechloaders of this caliber cannot shoot such a short 

 bullet from the shell with any degree of satisfactory accu- 

 racy. 



I used about 55 grains of FFG powder at the turkey shoot, 

 I will simply say I have got as good a "crow gun" as 1 

 want. It has got a marvelous way of shooting; not up to the 

 fashion of these dude times, but as formerly, when accuracy 

 was regarded as paramount to convenience or fashion. 



It does not give the wild, corkscrew motion to its bullets, 

 but sends them with great velocity just where they are 

 wanted to go. Proof positive; read the correct result of its 

 shooting at this turkey shoct. Witness how I was ruled 

 out just when I had got the rifle fairly ready, to prevent my 

 ' 'wiping out" the man's turkeys. 



1 was willing to stop shooting, for I did not wish him to 

 lose his turkeys; besides, I felt sad for the other shooters and 

 wished to give them a full chance to get a turkey to carry 

 home to their families. 



Lesson.— To get small game or turkeys at 175 yards you 

 must have a good rifle. One that scatters its bullets will not 

 begin to answer, nor can any amount of fashion make it 

 answer. Napoleon Merriix. 



Waukesha, Wis., March, 1886. 



Maine Deer in Mari h — William Crocker and Charles 

 Beatham, of Chester, and George Kimball, of Woodville 

 were found guilty of hunting, killing and destroying one 

 deer on the 9th day of March ult., and Matthew Spencer of 

 Chester, was acquitted. Hon. Thomas W. Vose, of Bangor 

 appeared for State, and Alexander McLain, of Mattawam- 

 keag, game warden, was the complainant. Jere E Estes 

 Esq., of Winn, appeared for the defense. Crocker, Beatham 

 and Kimball appealed to the August term. The parties were 

 fined $40 and costs. The deer was put into Charles Beat- 

 ham's barn and died, as claimed, a short time afterward 

 from exhaustion. John B. McAlpine, of Winn, was brought 

 before the justice, with the same counsel, for simply hunt 

 ing and capturing a deer alive. He was found guilty, fined 

 and appealed. The deer captured was released some time 

 since. 



A STUDY OF BULLETS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



My memory and knowledge of gunpowder projectiles 

 extends back to the days of the flintlock musket of old Revo- 

 lutionary fame, the old-fashioned single- 

 barreled shotgun, and the long, slender- 

 barreled smooth-bore, designed primarily 

 to shoot a single patched ball, but used 

 occasionally for shot. In those palmy days 

 the musket did duty on ' 'general training" 

 days, and roared its ancient patriotic salute 

 on every Fourth of July, and couldn't get 

 CO over the habit as long as it lived. The 



\ n( lTi ■ Ayj& shotgun was exclusively a boy weapon, to 

 be left behind when the youth had passed 

 the period of adolescence and the suspicion 

 of down had appeared upon his face. Then 

 the smooth-bore, with its single ball of lead, 

 was to be taken up, to be laid down no 

 more till old age forbade its further use. 

 But the love of the tried and true old piece 

 lived in the warm heart of its owner, 

 though the arm had grown weak and pal- 

 sied and the old eyes too dim to see the 

 dust gathering upon it. The old gun still 

 lay in the hooks when the old man was 

 laid away, and ever after reverently and 

 tenderly cared for as it descended from 

 generation, to generation in the same fam- 

 jf0- £ \ There are a few of those old guns in 



ET the country to day which a million couldn't 

 buy. 



But the spirit of improvement and pro- 

 gress was abroad in that day as now, and 

 one fine day along came a man with the 

 smooth-bore, rifled with a twisting cut, and 

 as he beat them all shooting at the paper 

 pinned against the trunk of the beech tree, 

 the innovation took and spread. 



With the experimenting in guns com- 

 menced the experimenting in projectiles, 

 and it is not done yet. It was natural that, 

 the primitive form of bullet should be that 

 ' t^Pl 1 of a s P nere (1) * or obvious reasons. The 

 « i F^sN-nI i earth is spherical, falling raindrops assume 

 the same form; besides, the ball was handy 

 to charge and always right side up, and 

 even to this day there has been found no 

 truer or more deadly projectile for its range 

 than the simple sphere of lead. 



It was not long before the devotees of the 

 rifle began to experiment to reduce the 

 number of grooves, and the result was the 

 production of a bullet (2) in the form of the 

 planet Saturn— a bullet with a belt around 

 its middle which should engage with the 

 two grooves. No great advantage was 

 gained by the use of this bullet, and in 

 time it was practically abandoned as not 

 being quite so easy to load with. 



The next attempt was in producing a 

 bullet (3) which would increase in range 

 though using the same quantity of powder. 

 Tl*en the conical bullet came into existence. 

 The rifle, with its twist, made it possible. 

 The men who designed this form of bullet 

 had used wedges' in splitting rails and 

 sharpened the prows of clipper-built boats. 

 They judged correctly that air was more 

 easily divided than pushed. Some of them 

 got to thinking that it might be possible to 

 shoot a conical bullet from a smooth-bore 

 and cause it to revolve on its own axis by 

 means of a saw-toothed rifling on its outer 

 side (4). But the attempt was abandoned 

 and they returned to the plain conical. 

 There was a great increase in the range of 

 the bullet, but a decrease in its killing 

 power. The cone gave no such paralyzing 

 shock to large game as the sphere, and the 

 latter is still preferred by many old hunters 

 in hunting in dense forests. A twig will 

 not turn a ball out of its course, but the 

 same cannot be said of the cone. 



In those years there was another, though 

 obscure, attempt to increase the range and 

 penetrating power of the conical bullet. It 

 was cast with a long lead neck or stem, 

 solid to its base (5). The powder charge 

 surrounded this neck, and upon its explo 

 sion broke off the neck just at the base of 

 the cone and sent it out with terrific force. 

 It was said that one-fourth of a dram of 

 powder had sent one of those cones out of 

 a Harper's Ferry rifle entirely through a 

 solid piece of hemlock timber twelve inches 

 square. The breech pin had been short- 

 ened to make room for the flange of the 

 stem. 



By this time the attention of the Govern- 

 ment was drawn to the new form of bullet, 

 and experiments were tried which caused 

 the adoption for a while of the Minie pat- 

 tern, with some modifications (6). This 

 form is cylindro-conical, with grooves 

 around its cylindrical part, and with a 

 hollow butt, in which was sometimes placed 

 a sabot. Being a heavy projectile, it could 

 be dropped down the muzzle of the gun on to 

 its powder charge, and when fired the base 

 of the bullet expanded so as to fit the 

 grooves tight, and the projectile would 

 have no windage. It was a bullet of great 

 range and terrible in its destructive effects, 

 but not of fine accuracy. During our late 

 'unpleasantness" it was used on both sides, 

 <Si Jllliilii but our humane English cousins of the 

 v* jIIIIIIIl Alabama variety sympathized so tenderly 

 with the failing fortunes of our Southern 

 biethren that they supplemented the Minie 

 with another which would present an un- 

 solvable problem for the surgeons. It was 

 a cylindro-conical bullet (7), composed of 

 two pieces so arranged as to come apart when entering a 

 body and tear in different directions. But if the whole hap- 

 pened to stay together, the probe had a job to get them both 

 out at once. Major Willison, of Creston, la., now has one 



of those beauties which he picked up on a battlefield 

 South. 



But, as if that bullet was not infernal enough in its ingenu- 

 ity, a further present was made to the South by the same 

 benevolent hand of another more deadly still. This bullet 

 (8) was constructed with a tapering plug'fitted into its base, 

 which was to be driven home by the explosion of the powder, 

 causing an enlargement of the body of the projectile and 

 thus swaging it into the grooves of the gun. The conical 

 end of this innocent little thing was hollowed out to form a 

 receptacle for poison. To the eternal honor of the South be 

 it said, that the instances were exceedingly rare of its ever 

 having been used in that way. 



The attempt to use an explosive bullet was accompanied 

 with so much trouble and danger that it was soon abandoned. 

 One of the simpler fortns (9) was that of a hollow, elongated 

 cone, charged with a low grade of fulminating powder, and 

 fired by a common cap placed on its point. 



With the advent of the breechloader, the changed condi- 

 tions seem to have resulted in the adoption of a new set of 

 projectiles, the best the world has ever seen, for special pur- 

 poses. 



For long-range target shooting the long, heavy, cylindro- 

 conical bullet (10) is found to be the best, theoretically and 

 practically. Its weight gives it an irresistible momentum in 

 the air, its conical front meets with the least resistance, and 

 its flattened point insures the greatest accuracy. 



For high speed, a very flattened trajectory, and great par- 

 alyzing, killing power in the pursuit of large game, the 

 cylindro-conical express bullet (11) has no superior. 



More humane than this, the Government has adopted for 

 its service the cylindro hemispherical form (12), which stuns 

 and wounds or kills without barbarously scattering fragments 

 of ragged lead where it strikes. Its killing space is not so 

 great as the sporting bullets, but owing to its form it is not 

 so easily turned out of its true course. Recognizing the fact 

 that it is better to wound men than to kill them to insure the 

 winning of a battle, it is likely that the caliber of the pro- 

 jectile will be reduced and its trajectory thereby decreased. 



Common Sense. 



Washington, D. C. 



DEER HOUNDING. 



FOLLOWING is the full text of the deer hounding bill 

 now before the New York Senate: 



An act to amend chapter five hundred and thirty-four of the 

 laws of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, entitled " An 

 act for the preservation of moose, wild deer, birds, fish 

 and other game," and to repeal chapter five hundred and 

 fifty-seven of the laws of eighteen hundred and eighty- 

 five, entitled "An act for the better preservation of wild 

 deer." 



The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate, 

 and Assembly, do enact as follows: 



Section 1. Section one of chapter five hundred and thirty- 

 four of the laws of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, en- 

 titled "An act for the preservation of moose, wild deer, birds, 

 fish and other game," is hereby amended so as to read as fol- 

 lows: 



Sec 1. No person shall hunt, kill, chase or take alive any 

 wild deer in any part of the State save only from the fifteenth 

 day of August to the first day of November in any year. No 

 person, corporation, association or companv shall transport or 

 have in his possession in this State, after the same has been 

 killed, any wild deer or venison, save only from the fifteenth 

 day of August to the fifteenth day of November in each year. 

 No person, corporation, association or company shall sell, or . 

 expose for sale after the same has been killed, any wild deer 

 or venison, save only from the fifteenth day of August to the 

 first day of November in each year. No person shall at any 

 time, in this State, kill any fawn, or have in possession the 

 carcass or skin of any such fawn after the same shall have 

 been killed. No person shall, in any part of this State, set any 

 trap, spring gun or other device at any artificial salt lick or 

 other place for the purpose of trapping or killing wild deer. 

 It shall not be lawful to hunt or pursue deer with dogs in any 

 county of this State, except from the first day of September 

 to the fifth day of October in each year. [It shall not be law- 

 ful to pursue deer with dogs in the county of St. Lawrence at 

 any time.] It shall be lawful for any person to shoot or kill 

 any dog while in actual pursuit of any deer in violation of the 

 provisions of this act. It shall not be lawful for any person to 

 kill or cause to be killed any wild deer in the counties of Suf- 

 folk and Queens at any time within five vears from the pas- 

 sage of this act. No person, common carrier, corporation as- 

 sociation or company shall at any time carry or transport in 

 this State, or have in possession for the purpose of transporta- 

 tion, any wild deer or venison, taken, caught, killed or cap- 

 tured in the counties of this State, or in either of them, except 

 the counties of Queens and Suffolk, and any person, common 

 carrier, corporation, association or company which has in his 

 or its possession any such wild deer or venison, taken, caught 

 killed or captured in any of the said counties of this State as 

 aforesaid, or in either of them, except the counties of Queens 

 and Suffolk, shall be deemed to have them in possession in 

 violation of this act, except, however, that they may trans- 

 port or have in possession for the purposes of transportation 

 from the fifteenth day of August to the fifteenth day of 

 November, not more than one carcass of wild deer 

 or venison, taken, caught, killed or captured in said 

 counties as aforesaid, or in either of them, for each owner of 

 said carcass as aforesaid, provided that such carcass be accom- 

 panied by the owner. This section shall not apply to the head 

 or feet of wild deer when severed from the carcass. Any per- 

 son offending against any of the preceding provisions ot this 

 section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and in ad- 

 dition thereto shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dol- 

 lars for each wild deer or fawn so killed, hunted, pursued or 

 trapped, or for each carcass or part thereof transported or 

 had in possession for transportation in violation of this act 

 and for every spring gun so set, or wild deer or fawn skin or 

 venison had in possession, and may be proceeded against there- 

 for in any county of this State injyhich the offense was com- 

 mitted or in which the offender Jor prosecutor may reside or 

 have an office for the transaction of business. 



Sec 2. Section three of said act is hereby amended so as to 

 read as follows: 



Sec. 8. No person shall hunt, kill or take alive any wild 

 deer by the process or mode commonlv known as crusting or 

 enter any place where wild deer are yarded with intent to kill 

 take alive or destroy the same at any time. Any person 

 offending against angfof the provisions of this section shall be 

 deemed guilty of a^idemeanor, and in addition thereto shall 

 be hable to a penanfp of one hundred dollars for each wild deer 

 so hunted, killed, taken alive, or destroyed. 



Sec 3. Section thirty-six of said act is hereby amended so 

 as to read as follows : 



Sec 36. Any person may sell or have in possession any hare 

 or rabbit or any woodcock, any ruffed grouse commonly 

 called partridge, any pinnated grouse commonly called prairie 

 chicken, and any black or gray squirrel during the month of 

 December, and any quail from the first day of January to the 

 first day of February, and any fresh venison from the fifteenth 

 day of November to the fifteenth day of December, and shall 

 not.be liable for any penalty under this act, provided he 

 proves that such game was lawfully killed during the period! 



