SB2 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Nov. 20, 1690, 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 



CHICAGO, Oct. 8. — I suppose everybody has had one 

 of those puzzling guns which suited him and yet 

 didn't suit him, which fitted him and yet didn't fit. You 

 throw it up the first time and you are not quite "on." 

 You throw it up the second time and you are just about 

 right. You go out in the field and make some brilliant 

 kills, and some equally brilliant misses. la short, the 

 gun doesn't fit you, but you don't know why and don't 

 know what to do about it. I got a new gun this fall and 

 it was just that kind of a fit. It shot all right, but left a 

 sort of a taste in my mouth. The factory wanted me to 

 send them back the gun, but how could I tell the factory 

 what I wanted when I didn't know myself? The mere up 

 and down and lengthwise measurements of a gun stock 

 signify very little. Two guns may fit you whose meas- 

 urements are altogether different. Any shooter knows 

 this, and any shooter knows that you may order the 

 finest kind of a fine gun, using the utmost care in giving 

 your measurements and yet get one of those puzzling 

 guns which fit you and yet don't fit. 



This particular gun fits its owner absolutely and per- 

 fectly now, and this highly-desirable fact is the result of 

 an interview with an intelligent gunsmith. Such an in- 

 terview, unless the workman is one of known skill, is 

 about the last thing to be advised, but Billy was a good 

 one. He learned his trade under old Tommy Hasdell, of 

 beloved memory. 



"Aim at my eyes." said Billy, as he stepped off 20 or 

 30ft. from me. "Throw her up four or five times, quick. 

 That's right. I can't see the rib at all. She's a little too 

 straight for you." He then examined the stock. 



"You can't bend this stock any more," said he, "for the 

 grain of the wood won't stand it. We'll have to take it out 

 of the comb and the toe. The toe comes back too far, 

 anyhow. That's the trouble with a good many guns, 

 they have a pretty stock, but not a sensible one. They 

 have a long sharp toe to stick into the shoulder, and thai- 

 keeps the whole butt from hitting the shoulder square. 

 Then a good many of the fine imported guns have all the 

 drop in the slope from the breech block clear on down to 

 the heel of the stock, so that the whole top of the stock, 

 from the comb back, slopes down. You change your 

 clothing a little bit, or throw the gun up a little bit 

 different, and your cheek don't hit on quite the same 

 place. The drop of the gun then really c&anges on you, 

 and the little difference there gets bigger at the end of 

 the barrels, and bigger yet at 40yds. This is a wrong- 

 principle. Most of the drop of a stock ought to be in the 

 neck, and the top of the stock ought to be nearly, if not 

 quite, parallel to the line of the barrels. Then your cheek 

 catches her just the same every time. Besides, for quick 

 shooting, straight lines are the easiest for the mind to 

 figure on. Your barrels point straight for the bird, and 

 your stock ought to, too. It helps, and lots of our West- 

 ern shooters know that a gun with the 'parallel stock' 

 and the butt cut off rather square ain't so pretty as one 

 with the rakish stock, but she's better. This American 

 make of gun you've got here is better in that respect than 

 any English gun. But the wood in this stock won't 

 stand bending. We wrap the neck of a gun stock with 

 rags soaked in hot oil, sometimes, and then gradually 

 bend her up or down by set screws." 



Billy now said little more, but jerked the stock off the 

 barrels, screwed it in a vise, and grasping a huge rasp 

 proceeded, as it seemed, to ruin my beautiful gun stock. 

 After he had filed away for a while on the comb of the 

 stock and had reduced it materially at the upper ridge, 

 or "nose," he stopped, put the gun together, and had me 

 try it again. Still it was not quite right. He resumed 

 his fearless, and as it seemed to me careless, rasping, and 

 presently said: 



"That's all we can take her off now without spoiling 

 the looks. Try her again." I did so. The effect was 

 pleasing. The gun was getting better. The comb, origi- 

 nally quite high on the ridge, had been reduced nearly a 

 quarter of an inch. The use of the straight-edge showed 

 that the line of the stock was now much more nearly par- 

 allel with that of the barrels. 



"We'll get the rest out of the toe," said Billy. "It's 

 astonishing how much a little change'at the toe will make 

 in the fit of a gun. Off she comes." My heart stuck in 

 my throat as he unscrewed the pretty butt-plate, and, 

 catching up a little saw, began recklessly to saw the end 

 off of my gun. 



But Billy knew his business. The thin blade took but 

 & thread of wood from the heel of the stock, and then bit 

 in deeper and deeper, until it took off quite a slice of that 

 long and rakish toe, which looked so pretty, but which 

 stuck in my shoulder so disgustingly when I wanted to 

 make a quick-dropping or low shot. Billy whistled as he 

 screwed on the butt-plate again, but as for me, I was sat- 

 isfied the gun was ruined, and wished I had sent it in to 

 the factory. A trial at the shoulder, however, was elec- 

 trical in effect. The gun was changing from the puz- 

 zling one that fitted and didn't fit, to one that fitted all 

 the .time! It only needed a little more. 



"I didn't take her off all at once," said Billy, " 'cause I 

 wanted you to try it little by little. That's the way to fit 

 a gun. Same's a coat. Tailor fits it on little by little 

 don't he?" So, little by little Billy filed down the toe 

 with his big wood rasp. We must have screwed on and 

 unscrewed that butt-plate four or five times, but at last 

 we got it exactly right. There was no mistaking it. The 

 gun came up light, not sometimes, but every time. It 

 covered the point aimed at perfectly. The cast-off of the 

 gun was already perfect, and the effect of "catching 

 sight" now was that the front sight appeared to be a 

 bright dot, directly in the middle of the extension rib and 

 right close to the eye. 



We measured the gun stock now and found that its 

 drop was, at the comb l^in., at the heel 2jin.; its length 

 was from front trigger to middle of butt l4in., to top of 

 butt, or heel, 14£, to toe Mv old gun, in order to 



get about the same results in aiming, I had to have 

 changed to S^in. drop at heel and 2in. at comb, the stock 

 being 14iin. So much for different qualities in gun stocks. 

 I he fact seems to be that the measurement from the 

 shoulder to the line of the eye is not any more important 

 than that from the lower edge of the cheek bone to the 

 line of the eye. This last factor remains constant, under 

 all conditions. 



4.x. N ?Z' the 51 u S?, tion i3 > how are you going to get a gun 

 that tits you/ The mere measurements don't make much 

 difference. Two guns measuring differently may both 

 tit the same man, while the same gun will hardly fit any 

 two men. Out of a dozen guns by the same maker, 



hardly any two will fit quite alike; but if you pick out a 

 gun that does fit you, and ask the maker to duplicate it, 

 probably he will come near it, but not doit exactly. You 

 can screw yourself into a "try gun," and monkey ax*ound 

 and measure yourself all out of shape, and then maybe 

 your new gun fits, and maybe it doesn't. After all, the 

 "little by little" process suggested by Billy is the best one 

 I ever found, although to trust a fine gun stock into the 

 hands of a country gun tinker, and not a good man like 

 Billy, must certainly require a very heroic cast of mind. 

 A man trusts himself to a tailor, and I suppose he must 

 to his gunmaker; but thrice blessed be he who can go to 

 the factory and see his gun stock in the rough, and try it 

 on little by little. A gun that fits, unequivocally, unmis- 

 takeably, invariably, is a joy forever and a treasure none 

 too often owned. 



Billy told me to go home now, and call around in a 

 week, when he would have the stock finished. I called 

 around in a week, and Billy didn't have it done. They 

 never do have it done. The stock now was simply raw 

 wood, without a particle of finish on it. Billy took a finer 

 file and smoothed down the ridges and cut down the butt 

 plate where it now projected around the edge of the butt. 

 Then he gave the stock a few swipes with some sand 

 paper, and after that ran a wet rag over the surface. 



"What did you do that for?" I asked him. 



"Oh, that starts the grain in the wood. Wait till she 

 dries and you can feel bark all over that stock. That's 

 the trouble with these cheap guns." 



When dry, the grain of the wood stood up, making the 

 stock feel rough. Billy sandpapered it all over again, 

 and then wetted it again. He repeated this three or four 

 times, until the grain no longer showed. 



"If I didn't do that," said he, "the first time you got 

 you gun wet, the stock would feel like it was covered 

 with fur." 



A few thick coats of oil were now applied and rubbed 

 in, and after that came an application of a hard varnish, 

 which dried very quickly. "Oil finish is best," said Billy j 

 "but that takes a good while. Worth about $7 to finish 

 a stock in oil right. But this is good enough for you." 



The entire time spent in changing and finishing the 

 stock was about three hours. So far as the finish was 

 concerned, no one could tell the stock had been touched. 

 The whole process had been an interesting one, to me at 

 least, and had served to give me a few ideas I never had 

 before about gun stocks in general. 



"Say!" called out Billy, as I was on ray way up the 

 stair. "Say, do you know what a gun salesman wanted 

 me to do, the other day? No? Why, he sent for me and 

 wanted me to measure a man for a'gun. 'Where's your 

 tape line?' says he. 'Wot tape line?' says I. 'Why,' says 

 he, 'how're you a-goin' to measure the man without a 

 tape line!' Say, he did, honest! I guess he thought the 

 man wore the gun barrels on his legs. Say, he did, 

 honest!" 



Still another thing or two I learned during the visit to 

 the gun shop, and that was about cleaning a gun. 

 "Here, I'll make you a cleaning rod," said Billy, "one 

 that won't hurt your barrels. He took a stout rod of 

 hickory, six or eight inches longer than the barrels, and 

 fitted on the end of it a common chisel handle, which he 

 bored out at the lathe. The business end of this rod had 

 no screw or any metal about it, nothing but a deep slot 

 cut clear through it. This flattened the end of the rod a 

 trifle. 



"That's no good," said I, "you can't wind on a rag so 

 it will be round if the rod is flat." 



"Can't, can't I?" said Billy, and proceeded to show how 

 you could do that very thing, by twisting the rag a trifle 

 in the rolling. 



"Now here you've got a rod such as gunsmiths use," 

 said he. "There ainta ring, ferrule or screw on it to 

 scratch your barrels, and it's better than all your patent 

 contrivances of jointed rods. S'pose you want to get the 

 lead out of your barrels. You go to a hardware store and 

 get some emery cloth, not emery paper, but emery cloth. 

 Take a piece about 4in. square, put some oil on it and 

 work it between your hands till it gets soft. Then you 

 take one corner of it, this way, and start to roll it in with 

 your rag, around the stick. It looks easy, but you'll have 

 to practice before you can do it. See, the rag and the 

 emery cloth roll right in together, but the emery cloth 

 rolls in a spiral and covers the rag all up: and now you 

 have a sort of cone-shaped burr on the end of your rod 

 and nothing but the emery cloth shows on the outside. 

 You can put that in you gun and rub till your arm comes 

 off, and neither rag nor emery cloth will ever slip or 

 come off the rod. It makes the best polishing tool there 

 is. And there you are." E, Hough. 



Wild Turkeys in New England.— Macomb, 111., 

 Nov. 15.— Editor Forest and Stream: I see by the For- 

 est and Stream that the members of the Sporting Club 

 of Massachusetts are talking about stocking a park near 

 Lynn with wild turkeys. I am afraid wild turkeys will 

 not stand the climate of Massachusetts. About five years 

 ago I sent a pair of wild turkeys that had been domesti- 

 cated here, to my brother in Hancock county, Maine, in 

 the month of October. They seemed to be contented 

 with their new home, and roosted in the barn at night on 

 a high beam . When the temperature in January dropped 

 to 33 3 below zero, they were both found frozen stiff on 

 the beam. Of course the climate in Massachusetts is not 

 quite so cold as eastern Maine, and they may be success- 

 ful in raising them there.— W. O. Blaisdell. [The wild 

 turkey was indigenous to Massachusetts and stood the 

 climate, but could not survive shot and ball and powder. 

 It was exterminated by the turkey hunters.] 



Jefferson, O., Nov. 11.— The quail season opened here 

 yesterday, and I do not think any had been shot previ- 

 ously, for we hare kept a watch for violators of the law. 

 There are a good many quail here and in good condition. 

 We have talked to farmers about posting their land, and 

 so market-hunters would have hard work to do much 

 hunting here. John A. Logan, Jr., of Youngstown. was 

 arrested last week for shooting quail out of season. — W. 

 D. Howells, Jr. 



Mexican Game.— San Luis Potosi, Mex., Nov. 7,— 

 Ducks and geese have made their appearance in this sec- 

 tion m good numbers. We have had a heavy rainfall 

 this season, and the lakes and ponds are full of water. I 

 have not been out to ascertain if there are any snipe. 

 Deer are plentiful in the mountains. Hope to get a day 

 off soon. — Aztec. • 



Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Asso- 

 ciation.— The regular monthly meeting was held at 

 Young's Hotel Nov. 13, 45 being present, Yice-Pres. 

 Walter M. Brackett in the chair. Letters were read from 

 different parts of the State, reporting the quail which were 

 let loose as having mated and raised broods of young 

 during the past close season. Messrs. Hardy, Thayer. 

 Fottler and Stetson spoke at length on the subject of 

 "Game Importation." Arrangements are being rapidly 

 completed for the annual dinner of the association, to be 

 held at Young's Hotel, Boston, Thursday evening, Dec. 11, 

 at 6 P. M. Ex-Pres. Cleveland, Gov. Brackett, Gov. -elect 

 Russell, Senators Frye, Hawley, and Aldrich, TJ. S. Fish 

 Com missioner McDonald , the New England Commissioners 

 of Fisheries and Game, W. H. H. Murray, and many 

 other prominent gentlemen have been invited to attend. 

 The following gentlemen were elected members of the 

 association: Wm. G. Hoyt, S. N. Small, O. B. Gilman, 

 Nath'l Glover, L. W. Smith, Jr., Jas, J. O'Brien, Edw. 

 B. Hardy, Henry G. Perkins, Dr. W. A. Power, J. E. 

 Selfe, R. M. Winfield, John H. Murphy, H, E. Haynes, 

 and Griswold Stowe.— Richard O. Harding, Sec'y. 



Another Woodcock in Brooklyn.— New York, Nov. 

 16.— On Thursday morning at about 9 o'clock one of the 

 members of my family in the back yard of the house dis- 

 covered a bird lying on the ground panting, with its 

 wings outspread. She picked it up, but it soon died. As 

 soon as I saw it I discovered it to be a male woodcock, 

 and as near as I could judge a young bird. I found it in 

 a plump condition. Its plumage was unruffled and I 

 could not find any evidence of its being hurt, and came 

 to the conclusion that it was simply tired out if not 

 scared to death. It is such a fine specimen I am having 

 it mounted. My house is at 582 Herkimer street, Brook- 

 lyn. I remember about a year ago there was an account 

 in the Forest and Stream about woodcock in Brook- 

 lyn.— W. Arthur Hale. 



Potomac Ducks.— Citizens of Charles county, Md., 

 says the Baltimore Sun, have organized an association 

 for the purpose of preventing the violation of the State 

 ducking laws. Mr. T. Canfield Jenkins, secretary of the 

 association, has written to Gen. Seth, commander of the 

 oyster navy, requesting his co-operation in the matter, 

 with a view of protecting the ducking grounds, and ask- 

 ing that one of the State steamers be sent up the Potomac 

 River as far as Glymont to look after the alleged violat- 

 ors. Mr. Jenkins says for the past year steam launches 

 from Alexandria and Washington have been coming up 

 regularly, principally on Sunday, loaded with men, sup- 

 plied with shotguns, and rifles, disturbing the ducks, 

 driving them from place to place, and eventually from 

 the river, 



Mongolian Pheasants for Stocking. — Portland, 

 Oregon, Nov. 11.— Editor Forest and Stream: Should 

 any of the readers of the Forest and Stream wish to 

 import some of the beautiful Mongolian pheasants which 

 have been such a great success in Oregon, I think I can 

 help them in that laudable undertaking. If any sports- 

 man, game association or club will write me, inclosing a 

 stamped and self-addressed envelope, I will mail them 

 the address of different individuals in this State who can 

 furnish either the birds or their eggs. They are a mag- 

 nificent and beautiful game bird, and I would like to see 

 them in every State in the Union. — Thos. G. Farrell. 



Newfoundland Caribou.— New York, Nov. 15.— 1 

 have just returned from the wilds of Newfoundland. I 

 had a very rough but successful trip, and visited the 

 caribou in their own home. Just think of walking up to 

 a herd of does. The loss of their lord -and master, a 

 monster stag I had just killed, so bewildered them that 

 they let me approach to within 50yds. before they went 

 trotting off. I could have killed every one of them, had 

 I been a game butcher. I saw 21 caribou that day alone, 

 and was back in camp by 3 P. M. Will give you further 

 details later on.— Wakeman Holberton. 



DONE IN A THOROUGH MANNER. 



/~\NE of the most useful publications which has appeared this 

 ^ year is the Book, of the Game Laws, published by the 

 Forest and Stream Publishing Company at No. 318 Broadway. 

 New York. Fohesx and Stream is the recognized sportsman's 

 journal; its pages are always clean and bright, and during 1 be 

 many days when a sportsman cannot go either hunting or fishing 

 It serves to provide many a pleasant hour; no agency in this 

 country has done more toward the elevation of "sport in its true 

 term than has this publication. For the purpose of disseminating 

 a knowledge of the game laws of this country the Forest and Stream 

 Company has just issued a pamphlet of 238 pages, giving in full all 

 the laws pertaining to game and game fish in the United States 

 and the Canadas. In order to secure accuracy the important sec- 

 tions are given In full as they appear on the statute books, and 

 there are no abbreviations except in the case of minor 

 or local laws. The publication will appear four times a 

 year, on the first days of January, April, July, and October- 

 and the first number has just made its appearance. The 

 price of subscription is two dollars a year, but for the 

 sum of one dollar one complete number and three subsequent 

 quarterly supplements will be sent to any address. The work has 

 been done in a thorough manner and none but those who have 

 had some experience in going through conflicting laws can have 

 any idea of the patience and work required to make the book 

 complete. As a money-making project the publication will in all 

 probability prove a failure, for there is too much work to be com- 

 pensated in the collection and publication, but as a help to sports 

 men the work will be an unqualified success. The laws of New 

 Jersey occupy nine pages of closely printed matter; the arrange- 

 ment is excellent and leaves nothing to be desired. If the rest of 

 the publication is as accurate and complete as the portion devoted 

 to New Jersey— and there is no reason to doubt this, for the whole 

 book was prepared under one management— the publication is a 

 monument of patience and conscientious work for whioh the 

 compiler and publishers deserve the unqualified praise of the 

 sportsmen of this country.— Paterson (W- J.) Press. 



The Emperor Francis Joseph and the King of Saxony 

 both heat the Emperor William's sporting record at Mtirz- 

 steg. They each brought down six chamois against the 

 four shot by the imperial guest. The expedition yielded 

 five head of big game and thirty-two chamois. The Em- 

 peror William before leaving presented his host with a 

 splendidly-mounted pair of antlers, and decorated several 

 of the huntsmen in attendance.— London World. 



