July 35. 1896.] 
JhOHEST AND STREAM. 
65 
llOgra. of powder, while I might use such calibers or 
charges on a rifle range. I did not refer to any particular 
make of gun, nor did I say what weight ball I would use 
if going on a rifle rangp; long range rifle shooting was 
not under discuspion, Eange shooting at a target and 
hunting shooting at game are two very diflierent things, 
done in different ways, and calling for different qualifica- 
tions in the shooter. I confess that I have had a great 
deal of amusement from some of the letters, that of 
Hersey, of Santa Fe, for instance, who says: "Many 
hunters, if they make a chance shot with a gun and kill 
some large game at fairly long range, believe that they 
t?an always do it with that gun, and that no other gun 
could possibly pqual it." Then he suggests shooting a sick 
horse or cow to 'See what a gun will do. 
Burkhard, of Los Angeles, says I am "either a wonder- 
ful rifle shot or had a long run of good luck." Why he 
says this I do not know, for I mentioned no diflioult shots, 
but only two or three which showed that the .44cal. gun 
would kill moose at the distance for shooting at which 
Tiam had been blamed. The most amusing are the letters 
from H. W. Brannock and others, including particularly 
one by H. B. S. in your paper of April 18— who give me 
a lot of advice and information about trajectories, per- 
foration and scientific shooting. 
Nearly all the writers of these letters make the mistake 
of assuming that I advocated some particular kind of 
rifle and a small bore for hunting moose. An examina- 
tion of my letter will show that I said I had "hunted for 
years with a "73 model .44 40 Winchester with a 20in. 
round barrel," and had "killed^ good many moose with 
it,'' and that I mentioned a few shots made with that 
gun, ending with this paragraph: "My advice to would- 
be moose killfra is, learn to hunt and learn to shoot; you 
will soon see that you do not need a heavy gun nor pack 
load of ammunition. Enjoy the hunting, of which the 
killing is a small part," 
I have never said, nor written, that a .44-40 or any 
othf r gun was the best for moose. There is no best gun 
for any kind of g.ame except in the opinion of the man 
who uses it, and then it is the one he can use best. A 
hunter can kill a moose with almost any kind of gun. 
Old John Cheney, in the Adirondacks, showed me his 
moose gun in 1858: a piece of rifle barrel IBin. long with 
a pistol stock. He killed a good many moose with that, 
shooting a round ball, and thought it just the thing. It 
was light, easily carried and handy. 
After reading what is to me, and those who know me, 
perhaps the most amusing letter of all, that of Prank H. 
Risteen in your issue of May 9, I repeat with emphasis 
the quotation from my January letter: "Learn to himt 
and iearn to shoot; you will soon see that you do not 
need a heavy gun nor pack load of ammunition." 
I opine, from what Messrs. H. B. S. and Risteen say, 
that they are not good hunting shots, while perhaps good 
shots at a mark. H. B, S. seems to think the killing a 
moose running, at 200yds , so strange a thing as to require 
scientific explanation and suggests the old woman's way 
of doing it with closed eyes; while Risteen, who appar- 
ently has never tried that sort of shot, intimated that a 
gale of wind perhaps helped matters. I mentioned the 
shot only to show that at 220yds. the gun' had put a ball 
clear through a full-grown bull moose; the running was 
simply part of the description of the incident, which I 
did not suppose would call for comment. A moose is an 
animal easier to still-hunt than a deer anri certainly much 
easier to hit running at 200yd8. than a Virginia deer is, 
doing the same thing, at 150yds. Mr. Risteen speaks pf 
one of his friends as a great dispenser of lead and men- 
tions his putting four shots from a .45 85 at 50yds. range 
in a caribou, which "still stood up and disputed the right 
of way." Not many years ago I went after caribou, one 
cold, windy, cloudy day in the last week of October, car- 
rying a common Springfield cavalry carbine. I killed 
first a very large stag, running, at 2o0yds Not being 
used to the gun, I gave too much law the first shot and 
struck the brow prong of his left antler; the next shot 
doubled him up dead. An hour after I killed two stand- 
ing at 167yds., and later, after letting a number go un- 
shot at, I killed a very Jfine stag in the open, which "dis- 
puted the right of way," but instead of taking four shots, 
dropped atone as though struck by lightning. 
H. B. S. thinks a man to hunt moose should be a'lle to 
puncture his cap with commendable regularity at 200yds. , 
and Mr. Risteen also lugs in the rifle range and seems to 
think that "the man who has learned by careful and con- 
scientious practice on the range how to handle a rifle" 
will make the best hunting shot. I admit that, as he says, 
such a man "will discount the Indian" shootmg at a 
mark at least, because Indians, as a rule, are poor shots, 
but he will not discount any sort of a hunting shot shoot- 
ing at game. 
^ Good range shots are apt to be very indifferent shots on 
game. I have seen plenty of them tried. The two sorts 
of shooting are, as I have said, done in different ways and 
calling for different qualifications in the shooter. No 
game animal that I have hunted ever posed for me to go 
through the performances mentioned by Mr. Risteen in 
your paper of May 9 as those ordinarily to be gone 
through by the would-be moose killer in gettingoff a shot. 
The range shooter fires at a known distance, he can watch 
the flags and wind clock for the force and direction of the 
wind, ought to be posted on the effect of light and tem- 
perature, and tries to fire all his shots when the conditions 
are the same. It is all a matter of cold-blooded calcula- 
tion: the conditions being favorable, wind gauge and 
sights properly adjusted, the shot ought to be "a bull well 
in at 6 o'clock," or the like. In hunting shooting there is 
no time for a series of observations to be collected and 
digested into a programme of action. 
If the man with the gun has, as I suggested, learned to 
hunt and to shoot, he does not say the distance is SSSyds., 
and stop to adjust an elevating sight, for he will not have 
one on his gun: nor will he mutter, tne wind is a fifteen- 
mile one at 3 o'clock; the light is so and so; I must assume 
this or that position; and I must he sure to squeeze my 
trigger, not pull it; he will simply clap his gun to his 
shoulder and drop his game in the little opening across 
which, he has noted it must run, before the range shooter 
has his sight half adjusted. A piauo player does not stop 
to measure distances or to say I am an inch and a half 
further from the instrument than I was yesterdiiy, I must 
recalculate the distance to the keys; he looks at the notes 
and his trained hands strike keys, and chords with 
unerring certainty. So with the hunting shot, 
brain, eye and hand have been trained by long practice; 
)be knows ^ust what be can do md what hia gun caa do^ 
so that when the gun comes to his face it comes there 
right for whatever the conditions are, without conscious 
effort on his part — the proper estimate of distance, charac- 
ter of sight, allowance for wind, speed of animal, light, 
character of ground, etc., have all been made in a flash, 
and like as not, after he has fired, he cannot tell precisely 
how much of his front sight he saw or perhaps other de- 
tails of how he shot. A quick lens and plate will catch 
an animal on the run, while a Carbutt B, about sensito- 
meter No. 16, will take several seconds exposure and the 
game run perhaps lOOyds. in that time. A good hunting 
shot soon picks up range shooting, but it takes longer for 
the range shooter to become a good hunting shot. If H. 
B, S. were to ask me to shoot a match with my friend Dr. 
Wilson, of Savannah, Ga , who in the recent matches 
there made 148 out of 150 at 200yd8., offhand, with a 
.three-groove Springfield army gun, I would refuse, be- 
cause I cannot make that sort of score, but I would not 
hesitate a moment to shoot against him at game. It is 
true, I have shot on a range for eight or nine years. In 
our D. C. National Guard every ofllcer and man is rt quired 
to fire two scores of five shots each in the gallery, and the 
same on the range, at each of the four distances. 200, 300, 
500 and eOOyds., a possible total of 400. I have qualified 
as sharpshooter with a score of 384, well above the neces- 
sary 80 per cent., but tha.t did not help my hunting shoot- 
ing. I learned the latter years befor« I ever went on a 
rifle range. My hunting shooting I found of great service 
in picking up skirmish running on the range, because 
there one has to act promptly and quickly to get in a half 
dozen or morA shots in a halt of thirty seconds with a sin- 
gle shot Springfield. Mr. Risteen wants "a weapon that 
will get there with approximate adjacency." I want a 
gun to shoot where I h ild it. The gun to depend on me, 
not I on the gun. The "approximate adjicency" means 
simply what I refeired to in my January tetter, a gun so 
large that a ball from it striking anywhere in the vicinity 
of the game will deal death and destruction, so making 
up for the lack of learning to hunt and shoot. 
H. B. S wants a scientific explanation of the method of 
killing game running. When I was a youngster at the 
University of Pennsylvania we were required to construct 
curves from their equations. A friend and I used to work 
out our demonstration as we sauntered homeward across 
the campus, pccket our notebooks, and spend the after- 
noon trying to solve the mysteries of y*=2 px, incidence 
and reflection, as applied to a cricket ball. No theoreti- 
cal demonstration on paper will enable a batsman to keep 
up his wicket against a good bowler, and if I were to show 
H. B. S , in a way I thought conclusive, that — M, repre- 
senting a moose; D, i*^8 distance; S, the speed at which it 
moved; H, a hunter; W, a Winchester; V, the velocity of 
a ball from the W; y*=2 px, the equation of the para- 
bola described by the ball, etc — P would necessarily be 
the point at which he should sight in order to "puncture" 
the moose in a vital spot, it would not enable him to kill 
a moose running. It is true, that is not a diflSlcult thing 
for a fair hunting shot to do; but, like killing a bird on the 
wing, one must know how. 
Risteen thinks I should be impounded because I can 
kill a moose with a .44-40 Winchester. 
I went on my first moose hunt in the winter of 
1860-61 on snowshoes. I killed my last moose two years 
ago, not hunting last year. The moose that have got 
away from me have been those at which I did not shoot. 
When I have wanted one and shot at it, I have killed it. 
I do not infer from Mr. Risteen's letter that his record is 
of that kind, as he seems, with others, to be still hanker- 
ing after some sort of weapon that will not let game get 
away. 
It may do no harm to my well-meaning advisers to say 
that I have been hunting with a rifle, more or less, for 
some thirty-eight or forty years, for thirty-five of which I 
have used breechloaders, and have handled, hunted with 
and tried all sorts of makes, shapes, actions, calibers, 
charges, lengths, stocks, sights, etc.. from the old Halls 
and Perrys of ante-bellum days down to the latest im- 
proved Winchesters, Marlins and the like. I profess to 
know something about hunting, and can track game as 
well as I can shoot it. I am not wedded to any particular 
make of gun. I shoot a Winchester because it is conve- 
nient and has never failed me, and use a short barrel be- 
cause, having only my left arm and the hand of that 
crippled, I can handle it better than a long one. The .44- 
40 cartridge has so far done all I wanted, so I have not 
used a heavier one as my standard. I have killed game 
with all sorts of guns. On one hunt years ago I shot two 
Maynards, one .SOcal.; shotabaar oneday witha.66 model 
Winchester, and two days after another wi1}h a Ballard. I 
have killed a panther with an old muzzleloader when 
nothing else was to be had, and deer, etc., with 
all sorts of guns. Several years ago I thought of using 
the .45-60 Winchester, but let it go, It would bo a much 
more useful gun than the ,45-90, which is overcharged 
with powder and good only for close range. When I re- 
flect that since September, 1864, 1 have to do my shooting, 
hunting or otherwise, with only a crippled left hand, earn- 
ing a reputation from West Virginia to tar northern Canada 
for never letting game I wanted get away from me, it 
seems strange to find a lot of two-handed people clamor- 
ing for a gun that will do dear knows what, instead of 
using their superabundance of hands and arms. I sum 
the whole thing in a nutshell: A man who can shoot can 
kill a moose with almost any kind of gun, therefore 
learn to shoot and you need only to use whatever gun 
happens to be about. 
As there is no moose hunting now until Sept. 1, I re- 
mark that I have fished for many years with a little 6oz. 
greenheart and bamboo trout rod with a red cedar handle, 
and have caught quantities of trout with it as well as 
bass, and big ones too. Now if any of the rifle caliber cor- 
respondents are fishermen, I suppose it will be in order 
for them to write to you to say that I should be impounded 
for using such a weapon ; that a trout can be killed quicker 
and with more certainty by yanking it out with a catfish 
hook, cord and "pole," and dashing its brains out against 
a tree. Cecil Clay. 
t REPORT YOUR LUCK 
j With Rod or Gun 
I To FOREST AND STREAM, 
New York City, 
30CAL. MILITARY AND SPORTING 
RIFLES. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
"It is a mistake to suppose that these knitting-needle 
guns will not shoot straight." 
This unqualified statement coming froTn a man who 
seems to be somewhat of a rifleman is a surprise to me, 
and it is also opposed to the experience and observation 
of other rifiemen with whom I am acquainted. The 
writer has handled and knows the best results obtainable 
from almost every smokeless powder military rifle used 
by the different nations and he has yet to see the first 
gun of this class that can be depended upon to do reliable 
work at practical game ranges— 100 to 250jd8. Some of 
these rifles shoot remarkably well at long ranges, but not 
one that I know of will do the true and steady work re- 
quired of a hunting rifle of even the second or third class. 
The reason is evident: A quick twist and high velocity 
gives the long bullet an unsteady initial flight and it does 
not settle down to sober business until after it has trav- 
eled 300 or 400yd8. It illustrates in an exaggerated degree 
the characteristic of the old-time long-range rifle— a vain 
anibition of the base of the bullet to get ahead of its 
point. Against military rifles for military uses I have 
nothing to say; in time they may prove perfectly satisfac- 
tory, even for sharpshooting. It is against the misuse of 
them that I widh to enter an emphatic protest, and also 
against the questionable action of the manufacturers in 
pushing upon the sporting fraternity this gun, but slightly 
modified and disguised under the name of the "latest im- 
proved 30cal. smokeless powder hunting rifle." 
Too much nonsense is indulged in over these new rifles 
— both by the manufacturers with their Munchausen tales 
of the accurate and terrible execution done by these guns 
in far away lands, and by our inexperienced sportsmen 
who lose their heads completely over the flat trajectory 
and 60in. penetration of the steel-jacketed bullet. I have 
talked witti a number of the latter, and they were utterly 
incapable of realizing that these two features in this arm 
are of but little practical value for hunting purposes, and 
that there was really nothing for them to work up any 
enthiisiaspa over. This smokeless .oOsal. craze reminds 
one of the "explosive" bullet mania of about twenty 
years ago. It took many sportsmen several years to learn 
that the expansive buUe-t was actually the better killer of 
the two. For the benefit of the N. B, gentleman I will 
cite a few extracts from the record of the tests made by 
Gov, Morton's special commissioners appointed to select 
for the use of the National Guard the best smokeless pow- 
der military rifle made in this country. The tests were, 
concluded but a few weeks ago, and as the ability of the 
commissioners and the marksmanship of the experts can- 
not be questioned, the results of thu tests ought to be quite 
interesting to those sportsmen who are contemplating the 
purchase of the new rhinoceros gun. In order to make a 
comparison of these military guns with our black powder 
sporting rifles, I must first classify the latter in the order 
of their accuracy : 
A first-class rifle, ,32 40-165, will shoot nearly all of its 
shots into a 6in. circle at 200yds, 
A second class, .45-75 350, will require an Sin, ring to 
inclose them. 
A third class, ,38 90 250, needs a ISin. buUseye to hold 
them. 
While a fourth-class rifls, ,50 110-300. will not throw 
its bullets into anything smaller than a 20in. circle at that 
distance. 
What will the .30cal. smokeless powder military rifles 
do? If we are to credit all that we hear or see in print 
about these rifles they will simply do wonders; but the 
truth is, too much vermilion is used in painting the reports 
of the remarkable accuracy and killing power of these guns. 
For example, the gentleman in N. B, informs us that "In 
England last year a battalion team of eight men, shoot- 
ing at Queen's ranges (300, 500 and 600yd8.), averaged 
96 points. Another tells us that these rifles will shoot a 
long series of shots into a 7in. ring at 500yds. Still an- 
other claims that they will shoot 5 consecutive shots into 
a 3in. circle at SOOyds. In reply to the statement that 96 
points were made by the Englishmen with the Lee-Met- 
ford arm, I must first ask the gentleman who gives us 
such lucid information to be sufficiently definite to name 
the number of rounds fired by the marksmen while mak- 
ing this score. If it was the 70-round match, the score 
should be buried, not published, as 96 points out of a pos- 
sible 280 deserves no better fate. But if the man means 
that the marksmen made 96 per cent. — oh, shades of 
..^l^culapius and Hippocrates! take him under the shelter- 
ing care of your remedial wings at once, and quietly re- 
mind the gentleman who wears "rock maple pants" that 
the best official score made in the English array with this 
or any other smokeless powder rifle is 208 out of a possible 
380—70 rounds, individual firing, bullseye counting 4. 
As for any of these guns shooting a string of 5 or 10 
shots into a Tin. circle at 500yds., or into a Sin. ring at 
200yd8,, I must place myself on record as a doubting 
Thomas. I have never seen it done, and as near as I can 
learn no such score has ever been attempted, much less 
accomplished. A 3ft, circle at 200yd8. strains the capacity 
of many of these rifles, as you will note by referring to the 
commissioners' record Take, for example, the first gun 
tested. The inventor, an excellent shot, fired from rest 
two strings of 15 shots each at the regulation SxiOin. 
ellipse at 200yds. The expert marksman of many medals 
then took the gun and fired the same number of shots at 
the same distance. Between them they scored 5 bulls- 
eyes; 20 shots struck outside of the 24x30in. ellipse — 
part of this number missing even the40X50in. circle — 
while several of the bullets failed to find the 4x6ft. tar- 
get. The second rifle was first shot by the manutacturer's 
expert, then by the commissioner's marksman. Tne com- 
bined score counted 8 buUseyes out of 30 shots, 12 bullets 
striking outside of the 24x30in. cii-cle and in the 40x50in. 
ellipse, with two shots off target. 
The third gun's accuracy was tested by the private and 
the official experts, who together scored 4 bullseyes out of 
27 shots, 11 bullets striking the 40x50in ellipse, with ^ 
off target. 
The f oiirfch gun, made by the best rifle makers in this or 
any other country, was brought out to show the commis-r 
sioners what it could do, and it did the most regular work 
of any of the siy rifles tested. The two experts fired 60 
shots in strings of 15 and scored 16 bullseyes, with 9 shots 
in the 40x50in. circle and 3 on the c uter target — none oft" 
the target! * 
Only once out of the many J5 strings at SOOyds. did th© 
