64 
HIGH PHEASANTS 
more pellets in proportion to its size than if it had been a 
pheasant flying rapidly across the target. 
The longer the distance of a crossing or overhead bird, 
the longer the column of shot sent up by the gun, and the less 
the number of killing pellets available to intercept its flight, 
and the greater the number that come up after the bird is 
killed or has flown on.i 
^ If a charge of shot is fired at Pettits's pads at 40 yds., a large proportion of 
the pellets penetrate, or crack, only from a quarter to half as many sheets as 
those pellets which penetrate or crack the greatest number of sheets. 
This is conclusive evidence that the striking velocity of a considerable portion 
of a charge of shot is much less than that of the fastest flying, i.e. hardest hitting, 
part of it. 
The pellets of lower velocity that only penetrate or crack through from a 
quarter to half as many sheets as do the pellets of high velocity, naturally strike 
with considerably less force than the latter, and it stands to reason travel slower, 
and lag behind the others. Thus, the faster pellets in front and the slower ones 
that follow them, string out, according to distance, into a long detached column, 
that travels in this form from the gun to the bird. 
The late Mr. R. W. S. Griffith, a very able experimentaUst with guns, tested 
the stringing of shot by means of a thin circular disc 12 ft. in diameter. Mr. 
Griffith shot at the upper part of the face of this disc at 40 yds., when 
it was revolving by machinery at 200 ft. per second, and found the shot-charge 
made a longitudinal pattern on it of from 10 ft. to 12 ft. in length. 
This extended pattern proved beyond question that instead of the charge 
striking instantaneously, all in a cluster, it arrived in a string, the slower pellets 
of which struck the surface of the revolving disc some time after the fastest ones. 
The average velocity of No. 6 shot may be taken as 600 ft. per second for 
the fastest or first pellets that reach a mark at 40 yds. The rotating speed of 
the disc should, therefore, also — only this was not possible — have been 600 ft. 
per second ; as, to obtain a pattern showing the total length of the shot-string, 
it is obvious that the part of the surface of the disc shot at should move past 
the shooter, as he fires at it, at the same velocity as the shot-pellets travel up 
to it. 
With the disc revolving at 200 ft. per second, Mr. Griffith obtained an extended 
