IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 
25 
pellets show thickest upon the surface of a 6-ft. square target, 
the centre of the pattern in this selected circle being, perhaps, 
a couple of feet away from the centre of the 30-in. circle 
at which the gun was directed. 
With a cylinder-gun, and more or less with an improved 
cylinder, the pattern can, time after time, be taken from a 
30-in. circle drawn round the bulFs-eye aimed at. A selected 
pattern is then not necessary — and such a pattern is always 
an incorrect test in regard to the accuracy of a gun's shooting 
to a given point. As I have said, penetration is of no service 
without a good pattern, nor is a good pattern of use if the 
penetration of a gun is really weak. A good pattern is, 
however, the first necessity, as with well-made guns and 
cartridges penetration is generally satisfactory. 
I also fired many shots with a true cylinder-gun at 40 yds. 
perpendicular, a gun with an average pattern of 105 to 107 ; 
and from the results, with oz. No. 6, it might be con- 
sidered useless at this height. At 30 yds. high, the height 
of an ordinary tall pheasant, the cylinder-gun, allowing the 
aim to be correct, would, however, easily kill its bird ; and, 
indeed, judging by the patterns of both, the difference at this 
elevation between a modified-choke gun that makes 140 on the 
horizontal target at 40 yds. and a cylinder that averages only 
about 107 is surprisingly small so far as a useful killing pattern 
is concerned. 
Though the one gun, of course, puts more pellets in its bird, 
the other puts in quite sufficient to kill at a height of 30 yds. 
For instance, at a horizontal target at 30 yds., ten shots fired, 
the cylinder placed an average of 186 pellets in the selected 
30-in. circle with i-^^ oz. No. 6, and the modified-choke under the 
same conditions made an average of 220 ; at the perpendicular 
