IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 
13 
or kill a perpendicular pheasant. At 40 yds. perpendicular, 
a quarter of the number of pellets cracked only the first three or 
four sheets. At 50 yds. one-third of them. At 60 yds. one-half. 
At 70 yds. two-thirds ; and at 80 yds. no pellet adhered to 
even the first or outside sheet. 
When sheets are given as cracked through by, let us say, ten 
pellets, this does not imply that the pellets actually penetrated 
ten sheets, as usually they did not penetrate more than half of 
them, though they cracked the others so that daylight could 
be seen through. If No. 6 shot is to penetrate the thick skull of 
a cock pheasant, the strongest flying pellets of the charge will 
require to have a force of impact sufficient to crack (so that 
light can be seen through them) at least eighteen sheets of a 
Petitts's pad. I ascertained this by fixing several skulls of 
freshly killed birds in the centre of a number of Petitts's pads, 
the latter being fastened together so as to form a fiat target. 
I commenced shooting at 50 yds. horizontal, and then, a 
yard at a time, decreased the range till I found the skulls 
were pierced or cracked by the shot. At this point a small 
proportion of the numerous pellets that had struck near the 
skulls had broken from eighteen to twenty-two sheets of the 
pads, the distance being 38 yds. I have not given penetration 
records at 30 yds., as at this height (even with No. 7 shot) the 
target. Series III., showed that the peUets had ample force 
to kill a pheasant as an overhead bird. 
Deductions from Perpendicular Pattern and Penetration Tests 
[Series /., //., and III.). 
It is evident that a gun does not shoot so hard, and does not 
make so good a pattern, at a perpendicular mark, as it does at a 
