114 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Aug. 6, 1904. 
—horizontal limbs barred — and the bullet must pass 
directly beneath its heart. 
Nebraska squirrels insist also on being barked exactly 
under the heart ; under any other part of the body won't 
do at all. 
Kansas — well, the old fellows in Kansas used: to do it, 
and "kin do it ag'in, b'gosh !" 
The squirrels of Allegheny are knocked out by hitting 
the limb a foot away from them. 
In Canton, Pa., the only sure death to a squirrel is a 
bullet hitting the limb just under its neck. 
Mississippi squirrels are the tenderest of all. They are 
killed by bullets passing through the hair across their 
bellies without touching either skin or bark. 
All of which is very interesting and just a little aston- 
ishing, even if it is convincing. Wonder if I cannot start 
another dispute and draw out some more lively letters 
from the Forest and Stream readers pretty soon? I'll 
think it over. Allen Kelly. 
An Old-Time Rifle Champion. 
Lockport, N. Y., July 22. — From the days of Cooper's 
Leather Stocking, when Natty Bumppoused to show 
the youngsters how to shoot turkeys in the Otsego 
country, to the modern contests of the Creedmoor 
crack shots is a long cry. But the old-timers after 
all, perhaps, could best "show the beauties of the 
weapon," as the chief hero of the boys' early novel read- 
ing used to say. 
Of course, there are no representatives of the 
pioneer riflemen left. Even the exponents of the rifle 
shooting as it was conducted a half century ago, are 
now few and far between, with only now and then one 
who can draw a bead. 
Niagara county boasts an old-time rifle champion, 
and one who can still show the young men with their 
•30-30's and other high velocity small bores how to 
draw a fine sight and hold it for proper and artistic 
execution at 100 rods. 
James Carter, a retired manufacturer of the city of 
Lockport, twice won the New York State champion- 
ship, and when urged will bring out his medals and the 
rifle that helped him do the trick. He is one of the 
oldest members of the venerable Niagara County 
Anglers' Club, an organization devoted to the pro- 
motion of both angling and shooting and the protection 
of fish and game, yet one of the most active. The 
stormiest night cannot keep him from the regular 
meetings of the club. In a blinding snow storm last 
Feburary he helped plant 10,000 lake trout in Lake 
Ontario at Olcott, and on three successive days was 
also present to assist in depositing the gamy youngsters 
in their new home in the great lake. His age now pre- 
vents him from enjoying the sport of the gun afield; 
but occasionally on the rifle range or at the traps he may 
be found modestly teaching the youngsters how to shoot. 
With rod and line he is as skillful and keen as ever, 
and in the annual tournaments of the club always to 
be counted on for a creditable score. 
Uncle Jim Carter's "den," at his home on Locust 
street, is a veritable arsenal and a depository for fine 
guns of many makes and patterns, worth in the eyes 
of the sportsmen and gun connoisseur a king's ransom. 
Uncle Jim was always an extremely modest man, and 
although he was counted one. of the best shots with 
rifle or shotgun in western New York for years, he 
could not be induced to enter a regular contest for a 
championship until June 19, 1872. The old Niagara 
County Shooting Club organized a rifle contest, free 
for all, and offered a handsome $50 cup as the prize 
for the best score. Several noted marksmen entered 
early, and local managers begged Mr. Carter to bring 
his Maynard and shoot for the honor of Lockport. The 
contest was keen, but Uncle Jim led the fourteen com- 
petitors by a comfortable margin whea the targets 
were figured up. 
He attended the annual State shoot at Watertown, 
N. Y., June 1, 2 and 3, 1875, under the auspices of the 
New York State Association for the Protection of 
Fish and Game. There he won the first prize in an 
off-hand rifle match, consisting of a special military 
Creedmoor rifle, the kind usel in England in the inter- 
national contests between English and American 
marksmen. To crown his triumph. Uncle Jim's fav- 
orite dog, Sancho, won first prize in the bench show 
in the small pointer class. 
In June, 1880, James Carter again captured the State 
championship, winning first prize at Niagara Falls in 
the State tournament held under the auspices of the 
New York State Association for the Protection of;. 
Fish and Game, in the off-hand rifle contest. 
In the seventies the Niagara County Rifle Club was 
a famous organization, reducing rifle shooting to a 
fine art. Turkey shooting at Thanksgiving time was 
the favorite sport in those days. The rules were 100 
rods at rest or fifty rods off-hand, ten cents per shot. 
Guns of the finest make and scientific sights were used. 
Each contestant took especial pride in constructing a 
rest which would best assist him in running up a high 
score. Uncle Jim's rest was so constructed that the 
gun could be lowered or elevated at either end, or 
moved to the right or left at either end mechanically. 
When fired; the rest device permitted the marksman to 
move the weapon forward quickly after the recoil, and 
by means of the telescope sight attached to the barrel 
of the gun, he could see the exact spot where the bul- 
let struck. This enabled the shooter to adjust his rest 
and range perfectly after the first or second shot. This 
was in a manner mechanical shooting, but as fair for 
one as for the other in a contest conducted on business 
principles, and for gobblers more than for glory. 
Maynard rifles were the favorite weapons used those 
days. They had one extra heavy barrel for long range 
shooting. Carter cast his own bullets. Each was 
weighed accurately. He found that a bullet cast from 
very hot lead would be lighter because of greater ex- 
pansion and subject to greater shrinkage when cool. 
He gave the subject scientific study and solved the 
problem of the ideal bullet for long ranges. He also 
weighed the powder charges, as the hand would not 
always press the same on the old powder horns. No 
reliance was placed on ordinary scales, but he im- 
ported, §caje§ from England, such as are used for weigh- 
ing diamonds, : and on .which the smallest grain of 
powder will tip the delicate beam. 
No one can convince the veteran marksman that the 
modern cartridges and modern guns are equal to the 
old scientific loads and the hand-made guns. But he 
js willing to let the youngsters stick to their own opin- 
ions. When they come home from their hunting trips 
empty handed, or with little to show for a lot of hard 
tramping, he is ready to tell them of the times he 
missed. When the boys trudge by with their new- 
fangled weapons a-shoulder, he beams down upon them 
affectionately. A good story of days past and gone 
the old man always has on tap for them when they 
stop, as they often do. Just to look at the veteran 
marksman and to hear him talk, is an appetizer for the 
range or for the woods, like Riley's old gunner: 
"And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in a stiddy rest, 
She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest; 
And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a shinin' right, 
Seems to kind o' sorto sharpen up a feller's appetite." 
__M. H. Hoover. 
A Comparison of Rifles. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your editorial in the July 30 number- suggests a 
comparison. 
The Kentucky Long Rif le. 
Davy Crockett's long rifle which you described was 32- 
gauge or .52 caliber. Its spherical bullets must, therefore, 
have weighed 219 grains. If, as tradition has it, only 
enough powder was used to cover the ball as it lay in the 
palm of the hand, the load was bulk for bulk of powder 
and lead, which would give 34 grains of black powder. 
This would be about the same load as the .44-40-217, with 
less powder and therefore art even higher trajectory. It 
is, however, commonly believed that these rifles shot very 
flat , and while the bulk for bulk load may have been cus- 
tomary for short ranges and small game, I believe a much 
larger charge of powder was used for long range or big 
game. As a boy I hunted with a muzzleloading converted 
flint-lock shooting a small spherical ball, and if my recol- 
lections of the rifle are correct, the powder charge bulked 
much larger than the bullet and the trajectory was very 
flat. 
The Kentucky rifle was long enough and heavy enough 
to have burned 70 grains of black powder without giving 
much recoil or sacrificing accuracy. There seems to be 
no reason why this should not have been done, and I be- 
lieve it was done. If this was so, and Davy Crockett's 
rifle shot a 219-grain bullet with a velocity high enough 
to give it a flat trajectory, its shooting qualities would 
have been not unlike those of the .30-40-220, the Krag- 
Jorgenson. Used against living animals, its large wound 
of entrance would cause enough shock and external bleed- 
ing to more than compensate for its slight inferiority in 
range and power. 
Express Rifles. 
The original express rifle was brought out in i8;6. It ; 
was designed to replace the big-game rifles of large bore 
— from 16 to 8 gauge. The object sought was a rifle 
whose trajectory would be so flat that the same elevation 
of rear sight would answer for all sporting ranges. To 
accomplish this object the caliber and weight of the pro- 
jectile were reduced. The lessened weight of rifle and 
ammunition were, however, secondary considerations. 
The power was maintained by the high velocity. Thus 
was developed the black powder express, still largely used 
abroad for big game, shooting a projectile of from 350 
to 590. grains, with a velocity from 1,800 to 1,688 foot 
seconds. 
It was claimed that this idea was directly copied from 
the Kentucky long rifle, but Greener, in his "Gun and Its 
Development," seems disposed not to allow this claim, 
and to believe the principles of the express rifle to have 
been independently developed. 
Military Smokeless Rifles. 
Something the same plan as brought out the sporting 
express developed the military smokeless rifle. Here the 
prime desideratum was lightness of ammunition in order 
that the soldier might carry many rounds without being 
overburdened. Flat trajectory was a secondary considera- 
tion, but the same method was employed and much the 
same results were obtained, only on a smaller scale. The 
caliber and weight of the projectile were diminished and 
its speed increased. 
Thirty years ago the type military rifle was about .45 
caliber, burned about 75 grains of black powder, and 
fired a projectile weighing about 480 grains. Such a rifle 
was the English Martini .45-85-480; the U. S. A. Spring- 
field, .45-70-500 ; the .43 Spanish, -4377-395 and the Rus- 
sian Berdan, .42-77-370. In changing to the military rifles 
of to-day, smokeless powder was used, not to increase the 
power, for charges almost equivalent to the old black 
powder loads were employed, but to prevent undue foul- 
ing of the small bore. 
The jacketed bullet was not designed from humane 
motives, for experiments on the human cadaver seemed 
to show that the full mantled bullet would have the ex- 
plosive effect we now know is only produced on the live 
subject by some form of mushrooming bullet. The jacket 
was a device originally intended simply to prevent the 
bullet from stripping. The jacket and the kind of pow- 
der were technical details to render practical the light 
bullet and the high velocity which were the real objects 
sought. In short, the military smokeless powder rifle was 
designed to produce the same effect as its immediate 
■ predecessor, only with lighter ammunition, depending for 
its efficiency on velocity instead of weight of projectile. 
An illustration will show how closely the differences be- 
tween the big bore rifle and the express parallel the dif- 
ferences between the black and smokeless powder army 
rifle. 
For Big Game. 
Weight of 
Rifle. Caliber. Proiectile. Velocity. Energy 
12-gauge 72 700 gr. 1584 ft. sec. 3356 ft lbs 
Express ........ .50 440 gr. 1784 ft. sec. 3134 ft. lbs". 
For Men. 
Springfield .45 500 gr. 1179 ft. sec. 1551 ft lbs 
Krag .......... ,30 220 gr. 1960 ft. sec. 1887 ft lbs." 
Were tl^e ^Q-UQ Winchester substituted, forth,? Spring- 
field in this table, the comparison would be more striking, 
as the .50-110 throws a projectile of 300 grains with a 
velocity of 1,536 foot seconds, producing an energy of 
1,580 foot pounds, but the .50-110 is not, strictly speaking,- 
a miliary rifle, and in either case the main point of the 
comparison is the same, namely, that for the same pur- 
pose old or new need the same power, but the new obtains 
Us power from velocity, the old from weight of projectile. 
The Kentucky rifle was the legitimate forerunner of 
both the express and the military smokeless powder rifle. 
It was the firearm to establish the principle on which they 
depend, which is that energy can be more economically 
transformed by giving bullets high velocity than by using 
bullets of heavy weight. All three belong in the high 
velocity^ class in contrast to the heavy projectile class 
comprising muskets, smooth-bores, big bore rifles, and the. 
army rifles of thirty years ago. David E. Wheeler. 
Buffalo, N. Y, 
Raising Wild Ducks. 
Editor Forest and Stream: ■ 
I am very much gratified to see that within the past 
few monthsthe Forest and Stream has been endeavoring 
to awaken interest in the subject of increasing our stock 
of game birds and wild fowls somewhat in the method in 
which, from time to time, our game fish supply has been 
increased. On the other hand, I very much regret that 
the shooting public seems to take not very much interest 
in this subject, if we can judge by the lack of communi- 
cations about it to your columns. 
Of course the matter is one about which the average 
man knows nothing, and one toward which the average 
man can contribute little except a very active interest. 
The people who must set on foot work of this kind on a 
large scale— provided the Government does not do it — 
are people of large means and possessing country places 
covering .^considerable number of acres. Yet. the sub- 
ject is, such, an interesting one that I should suppose that 
the -men who use the shotgun would have views on it that 
they would like to express. 
I remember a few years ago Mr. J. B. Battelle, of Ohio, 
made a number of efforts to do something toward domes- 
ticating the ruffed grouse, and then had more or less to 
say on the subject. I remember also the case of a corre- 
spondent of yours living somewhere in New York, and, 
as I recall it, in very small auarters, who reared a brood 
or two of quail, almost in a cage. There are no doubt 
plenty of readers of Forest and Stream living in the 
country who, at a very trifling cost, could make experi- 
ments in the domestication of game birds, and some one 
of these might contribute much that is new and useful to 
our knowledge of this subject. 
We are all of us. disposed to lament the constantly in- 
creasing diminution of game, and each one of us, while 
groaning about it, appears to be doing his best to increase 
the 'destruction. No one of us, however much he may 
grumble and growl, does anything to lessen the slaughter. 
We are all ready to complain, but not to make much 
effort to bring about better conditions. This is all 
natural enough. In this country, until within a compara- 
tively short time, mammals, birds, and fish were meat, 
and as meat worth dollars or cents ; and dollars or cents 
were the things about which the Americans chiefly 
thought. There were some notable exceptions, but not 
very many, until sometime after the war. 
In Britain, where sport — as there regarded— has long 
had an importance much greater than it has ever had in 
America, they have carried the preservation and increas- 
ing of the game supply in various directions to lengths, of 
which we know nothing. It has been pointed out in Forest 
and Stream that, besides the domestication of pheasants 
and the not very successful rearing of partridges, grouse 
and wild ducks have been hand-raised on a very large 
scale. . This, of course, is made possible by the 
vast size of the estates. held over there— holdings 
which are matched only by some of the largest 
ranches in the West. In Cumberland, England, one land 
owner rears annually 10,000 wild .ducks, of which about 
6,000 are captured on his own estate, while 4,000 disap- 
pear to take their chances for life or death in other parts 
of^Britain or on the Continent. 
There are not a few places in Britain where during the 
season excellent duck shooting is had at birds that have 
been hand-raised. Sometimes these birds live ; in slow- 
flowing, weedy rivers, which resemble the streams of the 
South and some of those of the Middle West, or they may 
live in reservoirs, or again in artificially made ponds or 
pools. In some cases the birds spend the night on reser- 
voirs or lakes, and twice a day are summoned by the 
sound of a horn to a special feeding ground at some dis- 
tance from the roosting ground. Here the grain and 
other food is scattered for them, and they eat it undis- 
turbed. It is on their flights to- and from the feeding 
ground that they are shot, and so far as one can under- 
stand from the descriptions, this shooting takes place only 
at rare intervals. That is to say, a few times during the 
shooting season, ... „..„., 
Along certain slow-flowing rivers bordered by wide 
water meadows in 'Hampshire, a method of shooting is 
practiced which* depends impart on clucks that are actually 
wild. These slow streams and their, surroundings offer 
a good deal of food to the ducks, and the number of birds 
there has led to a system of shooting out of what are 
called "gazes." These are nothing more than what we 
in America term "blinds." A portion of the river bank 
where ducks are accustomed to- feed or sit. is cut off from 
the meadow by a high fence near the b;uik, and this fence 
is filled in with green boughs so as to make a screen that 
the birds cannot see through. At intervals along this 
screen are built the blinds. The fence prevents the birds 
on the stream from seeing the gunner as he approaches 
the "gaze," but when he is inside of it, he can see m 
all directions, yet can keep himself out of sight, just as a 
gunner hides in a blind. These "gazes", scattered along 
the shore, are occupied each by one of the guests at the 
shooting, the allotment being made by the owner of the 
shooting or by his keeper After one section of the river 
has been shot over the party of gunners moves to another, 
and so systematically covers the whole length of the 
ground. 
These "gazes," cf course, are always on private prop* 
erty, and §re private shooting; only the owner and thos$ 
