July, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
m 
muzzle end of the chamber of paper 
case guns, as there is nothing of this 
kind in the chamberless guns.. A paper 
case gun chamber where it joints this 
cone measures .800 inch and it enlarges 
between this point and the rim (breech 
end of the chamber) to .812. This taper 
facilitates extraction and ejection and 
as already stated is greater in propor- 
tion than the taper I have adopted for 
chamberless guns as the paper is prone 
to more irregularities in manufacture 
than brass and a larger margin for 
variations in the size of cartridges must 
be allowed for. The sharp cone at the 
muzzle end of the chamber of a paper 
case gun is about a quarter of an inch 
long, and in that short distance the re- 
duction in the bore is from .800 inch in 
the chamber to .734 inch in the barrel 
proper. Here, it seems to be, that shot 
becomes mutilated, for the charge of 
shot has to pass this part of the barrel 
while the pressure of the powder gas is 
very high. The wads will bridge this 
quarter of an inch and prevent the es- 
cape of gas, but there is nothing to 
bridge this awkward space of the shot 
charge, and the pellets at the periphery 
of of the charge probably become more 
damaged than those at the centre, but 
all must be subjected to a severe crush- 
ing. When the shot (in a paper case 
gun leaves the cartridge case under 
great pressure, it tends to expand lat- 
erally and occupy a space .800 inch in 
diameter. While expanding it is caught 
by the sharp cone and forced back to a 
considerably smaller diameter than that 
existing when it left the cartridge case 
— viz., to the size of the barrel itself 
(.734 inch). Now damaged shot, cen- 
tral especially, but also peripheral, tends 
when leaving the muzzle to jostle the 
sound pellets. Thus the damaged pet- 
lets — useless in themselves as killing 
projectiles — tend to interfere with the 
flight of the soundand killing shot, 
which, if left alone and not jostled, 
might prove effective on game and fowl. 
Now this damage to shot from erosion 
and crushing in the cone of a paper- 
case gun is avoided in a chamberless 
gun, and a larger proportion of pellets 
must leave the muzzle in a sound con- 
dition. When the shot charge leaves 
the cartridge in a chamberless gun, it 
enters a larger and not a smaller space, 
so compression and damage to shot is 
avoided and this allows of the unim- 
peded expansion of the powder gas. I 
have sulphur casts of the breech ends 
and the muzzles of choked paper-case 
guns. The cast of the choke shows 
nothing to be identified by the naked 
eye, the choking is such a slight mat- 
ter. It can be seen, however, by looking 
into the muzzle end of a choked gun. 
Such a slight contraction is hardly cap- 
able of any serious damage to the shot 
passing through it — 2 to 4 thousandths 
of an inch will not do the damage at the 
choke that the disparity of 66 thou- 
sandths can at the cone adjoining the 
chamber of a paper-case gun. Mr. 
Henry Sharp has referred to this mat- 
ter on some of his interesting “Gun 
Talks.” As there is no space to be 
bridged by wads between cartridge and 
barrel in the chamberless gun, a far 
smaller amount of wadding suffices; this 
leaves more room in the case for shot. 
My custom has been to use in these guns 
3)4 drams (by measure) of E. C. pow- 
der, no matter whether a short case 
(2)4 inches) be used, with 1)4 oz. No. 
6 shot, or a long case with 2 oz. (by 
measure) of B. B. On the powder is 
placed a black 10-bore waterproof card 
wad one-sixteenth of an inch thick, over 
this a soft felt wad is used )4 inch thick 
and 9-bore in size (a special loader be- 
ing used to compress and insert this 
wad as it is of larger diameter than the 
cartridge case). No other wads, as a 
rule, are used between powder and shot, 
unles 1)4 oz. of No. 6 shot is being load- 
ed, then a white card wad one-twentieth 
of an inch thick and of 10-bore is placed 
on the felt wad, and this helps to scat- 
ter the charge a little more than when 
it rests on the soft felt. The cap of the 
French cases seem to be most suitable 
for nitro powder, and to ignite it more 
effectively than the caps in general use. 
SUMMER CHUCK HUNTING 
THE RIFLES USED ARE OF THE SMALL HIGH POWER TYPE AND 
THE RANGES VARY FROM FORTY TO TWO HUNDRED YARDS 
I N a ’York State village dwells two 
modest riflemen whose achievements 
are not recorded in the archives of 
the grooved tube. One is the local physi- 
cian and the other presides over the 
destinies of the town’s high school. 
Late in the afternoon Doc picks up the 
Professor and they proceed to call on 
some of Doc’s more distant patients; 
in the back of Doc’s car repose their 
respective rifles. Their procedure is 
the acme of comfort and simplicity. 
They drive along at a moderate rate of 
speed until one or the other spots W. 
Chuck, Esq. To this end they employ 
a pair of field glasses to aid the naked 
eye and both men are so well acquaint- 
ed with that bit o’ territory, they know 
pretty well where to find game. Pres- 
ently one of the beauties is sighted, 
down in a meadow or up on a hillside; 
Br’er Chuck ignores them, he is used to 
automobiles. They stop the car and if 
the Chuck Homestead is near the road 
the shooting is done right then and 
there without leaving their seats, using 
the body of the car as a “parapet rest.” 
If Mr. Chuck is a suburbanite, they 
leave the car and do a bit of stalking; 
but in either event they get the chuck 
As a method of training and instruc- 
tion this form of shooting falls little 
short of being ideal, the ranges vary 
from 40 to 200 yards, the hunter gets 
By SENECA 
one chance and only one chance, either 
he kills with his first shot or Br’er 
Chuck sinks into the bowls of the earth 
and returneth not. 
Their rifles are of the small bore 
high-power type, their cartridges cost 
from eight to ten cents each, but as 
only two or three shots are fired dur- 
ing each hunt, this item of expensive 
ammunition does not hamper their op- 
erations. They are not “rifle cranks” 
in the real meaning of that term. They 
do not reload or make up special am- 
munition, they do not read the gun dope 
in the outdoor magazines, they do not 
take part in the N. R. A. matches; 
their knowledge of ballistics is limited 
to catalogue dope and personal obser- 
vations of the performances of factory 
loaded cartridges. And, horror of hor- 
rors, they actually shoot with the open 
sights provided by the factory that 
made their rifles. 
Both are keen, capable men, success- 
ful in their respective professions, but 
from the “gun bug’s” point of view 
their education has been sadly neg- 
lected; they have no regard for “po- 
sition” or “form”; the ten command- 
ments of the military rifleman are not 
part of their religion; yet they kill 
woodchucks, kill a lot of them and 
waste very little ammunition in the 
doing; their average being about three 
kills in five shots, a record that would 
warm the heart of a veteran sniper. 
The target shot is necessary. We need 
him to act as a watch dog on the qual- 
ity of arms and ammunition being 
turned out by the factories; the re- 
loader and experimenter is the unpaid 
and unsung scientist who developed and 
perfected every well balanced cartridge 
we have today. These “bugs” will al- 
ways be with us, they need neither en- 
couragement nor subsidy; to suppress 
or discourage them is impossible. They 
are at once the perpetual thorn in the 
side of the commercial interests and 
the seed that perpetuates the sport. 
The man who needs attention, de- 
serves all the help and suggestions he 
can use; the shot who will develop and 
carry on the sort of shooting that be- 
comes a quick national asset in time of 
trouble and builds up a national repu- 
tation that prevents the occurrence of 
trouble; that man is the chuck hunter, 
the red squirrel exterminator and the 
mortal enemy of crows. The sort of 
rifleman who can fire his first shot so 
there is no need of a second; can hit 
“varmints” whose coloring blends with 
nature’s background; do this over 
ranges that are unmeasured and never 
twice the same; he is the chap who in 
former times won our battles and to- 
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