August, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
357 
PROGRESS AND THE SHOTGUN 
A CONSIDERATION OF THE CAUSES THAT HAVE KEPT THE SHOTGUN FROM 
ATTAINING THE FULL DEVELOPEMENT ACCORDED THE MODERN RIFLE 
I T is not infrequently asked: why, in 
the march of progress the capa- 
bilities of the shotgun have not kept 
pace with those of the rifle? 
As a matter of fact, in point of 
rapidity of fire, convenience, and me- 
chanical excellence generally, the shot- 
gun is in no feature behind the rifle; 
its shooting powers have not, however, 
kept pace with other developments, and 
the cause may well become the sub- 
ject of consideration. 
With the advent of breechloading, 
conical projectiles, and smokeless pro- 
pellants the rifle broke right away from 
tradition, and every change essential 
to the realization of all the possibili- 
ties of smokeless powders or any other 
collateral development which prom- 
ised improvement has been made with 
almost total disregard for the past. 
The same cannot be said of the shot- 
gun. Its chamber and other internal 
dimensions are still those designed for 
black gunpowder, and the first paper 
cartridge that rendered breechloading 
a practical possibility. It is incon- 
ceivable that though 35 years have 
elapsed since smokeless shotgun powd- 
ers first demonstrated practical possi- 
bility, and though these have in the 
meantime relegated black gunpowder 
almost to a memory, so rigid is ad- 
herance to blackpowder gun dimen- 
sions that not only has no alteration 
By E. NEWITT 
been made in the gun to accommodate 
smokeless powders, but smokeless 
powder itself is still perforce made to 
accommodate itself to the gun; that is 
to say, it is still bulked to fill space 
in a chamber and cartridge designed 
for another powder. 
One does not hesitate to assert that 
this has retarded the development both 
of the gun and the powder, besides in- 
volving untold waste of wads and the 
material with which these powders 
are bulked, which add unnecessarily to 
recoil, and for which there should no 
longer exist any justification. 
It is doubtless due to its thickness 
and the ease with which space fill- 
ers can be accommodated that the old 
paper shell is still with us, but hav- 
ing regard to its fragility, bulk and 
other shortcomings it should long 
since have disappeared in favor of 
brass or other waterproof metal. More- 
over, it would have done so but for 
this reluctance to make the necessary 
alterations to the gun chamber to ac- 
commodate a thinner shell. 
T HE range and striking energy of 
pellets, being the product of their 
weight and velocity, cannot be ma- 
terially enhanced. A trifle has been 
accomplished by chokeboring, but so 
long as easily deformable lead is the 
only material available, and no better 
means of directing a multiplicity of 
projectiles more or less simultaneously 
than the present barrel is forthcom- 
ing, there is little hope of increasing 
velocity, and without this, range and 
striking energy must remain as they 
are. 
Hitting and killing qualities, how- 
ever, are not alone the product of 
range and energy but depend quite as 
much upon the distribution of the pel- 
lets laterally, and it is in the matter 
of pattern, the equivalent of accuracy 
in a rifle, that improvement may be 
looked for if the ballistician is given 
a free hand to modernize the gun; 
moreover such freedom would also en- 
able other beneficial developments in 
both cartridge and gun. 
Our control of pattern is still very 
imperfect, the best we can do towards 
keeping our pellets close enough to- 
gether to ensure a sufficient numbr 
hitting a bird of average size at the 
limit of the distance where they re- 
tain energy enough to penetrate leaves 
plenty of room for improvement. 
A heavily choked gun, shooting a 
charge of 300 pellets, will cluster 30% 
of them into a 15-inch circle at 40 
yards, which is equivalent to a density 
of one pellet to every 2% square inches, 
about 50% form a halo round this 15- 
inch centre 30 inches in diameter, and 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 375) 
One of the fast squads that shot E. C. at the Westy Hogan Tournament. (Left to right) E. S. Brinker, W. A. Lauer, 
Robert Gumbert, W. S. Jones, and G. F. Painter. Jones broke ioo straight at this shoot. 
