232 
FOREST A \ 1) S T R E A M 
May, 1919 
KEEPS FOOD COOL | 
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rREE-‘OUTERS MENUS’ 
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Burlington Basket Co. 
Dept. R. 1510 Hawkeye Bldg. 
Burlington, Iowa 
MdommCaiwel 
F resh air, good fishing— and a fleet 
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outing. Outdoor life made the brain 
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895 Fourth St, Old Town, Maine 
Raise Hares For Us 
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We furni.sh stork and pay $2.00 each am: 
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Thorson Rabbit Co., Dept. 9, Aurora, 
Colorado. 
SHOT GUN ACCURACY 
DOUBLE BARRELS DO NOT SHOOT TRUE 
TO THE LINE OF AIM ALONG THE RIB 
By L. MITCHELL-HENRY 
T he importance of correct gun fitting 
is now thoroughly established and 
most sportsmen, especially in Eng- 
land have their gunstocks fitted or al- 
tered to the measurements determined on 
by the expert of a shooting school. 
I have personally paid many visits 
to many of these schools of instruction 
in England and have always come away 
with the feeling that I would never 
“miss’ again, which feeling was cruelly 
crushed when put to the real test. I had 
often noticed I was better at birds flying 
to the right than to the left with one 
gun and often the reverse with another 
gun of exactly the same dimensions of 
stock, weight of gun, amount of choke, 
etc. I then proceeded to try to find a 
reason for this and have satisfied myself 
as to the cause, which briefly is, that the 
barrels of shot guns do not shoot true 
with the linei of aim along the rib, but 
the charge crosses the line of aim, the 
right barrel shooting to the left and the 
left to the right owing to the “tubes” 
as they are called in the trade, being 
laid together wider at the breech than 
at the muzzle, in other words, they con- 
verge. For the purpose of these experi- 
ments I used a pigeon gun of extreme 
choke. 
I have been assured by the first bar- 
rel borer in London that shot gun bar- 
rels are always straight. The breeches 
and muzzles are then laid together, a 
slight flat' being filed on the inside of 
each muzzle, the barrels are then laid 
to converge, and are packed between and 
soldered together. It stands, therefore, 
to reason that the shot charges must 
cross at some distance from the muzzle, 
and that taking a line down the rib 
through the foresight to the object, there 
can only be one spot at which the centre 
of both charges will meet, after which 
each charge will be thrown across the 
line of aim. 
Using a French invention of a tube 
about 9 inches long which fits the bar- 
rels of a 12-bore very exactly and shoots 
the .22 rifle cartridge, I found the bul- 
lets “centred” at about 3 yards from 
the muzzles, and at 15 yards, the right 
barrel shot 4 inches to the left of the 
centre of the bull’s eye, and the left shot 
the same distance to the right. 
Carefully trying the left with 114- 
ounces of No. 6 shot at 40 yards, I found 
the centre of the charge hit over 2 feet to 
the right of the mark aligned upon, this 
being so, it is easy to understand how 
an object going straight away is missed 
at 40 yards or over. I had the barrels 
of this gun taken apart, and wedges of 
different sizes put between them. At 
first I got the centres at the breech and 
muzzles the same distance apart with 
the result that the .22 bullets shot II 2 
inches at 25 yards to the sides of the 
bull’s eye, but each barrel kept to its 
own side, namely, the right shot 114 
inches to the right and the left 1% 
inches to the left of the bull’s eye. I 
gradually reduced the wedges till I got 
both barrels to the centre at 40 yards, 
this being accomplished by separating 
the barrels about 14 of an inch at the 
muzzles. The barrels of the gun in ques- 
tion have been so much forced apart 
and pulled about that I cannot be sure 
that the tubes are any longer straight, 
but as they are at present, they “centre” 
at 40 yards. 
I am, of course, aware that the tubes 
can be made to steer the shot in any 
direction. By pinching them together a 
few inches from the chambers, they can 
be made to throw the charge outward 
to counteract the crossing. By wedging 
them apart in the middle, the charges 
of shot would cross more than ever. In 
either of those cases, the barrels would 
not be straight, but I am going on the 
assurance that the tubes always are 
straight, and are laid to converge. 
If, on the other hand, the barrels w'ere 
laid with the centres of the bores at 
the muzzles the same distance apart as 
the centres at the breech, in other words, 
if the barrels were laid parallel, then 
the line of aim along the rib would only 
cause an error of the distance from the 
foresight to the centre of the bore. This, 
however, would be constant, and the cen- 
tre of the charge at all distances would 
only be say % of an inch to the right 
or left of the object aimed at, according 
to which barrel was fired. This would 
mean that the object would be practically 
in the centre of the charge, whereas with 
this particular gun of mine, it was quite 
impossible, before alteration, to hit an 
object going straight away, with the left 
barrel, if the gun was held straight on it 
at 40 yards' or over. I have tried sev- 
eral guns wdth the same result, and 
in one case I convinced a very well-known 
maker who makes a specialty of Pigeon 
guns that a gun of his shot straight with 
the left at 30 yards — i. e., that the left 
barrel was laid parallel with the rib, but 
the right shot considerably to the left. 
With the gun just referred to, the 
stock would have been “cast off” until 
the charge was centered on the object 
aimed at, in other words, the error of 
the alignment of the barrel would have 
been corrected by alteration to the stock, 
and once that was right, the left bari'el 
would have been considered as equally 
perfect, but the shooter would shoot to 
the right with this barrel. 
I think this also accounts for the fact, 
above referred to — viz., that often when 
a stock is copied exactly from another 
gun, the gun is found not to be a suc- 
cess in the field. 
These experiments incline me to see 
the advantage in the “Under and Over” 
system, as the under barrel could be 
made to shoot high for the second shot. 
Doubtless there is nothing new in all 
this, but I would be glad to know of the 
experience of others. 
