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FOREST AND STREAM 
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I THE OLD-FASHIONED TURKEY SHOOT J 
I A HERITAGE OF THANKSGIVING NOW 
| ABOLISHED BY LAW AND CUSTOM 
| By Fred O. Copeland. 
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LET US TAN YOUR HIDE 
Or mount any game head 
you may have. 
Or sell you an elegant 
mounted head, any kind, 
none better. 
Get our Illustrated Catalogue, mention¬ 
ing what you are interested in. 
THE CROSBY FRISIAN FUR CO., Rochester, N. Y. 
CHOOSING THE GUN FOR TRAPSHOOTING. 
One of the essentials to be taken into consideration 
by anyone who would become a good trapshooter is the 
selection of the right gun—one that fits the shooter and 
has the proper weight, drop, thickness and length of 
stock, trigger pull, etc. 
An expert might do excellently with a gun unsuited 
to him, because his knowledge of how to shoot would 
compensate to a certain extent the ill fit of the gun. 
A beginner, on the other hand, would be hopelessly 
handicapped under the same conditions. 
Generally speaking, a 12 gauge gun weighing some¬ 
where between 7 l / 2 to ?Y\ pounds, is just about right 
for trapshooting. Experience has shown that guns of 
lighter weight are apt to give too heavy a recoil. 
The drop, thickness, and length of the stock are 
features that from a personal standpoint demand serious 
consideration. In trapshooting, experience has shown 
that the straight stock—one that has very little drop— 
is to be preferred. As to the matter of thickness, the 
main idea is to choose a stock that permits the shooter, 
when he puts the gun to his shoulder, to look com¬ 
fortably and straight down the rib to the sight. If he 
can not do this, the gun does not fit him properly, and 
a tendency to cross-shoot is very likely. 
The length of the stock, from the trigger to the center 
of the butt, depends upon the length of the shooter’s 
arm: obviously, a long-armed man must have a longer 
stock than the man with a short arm. 
Perhaps the simplest way to ascertain if the gun is 
of proper length is to put the gun to your shoulder, 
with your finger on the trigger, as if about to shoot. 
Then, with your finger still on the trigger, remove the 
gun from your shoulder and let the butt lie in the 
hollow of your arm. If no change in the position of 
the trigger finger or the grip hand is required, it is 
safe to assume that the stock fits your arm, in so 
far as the detail of length is concerned. 
Now to come to the trigger pull: 
This term applies to the amount of weight, in pounds 
avoirdupois, which is necessary to pull the trigger when 
the gun is cocked and held in a perpendicular position. 
Due to the element of individuality that enters here, 
there can be no hard and fast rule regarding the 
proper amount of pull. This feature is governed by 
the shooter’s own requirements. On the whole, how¬ 
ever, a trigger pull of from 4 to 4 l / 2 pounds may be 
taken as about right for the average shooter. 
If one is thinking seriously of purchasing a gun 
for trapshooting purposes, perhaps one of the best meth¬ 
ods to adopt would be to try any gun that one’s trap¬ 
shooting friends might care to lend for a temporary 
trial. In this way, one is almost sure to find some 
particular gun with which he can do better work than 
with others; and thus he will naturally arrive at a 
definite basis from which to make a final selection.— 
C. I. Gilman, in the Minneapolis News. 
M UCH as live bird shooting at the traps has 
been made illegal by statute in nearly all 
of the States of the Union so has the cruel 
sport of shooting at anchored live turkeys and 
chickens been awarded the “glance frappe” by 
the law of common consent at the turkey shoots 
held in even the smallest hamlets when Thanks¬ 
giving day draws near. Still, on nights when 
the northern lights play, the older generation 
with the young wends its way past the ghostly 
ranks of corn stalks to the cross-roads store 
where the barrel of salt cod is craftily watched 
by the store keeper while stories are being re¬ 
lated of wonderful shots. And wonderful in¬ 
deed are the stories that have come down to 
us of the cunning trigger fingers in the days 
gone by, but perhaps more interesting certain 
rifles in each neighborhood which were known 
by their success at each turkey shoot. 
Recently the writer was pleasantly entertained 
for an hour in a home that might well send out 
a most welcome delegate to link the chain around 
an old hard wood burner. A rifle was brought 
out. It was a “mile gun,” so termed by its 
maker, G. H. Ferris, of Utica, N. Y., who was 
a popular maker of famous rifles. Incidently, 
it was acknowledged by the maker to have been 
his best weapon and one which he used when 
hitting with seven shots seven barrel heads one 
mile away. This would seem a rather strong 
statement were it not for the fact that this 
thirty-five pound rifle mounted a twenty power 
telescope, thereby making the feat possible, as 
well as relieving the tension or feeling of scepti¬ 
cism some might feel crowding itself in upon 
them. This hand-made, muzzle loading rifle, de¬ 
void of even a line of engraving, was priced at 
$225 and with its accessories required a small 
trunk made for the purpose to house it. The 
weapon was a 50 calibre and its rifling had a 
“gain twist”; that is, its rifling twisted at the 
rate of one turn in 33 inches at the breech and 
quickened to one turn in 22 inches at the muzzle, 
the theory being that the bullet’s base wabbled 
for the first eighty or hundred rods and there¬ 
after spun in a normal manner, therefore it 
could not be used at distances under a mile. 
The maker’s “Turkey Rifle” took care of the 
shorter distances and was rifled one turn in 56 
inches which was thought just right for the 
80 rod turkey range. The “Turkey Rifle” was 
a counterpart of the “Mile Gun” except for this 
difference, and it, like the “Mile Gun,” mounted 
a telescope for the turkey was placed in a pit 
80 rods away with only its head protruding. 
Guided by either open or peep sights, 40 rods 
was the distance the usual muzzle loader spat 
its heavy ball at the turkey which, in this case, 
was mounted on and moored to a roost a little 
less than shoulder high. Whenever, back in 
these days, the shooting was at targets, the 12- 
inch bull’s-eye at one hundred rods was thought 
just right and one hit brought the reward of 
a turkey. The contestants at these shoots were 
wont to speak strangely of “electricity” in the 
ground, each neighboring range having more or 
less, so that it was impossible to target the 
rifle at home for the prescribed shoot notice 
whereof was had at the tavern and blacksmith’s 
shop. 
The shot gun as a target weapon made its 
debut about twenty-five years ago at “chicken 
shoots.” If an adventurous pellet from its pat¬ 
tern strayed over the 15 rod range and found 
a well earned rest in a chicken loosely anchored 
on a roost or in later days on a five-inch paper 
covered platter sawed from a board, the proud 
contestant bore another fowl to his buggy. 
Fifteen rods is a strong range for the scatter 
gun—40 yards is the present targeting distance 
for the 12 gauge shot gun—but these old timers 
sent the stiff load over the 82%-yard range with 
a prayer and a “hist” of the shoulder, contented 
that ammunition was not threatening the dollar 
mark and that shots were but ten cents each. 
However, some of them, remembering the old 
slogan: “Business is business and money buys 
rum,” had a nail handy and used it freely when 
the chicken fluttered at the report of the gun 
for “drawing blood” constituted a kill and the 
right of ownership. 
The turkey and chicken shoots became an 
institution that is not allowed to die in these 
latter days for trapshooting associations are 
wont to stage shoots on the great American 
turkey day using turkeys as principal prizes and 
chickens for side prizes on the different events. 
Consider one of these shoots falling near 
Thanksgiving Day, which in northern New Eng¬ 
land may mean a foot of snow and a nose-nip¬ 
ping zephyr from the lands beyond the River 
St. Lawrence. The club house, heated by a big 
stove, which together with the coffee boiling on 
its top will keep you comfortable while within 
but at the score it won’t do to go as thinly clad 
as the day back in August when you broke 95 
per cent., and those with the big handicaps lifted 
all the “junk.” Warm clothes and a light 
leather lined and sleeved coat will keep your 
otherwise chattering teeth from biting the 
command “Pull” in three sections, but even then 
if you are a 90 per cent, summer artist you 
may look in vain for a like percentage, for trap 
scores and the mercury fall together. 
So then, Mr. Shooter, when one of winter’s 
first sunsets blossoms in the late November 
heavens and number five’s gun of the last squad 
echoes “dead and out” and the scores are posted, 
let us hope traditions have been upheld and that 
perhaps it will be you who are recounting the 
incidents that form a halo around every turkey 
gun. 
A READER FOR THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. 
84 Amity St., Brooklyn, Sept. 13, 1916. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Enclosed is renewal of my subscription for 
one year, my check to your order for one dollar. 
I would feel quite lost without the paper, which 
I have read since about 1878. 
May I add here that not in a long time have 
you gotten out a better issue than the current one, 
September, 1916. It is splendid, and oh, such a 
difference from some of the alleged “magazines,” 
all full of patent insides and boilerplate stuff. 
Forest and Stream has always been a regular 
paper, even in some of the lean and hungry is¬ 
sues of the past, when issued weekly. I wish you 
every success as I have been an interested reader 
for years. John M. Sheridan. 
