832 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 19, 1910. 
1 
fefgPS) Factory Lo&ds 
A WORD TO THE WISE! 
The Hunting Season is again with us, and the sportsmen seeking the most reliable and 
effective ammunition must inevitably choose PETERS FACTORY LOADS — the kind 
that have surpassed all amateur trap-shooting records. 
Do not be deceived nor accept a substitute. PETERS SHELLS will kill deader, further 
and oftener than any others. You do not have to take our word for it—just try them. 
If you are already a user of PETERS, you do not need this advice—the chances are 
1000 to 1 you will continue to do so. 
Remember the first requisite— PETERS SHELLS. They will operate and shoot per¬ 
fectly in any standard make of gun. 
THE PETERS CARTRIDGE COMPANY. CINCINNATI. OHIO 
Bet* Yerk: 98 Chambers St. T. H. KELLER, Manager New Srleanc 321 Magazine SL P. R. LITZKK, Manager 
San Francisce: 6*8-612 Heward Street. J. S. FRENCH, Manager 
ley Richards” the name is legion. The alteration in the 
initials, or the Christian name, or the address is more 
frequent, and all “Horace Greener,” “Albert Greener,” 
J. H.-, W. H., A. H., and other H. Greener guns are 
practically forgeries. From the affluent position most of 
these dealers and getters-up of spurious guns enjoy, 
makers of reputation prefer to suffer rather than engage 
in what they know must be a disagreeable and very prob¬ 
ably a most disastrous prosecution. The author believes 
that he alone has instituted criminal proceedings for this 
species of forgery; the result being the imprisonment ot 
the onendcr. And although the method ot procedure is 
distasteful and expensive, the author appeals to those 
who have been deluded into the purchase of a forged 
Greener gun to communicate with him at once, in order 
an ma y he made to stop this nefarious trade. 
There is another more subtle form of deceit commonly 
practiced in Liege and on the Continent. It consists of 
engraving the gun conspicuously with the name of the 
patentee of one of the parts of the mechanism. The most 
notable instances are “Greener” upon cross-bolt guns, 
and “S. & W.” upon the Smith and Wesson type of 
revolver. In a case tested before the Belgian courts the 
defense advanced was that the weapons were of the type 
associated with the plaintiff’s name, and that the name 
was intended to refer to the system, not to the maker, 
of the weapon. When “Greener” is put in bold gilt 
letters on the top rib, and other words, if any, in small 
insignificant characters, the name is certainly misleading, 
whatever the intention; but unfortunately there is no 
way of stopping the practice. 
In Great Britain, under the new Merchandise Marks 
Act, makers of spurious guns may now be prosecuted; 
and the sooner the chief clauses of this act are made 
international law, the better it will be for foreign sports- 
-\ n *Y e British Colonies the sportsman is fairly pro¬ 
tected by law; but probably the most flagrant instance 
ot , tradi ng in spurious guns occurred at Melbourne, 
wnere a Jewish firm of gun importers, in a very large 
way of business, selling to all the Australian colonies, 
had long practiced a most impudent fraud. If a cus¬ 
tomer inquired for any well-known make of gun an un- 
named Belgian gun was forthwith stamped with the name 
of the maker demanded, and usually a sale completed, 
hor making such unwarrantable use of the author’s 
trade name an action was brought, in the year 1895, and 
the author was awarded £5,500 damages; but it is doubt¬ 
ful whether this covered more than a fraction of the 
real injury wrought, and was, of course, no reparation to 
the sportsmen who had been deluded into purchasing 
spurious weapons. Unfortunately the defendents ap- 
pea.ed against the verdict, and litigation proceeded for 
more than a year afterward. The evidence otained 
showed that many of the best-known fire-arms manu¬ 
facturers had been victimized by this one firm, four 
members of which were subsequently prosecuted crimi¬ 
nally and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. 
OF THE FIT OF GUNS. 
I lie fit of a. gun is a truly personal matter, for al¬ 
though the majority of sportsmen can shoot well with 
the gun which suits eighty men out of every hundred, 
unless the gun is liked by them they will never feel 
that they shoot so well with it as they should, as no 
two persons are. alike; therefore every person, to be 
exactly suited with a gun, will require something dif¬ 
ferent to that which will suit another, but in practice 
the difference is often so slight as not to be noticeable. 
The most important point is the weight of the weapon, 
for many sportsmen sadly overweight themselves with 
needlessly heavy weapons; the gun when put up at a 
mark for trial does not seem heavy, but after carrying 
it for a few hours or when fatigued by walking, wait¬ 
ing, or working, the gun will not be “put up’’ as it 
was when the sportsman was fresh. The lighter the gun 
the greater control the muscles have over the gun to 
align it properly, and the longer they retain that power. 
The ability to handle a gun with precision is more likely 
to fill the game-bag than the possession of a perfectly 
fitting weapon. The really good shot can shoot well 
with almost any gun; a perfectly fitting stock will never 
make a good shot out of a bad one. There is no rea¬ 
son, however, why the sportsman should use a gun that 
does not suit him. Mr. E. D. Fulford (who grassed 194 
pigeons successively), Dr. Carver, Captain Brewer, Mr. 
. 1 . A. R. Elliott (who killed 100 pigeons straight), mak¬ 
ing the highest possible scores — they all, when making 
their finest shooting, used guns built for them by the 
author, but for which they were never “measured.’’ This 
need not be advanced as a reason why other sportsmen 
may not avail themselves of the best methods for getting 
a gun that will suit them, but it is indisputable evidence 
that the best marksmanship does not depend upon exact 
measurements by an experienced gun fitter. 
OF ALIGNMENT. 
Most shooters align the gun with the right eye, that 
eye being the stronger in most men. If the sight of 
the left eye is stronger than that of the right, the 
shooter must close his left eye when aiming; or he may 
shoot from the left shoulder, or have a gun so made 
that it is alignable with the left eye though fired from 
the right shoulder. If there is any doubt as to which 
eye directs the aim, it may be easily ascertained by pro¬ 
ceeding as follow's: 
Take a finger ring and hold it out at arm’s length; 
look through it with both eyes open at some object twenty 
or more feet distant; close the left eye. If the right 
eye still sees the object through the ring—which has not 
been moved — the right eye will align the gun, and the 
sportsman may with every advantage dispense with all 
correcting impedimenta and shoot with both eyes open. 
If the left eye—being the stronger — aligns the gun, the 
sportsman must shut it, or shoot from the left shoulder; 
or have a particularly constructed stock which shall 
enable him to aim with the left eye while shooting from 
the right shoulder. 
Providing the sportsman be one of the minority, he 
should write fully to an experienced gunmaker or the 
nearest practical gun dealer and arrange for the building 
of a special gun to meet his special need. 
The sight-aligner and adjustable gun, invented in 1882 
by Mr. E. Oliver (Mr. W. W. Greener’s London house 
manager), is so contrived that an expert stands behind 
the sight disc, and while the aim is being taken he can 
discover whether both eyes of the shooter are open, and 
if the aim is a correct one, it is possible for him to see 
right down the barrels, providing there is a good light. 
This was used with the first try gun made and was 
adopted by many gunmakers to get their customers prop¬ 
erly fitted with guns. 
TO CHOOSE A GUN WHICH WILL FIT CORRECTLY. 
Take a gun, and put it up to the shoulder two^ or three 
times without aiming at anything in particular; if it 
seems to come up easily, and to be under perfect con¬ 
trol, choose a mark ten or fifteen feet distant, and 
slightly higher than the aimer’s shoulder. Fling up the 
gun quickly while looking steadily at the mark, and 
immediately the gun is at the shoulder close the left 
eye and glance at once along the rib; the sight on the 
muzzle should cover the object at which the shooter 
was looking as he brought up the gun. If upon this 
maneuver being repeated several times, it is found that 
the gun each time covers the mark at which it is aimed, 
it should be tried in like manner at other marks at 
different distances and elevations. If these marks are 
covered in the same manner, the gun may be considered 
a fit, and a little practice will make the shooter quite 
at home with the weapon. It should then be tried at a 
target. Take a few snap shots at a bullseye, and if the 
shots are not placed central, something is wrong with 
either the gun or the shooter. If a man cannot hit a 
fixed mark at thirty to forty yards every time with a 
shotgun he cannot expect to hit birds on the wing. 
The sportsman who can make his choice out of a 
large stock of guns, or with the assistance of an ex¬ 
perienced man to guide him, has a great advantage over 
the man whose trials must be made with a few weapons 
and without the help of an expert to correct any faulty 
actions which may escape the observation of the shooter. 
For instance, ,a person adept in the art of gun fitting 
would detect at once whether a second aim was taken 
in aligning the gun, and could immediately so alter a 
dummy try-gun as to come up in the way desired; 
whereas the shooter, if alone, must note where the gun 
points, and calculate what amount of alteration is neces¬ 
sary. 
If a gun is pointed much below the mark at which it 
is aimed, the stock of the gun is too crooked, too short, 
or the gun too heavy. 
If it points above the mark at which it is aimed, it is 
too straight or has too much toe upon the stock. It is 
much better to use a gun that is too straight than one 
that is the reverse. 
If it points to the right, it is cast-off too much; if to 
the left, the cast-off is not sufficient. If it is not hori¬ 
zontal, but twisted over, so that the right barrel is the 
higher, the stock requires to be twisted over by casting 
off the toe more; if the left barrel is higher (which is 
very rarely the case) both the cast-off of the gun and the 
shape of the butt must be altered. 
The straighter and longer the stock which can be 
manipulated with ease, the better and quicker will be 
the shooting, and less fatiguing the work of a heavy 
day’s shooting. All good guns are so regulated that, 
aimed point-blank and dead-level along the rib, they 
will center on the mark at forty yards’ distance. 
Some trap shots require their guns to carry as many 
as 6 inches high at forty yards; this is preferable to 
using a gun which shoots high because, being too 
straight in the stock, it is aimed too high. Misses with 
a shotgun, as with rifle, more frequently arise from 
errors in elevation than the misdirection of the aim. 
The “try gun” is a gunmaker’s tool, which permits 
of the stock being altered to any length, bend, cast-off, 
and shape to the butt, and is ot use in fitting a sports¬ 
man who needs a gun of special build. Most of these 
guns are capable of being fired, but, as not one of them 
handles at all like an ordinary gun, it does not follow 
that, because a shooter is able to use it with success, a 
