THE INFLUENCE OF AMMUNITION ON SHOOTING. 145 
in certain limits. Variations in shooting, due to these limits, are not 
important enough to merit serious consideration. For all practical 
purposes there is no reason why the gunner should be suspicious of his 
shell. He can confidently use them in the assurance they are virtually 
identical. 
The above considerations lead to the conclusion; that every gun of 
a similar nature, in one battery command and having the same fire 
area, should use cartridges of the same lot of powder, and fuzes of the 
same thousand of manufacture, at the same time. 
It is outside the purpose of this paper to speculate as to how the con- 
clusions arrived at can best be carried out in practice. Its object has 
been achieved, if it enables those numerous officers, who are striving to 
improve the shooting of our artillery, to more vividly picture the 
serious errors that may result unless some system be adopted which 
tends to minimize the ill effects caused by unavoidable variations in 
service ammunition. 
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