Part I: Ammunition

Chapter I. Rifles And Ammunition

THE shooting merits of a rifle are rated by the accuracy, velocity, and force with which it delivers bullets. I use the word force, for brevity's sake, in an arbitrary sense, to include energy of impa...

Rifles And Ammunition. Continued

Good marksmen never were satisfied with such ammunition as the .44-40, .38-40, .32-20, and others similarly proportioned. The demand for something more accurate and of surer killing power became insis...

Chapter II. The Flight Of Bullets

THE trajectory of a bullet is the curved path of its flight. Every missile travels in a constantly increasing curve. The height of that curve, for a given range, depends upon the speed at which the pr...

The Flight Of Bullets. Part 2

Trajectory is of practical interest to hunters in several ways:— (1). It shows the extreme range to which a given rifle can be sighted without letting the bullet rise more than a negligible amount ...

The Flight Of Bullets. Part 3

I quite agree with him that accuracy and trajectory must be considered together, not separately, and that makers of guns and ammunition should publish the mean radius of shots fired from machine rest,...

Chapter III. Killing Power

THE all-round effectiveness of a bullet depends upon its penetration and the shock it imparts. Penetration is determined chiefly by the length of bullet in calibers and its resistance to deformation. ...

Killing Power. Part 2

In our tables of modern ammunition we see a .35 caliber Winchester of 779 foot-pounds muzzle energy, and another .35 Winchester of 2,687 footpounds. The former is rather light for deer shooting, and t...

Killing Power. Part 3

Figure 14. The fact that the base of a soft-nose is covered by the metal envelope affects its upsettage on firing. Hence it may be advisable to make such bullets a trifle super-caliber, to insu...

Killing Power. Part 4

For turkeys, geese, and the lesser animals, nothing under a .25 caliber should be used, unless it be the .22-15-60 Stevens, which is limited to single-loaders, or the new .22 high power. The .25-20 is...

Chapter IV. Rifle Mechanisms And Materials

THE typical sporting rifle of to-day is a repeating arm. Repeaters are classified according to form of magazine and system of breech mechanism. A tubular magazine under the barrel has several defec...

Rifle Mechanisms And Materials. Part 2

A bolt action locks with two lugs immediately behind the cartridge head, and there is a third, or even a fourth, lug in the rear. Such closure will withstand the breech pressure of any cartridge. The ...

Rifle Mechanisms And Materials. Part 3

Without finding fault with low-price rifles that do the work remarkably well, let us consider the points of a thoroughly well made rifle which can be turned out at a higher, but still reasonable, ...

Chapter V. Rifle Sights

HITHERTO we have been studying the rifle and its ammunition simply as engine and power, independent of the man behind the gun. Enter, now, the man, with his personal factor to be considered. Cartri...

Rifle Sights. Continued

I consider it bad practice to draw fine, medium, or coarse bead, according to distance. There is too much guesswork about it. With a high power rifle, you are almost sure to overdo the matter. So, on ...

Chapter VI. Triggers And Stocks-Care Of Rifle

COMMAND of the trigger is the hardest and the most essential part of marksmanship. Few human operations require one's nerves to be so finely strung and his muscles so instantly responsive, in the face...

Triggers And Stocks-Care Of Rifle. Part 2

The weight of a high power rifle should be governed chiefly by the amount of free recoil set up by its cartridge. From seven and one-half to eight pounds is enough rifle weight for such a cartridge as...

Triggers And Stocks-Care Of Rifle. Part 3

Get a yard or two of firm cotton flannel, thick enough so that the tip of the rod will not push through it (a stuck rod is hard to remove). From this cloth cut square wipers of such size that they wil...

Part II: The Shotgun

Chapter VII. Shot Patterns And Penetration

IN passing from rifles to shotguns, we encounter a quite different set of problems. Still, the two arms have this much in common, that all depends upon what we want to do with them. Some kinds of gunn...

Shot Patterns And Penetration. Part 2

It is commonly agreed that on the average a bird must be hit by at least three shot, of suitable size, to ensure killing. We may say, then, that killing patterns for birds require not less than the fo...

Shot Patterns And Penetration. Part 3

No. 9........35 yards. No. 10.......30 yards. On small ducks, with standard duck charges, 119 number 6 shot have killing penetration up to fifty yards, and number 5 up to fifty-five yards, but f...

Chapter VIII. Gauges And Weights

THE killing pattern of a shotgun depends not only upon choke but upon gauge. For example, if we take a 12, a 16, a 20, and a 28-gauge, all of them full choked (seventy per cent), and load each with it...

Gauges And Weights. Part 2

The advantage of high initial velocity is greater with large shot than with small ones, because the latter are less able to maintain speed. Extra powder charge, with fine shot, is wasted, just as an a...

Gauges And Weights. Part 3

I conclude, then, that for upland shooting a 16-gauge should be cylinder-bored (forty per cent) in the right barrel, quarter-choked (fifty per cent) in the left; a 20-gauge, quarter-choked in the righ...

Chapter IX. Mechanism And Build Of Shotguns

REPEATING shotguns are cheap, serviceable, deadly, and therefore popular, in spite of their inherent ugliness. They are less objectionable at the traps than anywhere else. In duck shooting over decoys...

Mechanism And Build Of Shotguns. Part 2

3. All joints are perfect. In the finest specimens of guns the doll's-head and other joints fit with such exquisite nicety that the lines of junction cannot be seen with the naked eye. A human hair, o...

Mechanism And Build Of Shotguns. Part 3

Gunstock Measurements. First, lay a gun that fits you (or nearly fits you) on a table; then take a straight-edge as long as the gun and lay it along the top of the rib and out over the butt, sn...

Outing Handbooks

If Each book deals with a separate subject and deals with it thoroughly. If you want to know anything about Airedales an Q U T'l N O HANDBOOK gives you all you want. If it's Apple Growing, another Q U...

Outing Handbooks. Continued

The Fine Art Of Fishing By Samuel G. Camp. Combines the pleasure of catching fish with the gratification of following the sport in the most approved manner. The suggestions offered are helpful to b...