Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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This also is often accomplished even at long distances, but not in the same way. Then the shot that succeeds must be well timed to get the bird’s body into the thickest of the pellets, and one of the reasons why the body is not plastered is that from most angles of impact, on a coming bird, the body shots glance off, and only the head, neck, and wing shots tell. The only great chance of smashing winged game that occurs is in near shots at going-away game, and then, whether a man holds a cylinder or a choke bore, he will assuredly give lots of “law,” even if, in doing so, the game passes out of sight.

There is an idea that the killing circle from a gun can be mapped out by geometric progression. That is to say, that if lines are drawn from the muzzle to the extremity of a 40 inch circle at 40 yards, you will be able to measure off, or calculate, the killing circle for straight-away game at any distance. That is not so. At the nearer distances the size of the killing circle is regulated by the pellets that, at 40 yards, are outside of it altogether. There they are too thinly scattered to count for chances. Thus the killing circle of a cylinder and of a full choke have no relationship to each other, or to geometric progression of the spread of pellets for each distance.