Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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Herein lies a great advantage of taking your gun-maker into confidence about cartridges. We cannot, as a rule, give bigger or smaller cases to fit chambers that may have been made, or grown, bigger before or since the agreement was come to; but if chambers are rather large for cartridges, and consequently shooting is somewhat weak, he can suggest a grain or two of additional powder to the usual charge. It is the belief of the author that a gun-maker usually delights in turning his customers out to do the best possible work, and will take any trouble to that end, not only because it is business, but because it gives personal pleasure.

Shot sizes are mentioned under the headings of the game to which they are most fitted; but although a slight advantage can be had by using hard shot, it is so slight as to be scarcely worth attention from the marksman’s point of view, and those who love not the dentist should at least refrain from breaking their own teeth unnecessarily.

Until something better is invented for the purpose of trying guns and cartridges, strawboard racks and Pettitt pads are the only means open to the shooter, and besides, when properly used, are the best means. Both vary in thickness and hardness, the latter according to the weather. But every shooter can arrange for a trial against a gun he knows, and against hand-filled black powder cartridges. Then, if he uses his “trial horse” against the same pads and boards as the other gun, or new cartridges, he will arrive at correct comparative results. This is not only the most effective but the cheapest way. If strawboards are used, the first and last boards can be renewed for each shot. The chances of having a shot pass through an already made shot hole are too remote and unimportant to matter. Then the way to assess penetration is to count the shot that struck the first board or sheet of paper, and the number that pierced the last, arranging the last in such a position that about one-half those pellets that hit the first paper also go through the last. This takes the mean penetration of the load, and was Colonel Hawker’s method. The results will then read something like this: .41, .50, .60, .55 of total shot through, say, 20 sheets of brown paper Pettitt pad.