Show Cs CsNEWS FOR GUNNERS The Latest Improvements in Shooting Appliances SOME VERY VALUABLE HINTS Bow to Regulate the Scatterinc of Shot A New Shell Yhe Corrector and its Use i NEW YORK Oct 29 lS90Special correspondence I cor-respondence of THE HERALD One of the most recent discoveries of the gunmakers is a method of increasing tho range of any gun from forty yards or so to one hundred or even one hundred and fifty yards at will Most sportsmen understand that by varying the number and position of the wads in a cartridge they can cause the shot to spread Tide or shoot close with almost al-most any gun and to the novice nothing can be more interesting than to take his gun during the summer and demonstrate this fact on paper targets but beyond that few have any definite idea of how it is to be done The most efficient old method was to to run a melted mixture of bees wax and tallow in among the shot but the satisfactory sat-isfactory resultof this was found to dee de-e nd so much upon the temperature at which shells had been kept that it was seldom sel-dom used except for deer or bear The new device is known as the Shrap nell shell and consists of a brass ball slightly smaller than the bore of the gun which is divided into two halves each half being fitted with two smaller flanges each flange having a tiny hole in itthrough which a steel wire can be passed The shell is filled with any size of shot desired and the wire being passed through the holes the halves are held together making a solid ball At the bottom end of the shell thick felt wad is fitted of the size to ut the bore of the gun The cartridge is loaded with powder in the usual way with tho usual wads and on the top of these the Shrap Dell shell is forced down so that the wad at the bottom of the wire comes next to the wads over the powder and the brass shell lies snug withrc the cartridge When the gun is fired the wad fits the barrel and prevents pre-vents any escae of gas and so leaves the y C CI N 1HE Tvf 4111LY W c J i s > R UL OPHJETE muzzle behind the shell As it strikes the air the wind catches tho edges of the wad I which is slightly larger than the circumference circum-ference of the shell and so draws tho wire I slowly out and sets free the two halves of the shell when the shot spreads as if just t lea ing the muzzle of the gun With this equipment I have shot curlews at a distance dis-tance of one hundred and forty seven yards with an ordinary twelvebore gun of which the average ranee may be said to be fifty to I sixty yards By cutting the wire with a pair of sharp nippers being careful not to leave any rough overhanging edges to catch in the small Hinge holes the spread of tho shot can be made to take place at almost any distance as the shorter the wire the i sooner it is withdrawn by the force of the wind on the wad and the shorter the range at which the shot liberated These shells are a great acquisition to the seabird shooter especially those who shoot along the shore as they give the maximum range with the minimum weight to carry an eightpound gun having the range of one weighing ten or eleven pounds For the land or forest sportsmen they are equally useful especially in case one unexpectedly meets bear or other large ame as the wire can be bent over the brass shell bv the fingers in an Instant and the shotshell becomes be-comes a solid bullet with an accurate deadline dead-line range eighty yards They aro made to fit four eight ten twelve or sixteen bore guns and are imported from Edinburgh Edin-burgh I j J d r 7n1 t S r They can be used in a muzzleloading gun I by having a ramrod made with a tubular iron end which would fit over the wire and down on to the brass shell Hitherto the practice has always been to place the choke which governs the speed of the shot in the barrels of the guns The new idea is to give the gun barrel a cylinder cylin-der finish without a choke which gives an open well spread pattern of shot at a thirty yard range The choke is placed in what is called the attachable muzzle which consists literally of a piece of barrel two I inches long to be firmly fixed to the cylinder cylin-der barrel by screws thereby increasing the range of the gun to sixty or seventy I yards In this connection it may be as well to I mention that I have recently seen choko defined by one or two daily papers in answer an-swer to correspondents as a constricting of the muzzel of a gun this is right as far as it goes but there is such a thing as a recess choke which is exactly the opposite I oppo-site of a constriction and to many minds is the preferable choke of the two as there is no danger ot a wad jambing in the barrel A good thing to know is how to tell when a pun is choked and to what extent ex-tent To do this with a breechloading gun lower the barrels place the breech to thee the-e es and raise the muzzle until the light shined full into them then slowly lower tho muzzle and watch the way the shadows steal into the barrel If it enters and progresses down both sides with even sido lines the gun is cylinder cylin-der The curve in the side lines will give the amount of choke either recess or otherwise With a muzzle loader it needs an expert he tells by the pattern a certain cer-tain ranges and by the feel of the wad as it is pushed down the barrel Another imported im-ported article which is worth attention is 1i1r1 I j k I 1J 1 t I I 1 I it I II Co CoN51l tr9 C 0KE RECESS GOIE > the Kynoch brass shell We have had brass shells galore and have got heartily tired of them with their stiff edges and ceaseless clang in the pocket when emptied and we did not think the increased rapidity of shooting worth the much advanced cost The Kynoch shell however is a very different dif-ferent affair It is a thin light shell of malleable brass which when loaded in the usual way is crimped into a point holding the wads over the shot secure These are the same price as good paper cartridges and so may be thrown away If desired they can be reloaded to almost any extent I have one that has been fired two hundred and seventeen times and is in good order yet Regularity of shooting is not all that is to be gained by their use owing to their being so much thinnor than paper ther occupy less room in the chamber cham-ber of the breech accommodate a large charge and pradtically produce from a twelvebore gun Jtbe shot pattern and execution ex-ecution of a tenbore no mean advantage as any sportsman well knows The most valuable invention however is what is called a shooting corrector Every one knows that the proper way to shoot is to shoot with both eyes wide open but how few of the older shots not to mention the inexperienced sportsmen have trained themselves to accomplish this feat And yet it is very easy To demonstrate it stick up a piece of dark paper on a wall gaze at it with both eyes pull up your gun to the shoulder then squint with the right eye along the barrels and you will find the muzzels cover the mark I Try this on a moving bird and if your nerve is firm and you do not press the trigger trig-ger just too soon or just too late you will hit it But the average mans nerve is not I firm just then he wants squint and mane I sure he hesitates and he is lost The l shooting cor ctor remedies all this without I with-out your kn ring it That is where its ring value comes L i It is a small disc of rubber rub-ber the siz 3f a nickle fitted on a small metal arm a inch or so lung which screws into a small nole made in the pocketplate of your gun on the lefthand side Put the gun up and shoot and you will find you never saw the corrector But it got in its fine work just the same In this way the right eyo should govern the aim but the left eye being defective in about seventy per cent of men deflects it more or less Put the gun to your shoulder again point the muzzle at a marK close the right eye and you find the corrector small as it is completely blocks the sight pf the left eye and compels the aim to be correct This is the first important point but there are others Taking the case of a bird rising on the wing liko a duck it is necessary neces-sary to shoot a foot or so above H If one eyo is closed the sight of tho bird by the other eye is blocked by the barrels and he cannot tell if he aims one foot or six above it The corrector renders the vision clear all round and tho distance can be guaged to an inch and still the sight of the left eye is blocked as regards the muzzle To render this more plain take an old J t < 1 stovepipe hat and push the muzzle of a small rifle abou an inch through the cen tre of the crown Close the left eye and try to hit a mark twenty or fifty yards r C ut1 Tt LFv cQOR away You can not the hat blocks the sight The man who shoots with both eyes I open can do it every time To him the hat becomes invisible I To demonstrate this take a silver dollar hold the bottom edge by the finger and thumb hold ita foot from the face closing the right eye and move jt until the dollar covers some small object I I looked at then open the right ee and the I dollar will appear transparent the left eye I will seem to see through it but it does nut it sees below above around and the right eye only sees the object behind thedollar This is the theory of the corrector I do not believe it is patented in this country and if not any one can easily make it A novelty that will be shortly on view is a fourbarreled gun intended for quick shooting Each barrel is fired successively the four being all aligned to one common centre For rot hunters this is an unique weapon Another for the same purpose is the Gye gun or Guy gun as it is called This is a gun fitted wltn a moveable breech piece which contains the cartridge chambers cham-bers and which slides into place on a very ingenious method The idea is to have four breech pieces and have a man to load them and hand them quick as wanted The breech can be adjusted without dropping drop-ping the barrels A curious invention in large punt puns for wildfowl shooting is by Sir Ralph Payne Galhvay the Irish authority on guns It is in closing the breech Instead of opening in the usual manner two caps one for each barrel unscrew un-screw to receive the cartridges and are then screwed into the barrel chambers to be fired The only objection to this is the probability of feathers etc getting in tho grooves of tho screw and clogging them just when least wanted WILL P POND |