_The_
American Shotgun
By Charles Askins
_Copiously illustrated with halftones from
photographs and diagrammatic drawings
by the author._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
MCMX
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL, LONDON, ENGLAND
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
PART I
I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ARMS PAST AND PRESENT 17
II. CONSTRUCTION OF SHOTGUNS 25
III. THE FRAME 35
IV. GUN STOCKS 51
V. TRIGGERS AND TRIGGER PULL AND THE SINGLE TRIGGER 61
VI. THE MATTER OF ENGRAVING 73
VII. GRADES AND PRICES 84
VIII. REPEATING AND AUTOMATIC SHOTGUNS 105
IX. FITTING THE GUN TO THE MAN 114
X. GAUGES AND CHARGES 130
XI. CHOKES, PATTERNS AND VELOCITIES 154
XII. THE CARE OF THE GUN 179
PART II SCIENCE OF WING-SHOOTING
I. WING-SHOOTING PROBLEMS 191
II. AIMING 202
III. SNAP-SHOOTING--DELIBERATE SWING--RAPID SWING 220
IV. PRIMARY LESSONS 235
V. SOME SHOOTING PSYCHOLOGY 249
VI. SPEED OF FLIGHT--WHERE TO HOLD--JUDGING DISTANCES 265
VII. HINTS ON SHOOTING DIFFERENT GAME BIRDS 281
VIII. FIELD ETIQUETTE 308
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Drawings Showing Bolting Mechanisms 20
Drawings of Quintuple Fastening and of Rotary Cross-bolt 21
Stevens Compressed Steel Barrels 30
Ithaca Bolting Mechanism 39
Sideplate Lock 42
Tumbler Safety 46
The Snap Fore-end 55
The Parker Ejector and the Ithaca Ejector 57
The Hunter Single Trigger 66
The Infallible Single Trigger 67
Wealth of Ornamentation on The Sauer Gun 74
Style of Engraving of the Winchester Company 77
The Diamond Daly--German Style of Engraving 80
The Baker Brush; Smith Knockabout; Stevens Field Grade 87
The Fox “Sterlingworth” 90
The B. Grade, Fox 92
The Parker Knockabout 93
Smith Field and Trap Ejector 94
Baker Paragon Grade 95
Parker $100 Grade 96
The Stevens Field and Trap and the Baker Expert 98
The $750 Grade L. C. Smith 99
The Highest Grade Sauer 100
The $400 Grade Ithaca 101
The $500 Diamond Daly 102
The $500 Fox 103
The Winchester, Remington and Stevens Repeating Shotguns 106
Gunstock Measuring 115
The Monte Carlo Comb 120
Measurements of Stock for Single Trigger 125
The 16-Gauge Sauer 142
The 16-Gauge Marlin and the 20-Gauge Parker 147
An Idealized Pattern of a Modified Choke 161
Method of Analyzing a Pattern 163
Size of Circles in Which Various Degrees of Choke Will Throw
Their Patterns 165
Pattern Showing the Futility of Shooting Large Shot in Small
Gauges, Open Bored 177
Binocular Shooting, or Gun Pointing 208
Gun Pointing--Both Eyes Open 212
Targets With Rifle, Showing the Result of Gun Pointing Without
Sights 219
Diagram Showing Rough Snap, Semi-snap, and Rapid Swing 221
The Difference in Lead Between a Snap Shot and a Swinging Shot 229
Estimating a Bird’s Distance by His Apparent Size and the
Plainness of his Markings 275
Estimating the Distance to Hold Ahead in Lengths of the Bird 278
Turning on Him. (From photograph.) 284
Shooting High for a Rising Bird. (From photograph.) 289
Shooting an Incomer. (From photograph.) 304
Right Way to Carry a Gun Afield. (From photograph.) 319
Proper Position in Waiting for a Shot. (From photograph.) 320
PREFACE
A preface can be considered a word of apology, an explanation, or a
bit of spice to smell good and tempt the jaded appetite into eating
a concoction. No apology should be required for writing a book on
shotguns at this time, and now if ever the sportsman’s appetite ought
to be keen for just such a work.
However cleverly written, an essay on guns soon becomes old and
valueless. Changes and improvements in fire arms have taken place so
rapidly that a treatise on such weapons dated twenty-five years ago
might as well have been restricted to the muzzle-loader. Probably it
will be the same in the future, though we of to-day are prone to think
that little further improvement in double guns is possible.
Clever magazine articles on sporting arms appear from time to time, but
in book form nothing of note on shotguns has issued from an American
press in the last generation. Such works as we have on the subject are
from English authorities, and, unfortunately, are merely more or less
carefully disguised advertisements of some particular make of English
arm. Reading one of these volumes, the conclusion would be unavoidable
that there is really only one country that can build a shotgun worth
owning, England, and but one weapon there that is quite worth while,
the particular arm to which the book is devoted. Other British guns are
known to the author apparently, but are so generally inferior to the
author’s favorite that simply mentioning their names would be a waste
of valuable space. All this despite the fact that the books purport to
treat of British guns in general.
The author is a strong believer in American guns. He holds that we can
not only build a better gun for the money than any country, but as good
a weapon as can be purchased anywhere, for any amount of money.
He hopes to show in the pages that follow a spirit of fairness and
justice toward all our gunbuilders, without fear or partiality or
prejudice. Where he has ventured to criticise it has been in the
interest of the reader as tending to future improvements. Neither has
he considered it necessary to proclaim that America alone makes fine
guns. What he is willing to affirm is that in model and mechanics our
shotguns are superior and that the system of manufacture developed here
permits our factories to put more value into a gun than is possible
elsewhere, except in such grade of arms as to make the cost of no
consideration.
The information and ideas contained in the succeeding chapters are
mostly the results of a personal study of fire arms. Perhaps it is not
a graceful thing to say, but the author can acknowledge himself little
indebted to any gunbuilder for inside or technical information. Such
facts as in the nature of things would be known only to the builders
have generally been withheld under the plea that they are trade secrets.
For instance, no manufacturer would give the inside diameter of the
bore of one of his barrels at all points, under the apparent belief
that this would betray his system of boring. This is rather absurd
on the face of it since any gunsmith could take the measurements at
will. Perhaps one of the builders puts the matter fairly from their
standpoint when he states that, “there are a good many things which the
general public is fully as well off without knowing.” Notwithstanding
this, the writer, not believing in the ignorance is bliss foolishness,
has given all the conclusions at which he could arrive by a close study
of the subject.
Care has been taken in this book not to give special mention to
any make of arm, but all our prominent gunbuilders will be found
well represented in the illustrations. Many of the latter are from
photographs taken expressly for this book, and never before appearing
in print.
In the wing-shooting department of the book the writer has found
himself obliged to blaze a path of his own. With such text books as
might have been available he was unable to agree for the most part.
The system of wing-shooting here set forth is his own, and if it tells
anything will add to the sum of what has been said before because it is
different.
Thirty years of active life afield have given him convictions that for
himself personally, to put it in a Rooseveltian way, outweighed the
conclusions of others at such points as we failed to agree. If the
writer is to acknowledge himself indebted to any source for theories
and shooting principles, it is not to books, but to the many expert
shots who have tramped cover and field with him in the course of many
long shooting days. If the book is anything it is practical, and where
theories have been advanced they have been proved in practice or cast
aside.
In writing on this subject the author discovered fresh fields and
coverts untouched. Since the days of Frank Forester, Lewis, and Thos.
Alexander little has been written of the art of wing-shooting that
merits long life or much consideration. Pigeon and trap work have been
well handled, and others have confined themselves to wild-fowling, but
nothing has been written of a general nature on the principles and
science of wing-shooting.
CHAS. ASKINS.
Ames, Oklahoma, August 16th, 1910.
CHAPTER I
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ARMS PAST AND PRESENT
It has been the custom of writers when treating of shotguns to begin
at the beginning, tracing the evolution of the weapon down from the
crossbow to the invention of gunpowder, through the successive stages
of firelock, wheel-lock, arquebus, flintlock, percussion lock, the
French Lefeucheux breechloader, with locking lever under the fore-end,
the English under grip with lever under the guard, the top lever hammer
gun with a bolt through lugs under the barrels, the extension rib gun
that was finally bolted through this extension, and finally to the most
modern hammerless.
A treatise on oldtime and obsolete weapons is all interesting enough to
the student of gun development, but everybody cannot be a specialist
on this subject, many having other business in life. Of course where
a man has an expert knowledge on any subject there is a temptation
to display it, but the author means to show a consideration for his
readers that will not keep them cracking away at the ancient arquebus
before getting at the kernel of the modern breechloader.
We can safely ignore the muzzle-loader to-day, though not so many years
since it was considered a weapon good enough for any man. Indeed, the
hammer breechloader scarcely deserves a mention, for their use is
steadily becoming restricted to the very cheapest output, and it is
hardly conceivable that anyone would purchase a hammer gun from choice
though he might continue to carry some old favorite which had become
endeared through years of successful use.
We might note, in passing, that every improvement of the gun from
its very invention to the present day has been steadily fought by
the conservative. Military authorities very positively decided that
the clumsy firelock was inferior as a weapon of war to the long bow.
Experienced sportsmen of their day were outspoken in the belief that
the percussion lock was not so well adapted to heavy loads as the
flintlock, besides it entailed extra expense and trouble in the way
of procuring and handling caps. The veteran gunner would have none of
the breechloader when it first appeared, declaring it inferior to the
muzzle-loader both in pattern and penetration, in addition to quickly
becoming shaky and generally worthless.
Then the hammerless had a long and hot fight for a foothold. It was
pronounced a most dangerous invention of the devil, this arm that must
be carried around at full cock with even the owner unable to perceive
whether the hammers were up or down.
By and by, when extension ribs came, the conservative gunmakers took a
hand, declaring that the arm was strong enough and handsomer without
the useless, ugly extension. To this day a few of the old English
gunsmiths persist in refusing to build a gun with the rib extending
into the breech. Moreover, when these ribs were at last bolted through,
or wedge-bolted from the rear, this entailed further contention, and
one of our most popular manufacturers still absolutely refuses to bolt
through the rib of his gun, though, in the nature of things, he will
have to yield finally to the demands of his patrons.
[Illustration: (1) Single lug bolt; (2) double fastening, lug bolt, and
dollshead extension rib; (3) triple bolted, two lug bolts and rib bolt;
(4) quadruple fastening, two lug bolts and dollshead extension rib with
rear wedge bite.]
The latest and strongest models of American guns have omitted the bolts
through the lugs under the barrels, and it is the belief of the writer
that all gunmakers will in the end discard them as so much useless
machinery. A multiplicity of bolts that can only accomplish the work of
one are not to be defended upon mechanical grounds, yet one man will be
slow to see what another observes at a glance.
Even choke boring had its enemies who maintained that such a system
of boring caused stringing of the shot, that the missiles crossed and
would not fly straight, that this style of boring tore up the game
at short range and would not pattern closer at the long ranges than a
cylinder. They asked how a gun could be supposed to show an increased
velocity when the charge was jammed and checked in its passage through
the muzzle.
[Illustration: (5) Quintuple fastening, double bolts in lugs, extension
rib with shoulder bearing, and through cross-bolt, Purdey side-clips;
(6) rotary cross-bolt.]
Self-ejection has not yet won the position it should occupy, many
clinging to the extractor because it is simple and good enough. Yet it
need not be doubted that all double guns with any pretense to quality
will at last be made self-ejecting and the arm without this improvement
will only be out of date the earlier.
Strangely enough as shotguns have gone on steadily and even rapidly
improving with the march of time, they have nevertheless become more
reasonable in price, grade for grade. The Old Joe Manton muzzle-loader
cost up into the hundreds of dollars for a strong, plain gun. A
better weapon could be purchased to-day for a ten-dollar bill, and
at the price of the ancient weapon the modern breechloader would
be incomparably superior, especially in fit, balance, and artistic
appearance. The youth of to-day fails to appreciate his good fortune in
being able to purchase a sterling arm at a trifling cost.
I can well remember the first breechloader that I bought myself. I put
all the money into it that I had and it was supposed to contain all the
improvements that heart could desire. The hammers, when down, stood
above the frame like mules’ ears, but the dealer dwelt upon the fact
that they were pretty well below the line of sight when the piece was
cocked. The arm had a very well finished stock and was line engraved,
but it shot to pieces in two years and was thereafter constantly on a
visit to the gunsmith to be tightened up. When the hammerless appeared,
I laid it aside without regret, though I never had a better shooting
gun or one that I could handle more effectively.
American gunbuilders have developed more rapidly than other armorers
in the matter of constructing strong, serviceable arms at a moderate
cost. This is partly due to universal progress in gunbuilding, partly
to replacing the old, costly damascus and twist combinations of iron
and steel with plain compressed steel, but it is more the result of
ingeniously devised machinery which takes the place of laborious hand
processes. Then, too, our builders have so systematized their work that
every artisan is not a gunsmith, _per se_, but is an expert at some
recognized and defined division of the work. One man is an adept at
putting barrels together; another has a national reputation as a barrel
borer; while a third man may have put in a lifetime in finishing locks
and bolts. Possibly one mechanic may never have touched tool to gun
except in finishing gun stocks; and indeed the selection of wood in the
rough from which these stocks are made is a trade of itself. And so it
goes through every department of the work from breech to muzzle.
The result of a general use of machinery and a specialization in
mechanics is that guns can be turned out at a small percentage of what
they once cost, the arm at the same time being a stronger and better
weapon, which would be true even without late inventions that bring the
piece to the present date.
Another thing that has contributed to the reduction in cost of arms
to-day, as well as to their simplicity and sterling merit, is that
the patents on different inventions have run out, thus permitting the
manufacturer to select what he considers best and most available,
a locking bolt here, a cocking hook there, a coil mainspring the
invention of one man, and an ejector mechanism that has proved itself
by strenuous service. In this way better arms are built than could ever
have resulted from the mechanical genius of any one man. The world is
growing smaller and man is finding it more and more difficult to keep
secrets either of trade or war. Meantime we who are reaping the benefit
have no fault to find.