For sport in India, when the sportsman is limited to one rifle, a .500 Express, shooting a charge of 5 drs. of powder and a long bullet, and capable of also firing, when required, the shorter bullet and 4¼ drs. for the lighter kinds of game, will probably be found the most useful all-round weapon.
If, in the first instance, the barrels of a .500 Express are properly constructed for shooting the two kinds of cartridges, good shooting may be made with both, with the same sighting; and a most useful arrangement this will prove to be, the heavy cartridge being very deadly for all game found in India, with the exception of the pachydermatous animals, while for the deer tribe and for practice the lighter charge is all sufficient. Perhaps the most useful battery on a small scale for India is a .450 Express for deer, and a 12- or 16-bore Paradox, which does well as a shot-gun, and is also most effective as a rifle.
Ball-Guns.—One of the advantages which the ball-gun has over the ordinary rifle is its lightness and handiness compared with the latter, but the serious drawback to its wide use was, in the first place, that it would fire spherical bullets only, and consequently lacked penetration; and, in the second, that it gave but irregular shooting, except at very short ranges. This state of things has been completely reversed by the introduction of the ‘Paradox’ gun, the invention of Colonel Fosbery, V.C. In the ‘Paradox’ all the advantages connected with the lightness and handiness of a gun have been retained, while great accuracy when fired as a rifle with a smashing conical bullet has been added.
Since Colonel Fosbery’s invention was brought to the notice of sportsmen, the ‘Colindian’ and other systems of ball-guns have been introduced.
The result has been quite a revolution in the manufacture of weapons for use against game of all kinds, from the larger kind of deer up to elephants.
Take, for example, the 12-bore ‘Paradox.’ This weapon has all the advantages of quickness and handiness of mounting to the shoulder, so essential in snap-shooting, and yet fires a conical bullet (see fig. 15), hollow or solid, up to a hundred yards or more with the accuracy of a good Express. For all practical purposes, and with all game up to and including tiger or bear, a ‘Paradox’ weighing from 7 to 7½ lbs. has all the necessary qualities of a 10-lb. rifle, and has, moreover, the handiness of a 12-bore shot-gun, discharging shot quite as well as a good cylinder or modified choke. The man who uses a ‘Paradox’ need not take any other gun, a saving in the size of one’s battery worthy of consideration; but perhaps the strongest argument in favour of this weapon is that the man who has much snap-shooting to do (from a howdah, for instance) is much more likely to be successful when handling the gun he uses every day and often than he would be if trying to make snap-shots with an ordinary rifle, used rarely by comparison, and perhaps firing so heavy a charge as to make practice with it ‘no joke.’
Fig. 15.—12-bore ‘Paradox’ bullets
Hollow point
Cross cut