Gun-cleaning.—Use cold water for the purpose of cleansing the barrel, and finish by pouring in boiling water, taking care to stop the touch-hole. Shake it up and down well, and drain it from the muzzle, which will clear the chamber. The hot water greatly aids the process of drying,—one of the most important parts of gun-washing. After the washing is concluded, by looking down the barrel with the touch-hole open, you will be enabled to see into the chamber, and ascertain whether it be effectually cleared out or otherwise. The foulness of the barrel of course must be the criterion by which the person employed in cleaning it will be decided. Should it require to be scoured, to remove powder encrusted on its sides, very fine sand and hot water should be used, and care taken to rinse it out thoroughly, at the last, with boiling water, to clear the chamber of anything that may have been driven into it by the washing-rod. The material in ordinary use for gun-cleaning is tow, to which there is the objection that particles are apt to become detached from it, and lodge in the chambers. To prevent any chance of this kind, I would recommend the substitution of cloth, which will be found to answer the purpose quite as well, being at the same time free from all such hazard. It is a bad habit to fall into, that of laying by your gun loaded: let the charge be drawn after the day’s work. If you have had but a few shots, the less trouble there will be in the cleaning: a mere hot-water rinse, and a good drying, will be enough. Should your gun contain an old charge when you go out, do not put your faith in it: the odds are all in favour of its hanging fire. Squib it off, first drawing the shot, and load again while the barrels are warm; probe your touch-holes; wipe your locks within and without; and if you cannot command success afterwards, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have taken the best course to ensure it.
Every time you load, observe whether your touch-hole be free: it is but a moment’s occupation, and a certain security against a monstrous annoyance—missing fire, probably at one of your best chances during the day. In all cases of hanging or missing fire, the seat of disease is the touch-hole or chamber, if your cap has exploded: to these apply the remedy. I speak only with reference to detonators, as they have now become so very universal: of course when a flint gun is used, the mischief may be caused by a faulty flint. Your last act should be, when the day’s sport is over, before you enter the house, to let down the springs of your locks: the less stress you keep upon them, the more power and elasticity they will retain. This is the plan to make one lock wear out the best Damascus barrel.
Powder.—The names of most of the great manufacturers of gunpowder are now sufficient guarantee for the excellence of the article bearing their signatures. Purchase your supply from any respectable house, and you will be secure that it is genuine: beyond the label you need not seek. Your care, then, must be to preserve the original strength, by putting it into canisters closely corked and sealed, after first having carefully dried it,—a process for which Colonel Hawker gives this excellent recipe: “Your powder should always be properly dried, in order to do which make two or three plates very hot before the fire, and (first taking care to wipe them well, lest any particle of cinder should adhere to them) keep constantly shifting the powder from one to the other, without allowing it to remain sufficiently long in either to cool the plate. The powder will then be more effectually aired, and more expeditiously dried, than by the more common means of using only one plate, which the powder, by lying on it, soon makes cold, and therefore the plate requires to be two or three times heated.” Nothing can be added to this, save the admonition that the operation be performed at such a distance from the fire as to prevent the possibility of a spark or cinder reaching you. The surest way is to dry your powder in one room, and to heat your plates in another.
Shot.—Here is a division of my subject much less easily disposed of than the last. The selection of shot is a question upon which many of the best authorities are at issue. Some deal with it only in reference to the game for which it is intended; others consider it merely as having relation to the length and diameter of the barrel for which it is required. I recommend the middle course,—medio tutissimus ibis. Colonel Hawker tells us that “it is not so much the magnitude of the pellet, as the force with which it is driven, that does the execution.” No one can accord more cheerful fealty than I do to the generality of that first-rate sportsman’s opinions; but I cannot allow my admiration to dazzle my common sense, or to subscribe to this hypothesis. With a swan-drop, you break the leg of wild-boar or red-deer; but could any force known to the science of projectiles accomplish it with a grain of number 9, or dust-shot? The rule should be, to suit your number to your game—the exception, to your gun and its calibre. Taking the average size at which fowling-pieces are now made, and the general character of English sporting, I have no hesitation in saying that there are very few instances in which number 7 will not be found to answer the purposes of a day’s shooting. It is not the power to penetrate that fills the bag. Many a bird carries off a quarter of an ounce of lead in his body; but break his wing, and what can he do then? The advocate of small shot urges the increased space which it covers, and consequently the increased chances in favour of its hitting; but to hit your bird, and to bring him down, are two very different things. Catch him anywhere with a good-sized pellet, and the odds are that he comes to bag; stuff him with dust, and he flies away with a whole charge, unless it has encountered a vital part. It is to be remembered that I am not here addressing my observations to first-rate masters of the trigger,—to such professors as Ross, Sutton, or Osbaldiston. I have not deemed it necessary to go into the relative merits of shot upon such minute niceties as the increased rotatory motion of the larger pellets, and the like. In an epitomised treatise like this, the length of my design only extends to offering the best general hints that suggest themselves to me, as applicable to the service of the novice. To such, then, I say, in all ordinary cases, make use of number 7: never go higher, for a jack-snipe will often fly away with the full of a charger of number 9 in his body. If, however, your sport lies exclusively in thick woodlands, or where only very long shots are likely to be had, supply yourself with numbers 2 or 3; but at the same time take care to provide a long and heavy gun, that will throw them even, and not in lumps and clusters.
Percussion Caps.—Detonating guns have now been so long in general use, that the familiarity thus produced with the various properties and kinds of fulminating powders, ensures the very general perfection to which these invaluable auxiliaries of the shooter have attained. They are to be had, of an almost uniform excellence, at all the respectable gunmakers in town and country.
Wadding.—Here again is a matter on which you will find a vast variety of opinion. Some get rid of it altogether by adopting the new system of cartridges. Upon this point I do not wish to offer any of the results of my own limited experience. I have shot with these, and with average success—a low average I admit, for I have no pretensions to the name of a crack. They are, however, worth the experiment of a trial, though I am disposed to believe the success or failure of it will much depend upon the accidental properties and effects of the materials submitted to the test. To return to the sort of wadding which may best serve those who still adhere to the old system of mere powder and shot. After enumerating the various claims of paper, hat, card, and leather, Colonel Hawker gives the preference to punched pasteboard,—the thickness to increase in the ratio of the diameter of the barrel. The best that have ever come under my notice are Cherry’s prepared waddings, suited to every calibre. They are manufactured from felt which has undergone a process that prevents the accumulation of damp after firing, and are to be procured at any gunmaker’s for the cost of the materials in ordinary use. These I do recommend, and I am sure those who accord them a trial will have no reason to regret it. They cover the powder effectually, and offer but little resistance to the shot, which is all that is required of wadding. Mr. Cherry would improve upon his invention by piercing the waddings intended to cover the shot, as it would facilitate the operation of loading, while the shooter made the distinction by carrying those for the powder in his left-hand pocket, and those for the shot in his right.
The Powder-flask.—It is strange that, among the many ingenious improvements effected in the implements of the shooter, the powder-flask, certainly the most important of all, should have been left in its present dangerous condition. I am aware that an attempt, and a praiseworthy one, was made some years ago by Mr. Egg, to reduce the chances of accident which the present construction of the flask involves; but I ask why has not some contrivance, without any of the old leaven in it, been suggested and effected? In the shot-belt the charger is wholly detached—where no risk, at all events, would follow, were it otherwise—whereas, when loading with powder, the charger, with the flask attached, is introduced into the muzzle of the gun, so that should it, by any accident, become ignited, an explosion (and most probably a fatal one) of the whole ensues as matter of consequence. However, to deal with it as you find it, with proper precaution, when you fill your charger let back the spring gradually, that no chance may be given away in the event of a bit of flint, or any substance that might throw out a spark, being struck by it. Never lose sight of the material which your flask contains. Let nothing induce you to fire with it in your hand. If a chance shot offer while you are loading a discharged barrel, throw it behind you, if there is not time to return it to your pocket.
Loading.—I have not thought it necessary to occupy any of my limited space with the shot-belt, because it is so simple, and at the same time so excellent in construction, that the merest novice cannot be astray in the use of it. Not so is it with the important office—that of loading your gun aright, although it is impossible to lay down any rules for it applicable to every case. Experience alone will enable you so to proportion your charge that you shall come at the full powers of which your gun is capable. The gauge, the length, the weight—all must be taken into account, and provided for. For the ordinary run of fowling-pieces, the following is a fair proportion:—A shot-charger that holds an ounce and a half of shot may be filled to the brim with powder, which wall serve to load with, as also to prime: the same measure filled up with shot will constitute your charge of lead. By these proportions, you can thus regulate the chargers of your belts and flasks. Against this system it is contended, by the ultra-particular, that it is a bad one in reference to powder, which is manufactured without regard to weight, only the projectile force being considered. These are minutiæ, however, into which I do not desire to introduce the learner. He will have enough to do with the more immediate affairs of preparing his nerves, forming a judgment upon sight and distance, and laying a foundation upon a basis of right principle and prompt performance, without which he will have little business upon that arena to which I am about to introduce him, after a long but still a necessary preface.
Shooting. The Field.—Unless where some positive mental or physical prohibition exists, a certain degree of excellence and dexterity in every art and science is open to such as seek with care and perseverance. Thus, although, from natural causes, every man cannot aspire to the honour of becoming a crack shot, there is scarcely any that may not acquire the art of shooting tolerably well. The sooner the essay is made, the better the chance of its success; and as my pupil is supposed to be in this condition, I proceed, without further introduction, to offer such practical rules and maxims as may best serve to promote the end he should have in view—that of becoming cautious in the management, and steady in the use of his gun.