The Complete English Wing Shot

by George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell

Besides, the majority of gun-shops are stocked heavily with second-hand and second-quality guns, that can be bought from £15 to £25 each, and the most difficult second-hand guns to find in London are those of the best makers, who only turn out one quality, namely the best, which are worth more.

It would be an invidious selection to name the best gun-makers, and impossible besides, for their products are the offspring of the brain, eye, and hand of the cleverest workmen,—sometimes, but rarely, their nominal makers,—and these craftsmen are human: they change, and even die. That is the reason that the best guns of one season do not always come from the same shops as the best of another. But not one amateur expert in a hundred, and not one shooter in ten thousand, will be able to detect the difference by external examination. It is there, and is important; and some day the gun that has not passed a master in the prime of critical observation will have an accident and break down, just at the wrong moment probably; whereas the best work of a best gun-maker will wear out its barrels, and then another pair, before anything goes wrong with its works, and before its splendid fitting and superior metal allow the barrels and the action to suggest divorce proceedings, by gaping in each other’s presence.

But if one cannot name the best makers and continue to live, it is possible to get over the difficulty by suggesting that most gun-makers have price lists of second-hand guns in their possession, and from these lists the status of the various gun-makers in the country can be gathered. But even this is not quite a reliable method, for those makers who turn out second and third quality guns may be represented by their best, or their worst, in these lists, whereas the men who have only one sort can only be represented by the best.

Then, again, the fashion changes, and guns which a few years ago were best and latest fashion are soon out-dated, and then they rank in price with second or third quality guns that are made in the latest fashion. Thus a hammerless gun is not now fashionable; it must be hammerless ejector, and for choice with a single trigger. Then hammer guns of the best make can be bought for a sixth of their original cost, just as muzzle-loaders are totally unsaleable except in the Colonies.

Instead, therefore, of giving 180 guineas for a pair of hammerless ejectors by a best maker, the novice may for about a third of the sum procure a pair in every way as good by the same maker, if he foregoes the ejector part of the latest fashion. But, in order to make sure of fair treatment, dealing only with the most reputable establishments is advised, because it has been known that the less particular traders have themselves altered an old-fashioned gun into an ejector, and sold it as the gun of a first-rate maker, whereas it would have been more properly described as their own work. However, there is always a check on this kind of thing, because every gun is numbered by those makers whose weapons are worth having, and a letter to the maker, giving the number and description of the gun, will probably be the cause of detection of any fraud of this kind.

In order satisfactorily to buy second-hand guns, a shooter should know exactly what bend, length of stock, and cast on or off he takes, and should also be able to measure these dimensions for himself; for it is not wise to have a second-hand gun altered to fit, not even if it is done by its own maker.

The best way is not to throw up a gun in the shop and buy it by the feel. There it may feel to fit when it does not do so; and it is possible to discard as ill-fitting the very gun that is exactly right. It is only out of doors at moving objects that most people handle a gun as they do at game. Consequently it is cheap in the end to go to a shooting school and be measured for a gun. There the beginner will be tested in every way and for every class of shot and angle of aim. It is not intended to suggest that shooting schools do not make mistakes, for they do. But the wise man will not be satisfied until he has been able to handle the try gun in a satisfactory manner when bent to his proposed measure. That is to say, the schoolmaster and the pupil have got to agree before either are likely to be right, and if the pupil cannot agree with one master he can try another.

The author knows one fine performer who placed himself in the hands of two experts in close succession. The stock measurement of one was cast-on, and a good deal of it; that of the other was cast-off, and also much of it. He had guns built to each. Naturally one might say they were both wrong, but as a matter of extraordinary fact they were both right; for this fine shooter performs equally well with both guns, and would probably do so with any other weapon. Of course he is the exception, and it would be unwise for others to attempt to shoot alternately with two guns as different as these are, because the practice with one would be unlearning for the other.

The object of taking much trouble to get a true measure, in writing, is that the testing of many guns, by putting them to the shoulder, alters a shooter’s method of doing this; and although the change may be only slight and temporary, it is enough to prevent an accurate selection in a gun-shop. The written measure reduces the number of guns to be tried, or handled, by 90 per cent., which greatly assists the process of selection, not only in the way named above, but by allowing more time for a thorough trial of each.

If a young shooter is going to shoot in parties, and not by himself, the bore of his gun is practically settled for him. It must be 12 bore, because otherwise he can be no help to other shooters in the lending of cartridges, nor they to him. This is very important, and becomes more so in exact degree as bags increase. The ammunition cart cannot be everywhere at once, and the work to be done by a host’s servants should never be unnecessarily added to when they are most busy.