On the other hand, it is quite permissible to take a 20 bore on to the moors to shoot over dogs in early August. Some people think that a 20 bore shoots closer than a 12 gauge, but that is a mistake. It spreads its shot quite as much as the larger bore, but it has fewer shot, and consequently the pattern is thinner. Few people have either kind bored to shoot as closely as possible, but when each is so bored the 12 gauge will always be the more powerful, unless heavy 20 bores are built to shoot 12 gauge loads.
This does not imply that a shooter will always get the most out of a 12 bore.
Lightness of weight assists walking, and also quickness in shooting, so that it is possible in some hands for the worst gun to do the most work. It is the fashion to use a pretty heavy gun for driving; the greater the head of game there is, the more certainly does one require a gun to kick but little; and there is no cure for kick except weight. For shooting over dogs the weight is generally a greater objection than recoil, because the number of shots fired will not be likely to be so many as to make a heavy recoil unbearable by too frequent repetition. Still, for the sake of a slight difference of weight, it is not usually necessary to have different guns for driving and for shooting over dogs. There is a mistaken idea that only a heavy gun will shoot a heavy charge well, but this is not so. Some years ago there were a good many 4¾ lb. 12 gauge guns built to shoot full 12 bore charges. Some of them shot as well as 7 lb. guns, but there are good and bad of all weights and gauges.
It is by no means urged that a 12 bore for walking up partridges and shooting grouse over dogs should be as light as those “feather-weights” were, because recoil was unpleasant from them, even if only a few shots were fired. The contention is merely that a light 12 bore will kill as well as a heavy one, provided it carries the same charge and load, and its barrels are as long as the heavy gun’s tubes. The only possible difference will be caused by the greater jump of the light gun, and this jump may in some light weapons uncentre the pattern. That is not a subject to speculate about, but is one for trial.
But it is not only light guns that sometimes do not shoot true. No double rifles can by measurement ever be put together so that both barrels shoot to the same place. This is accomplished by trial and regulating. It is done by wedging the muzzles farther apart or bringing them nearer together as the case may require. In the making of shot guns measurement is supposed to be enough; but a large percentage of guns do not centre their loads on the spot aimed at, and the two barrels frequently shoot to a different centre. Possibly choke bores are most liable to this fault; at any rate, they are much more easily detected, because their patterns are smaller than those of cylinders, and a variation from centre is more easily noticed.
When this inaccuracy occurs, people may say that the shooter is in fault and not the gun. Gunners are satisfied with such statements, although they would reject a rifle that shot with a quarter of the inaccuracy.
A gun-maker’s business is to show true shooting, and to keep a gun tester to do this work, and to show that all guns sold shoot true and well, and that all rifles can make small groups. Naturally the young shooter will believe himself to be in fault when he sees these men make central shots time after time with a gun or rifle that will not do it in novice hands. But some of these experts discover at the first shot where a barrel throws, and make the necessary allowance for it in each succeeding shot.
In order to be able to do this, a man must have wonderful confidence in himself; but some experts are well able to shoot one shot only from each barrel of a rifle, and then regulate it with no more evidence. Others are obliged to make a group with each barrel in order to negative their own faults of aim, or “let off.” That will possibly be the young shooter’s form; and if it is unfortunately so, all the same he is the man who is going to use the weapon, not the gun-maker’s expert, and consequently his own test is the best for him, no matter how blundering it may be.
There is no wisdom in being satisfied or put off with anything less than perfect central shots of the shot gun. The relative position of the shot centre in regard to a small bull’s eye is not easy to put into figures, but it can be grasped by the mind at a glance. The author has seen some close-shooting shot guns that only put the edge of the 30 inch circle of shot on to the bull’s eye. This represents an inaccuracy of 15 inches, and is very bad indeed, but 3 inches of inaccuracy is more than equally bad, because it ought not to exist; it is the worse because it is so difficult to find out. At the best there is only a 15 inch limit of inaccuracy of aim in a 30 inch pattern at going-away game. That is small enough for most people who shoot swerving partridges, twisting snipe, and rising grouse. Three inches of inaccuracy of gun reduces the man’s limit of inaccuracy to 12 inches. Is it enough? The author believes that most guns are out double as much as this 3 inches at 40 yards, and that the reason is that they are not usually treated to the same process of regulation spoken of for double rifles.
Were it not that the shot strings out into a long column with as much as 30 feet between the first and the last pellet at 40 to 50 yards range, it would be barely possible to kill at all when the pace of the game makes great allowances in front necessary.