The Game-Birds of the Coasts and Lakes of the Northern States of America / A full account of the sporting along our sea-shores and inland waters, with a comparison of the merits of breech-loaders and muzzle-loaders

by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

These being the greater disadvantages, the Dead Shot then adverts to the minor ones:

“On reloading, it is necessary to draw out the case of the discharged cartridge before inserting a full one. It is true the discharged cartridge may generally be withdrawn almost instantly; but if intended to be refilled and used another day, it must be carefully replaced in the cartridge-case in one of the divisional compartments, for if carried loose in the pocket it is soon spoilt. Therefore, if these important minutiæ be taken into consideration, it will be found, after all, that there is very little saving of time in re-charging the breech-loader.”

This is the acme of captiousness; as though the cases might not be placed in the pocket till a favorable opportunity presented to return them to their compartments. To any one who, with numbed hands on a bitterly cold December morning, is watching for ducks at daybreak, and who looks to reloading as a difficulty and recapping an impossibility, the large, easily handled cartridge is a blessing that he will never forget; and any one who, having used a breech-loader, will pretend that it cannot be loaded on the average infinitely faster than the muzzle-loader, is guilty of prevarication. In truth it can be reloaded in less time than the other gun can be recapped.

“With regard to refilling the cartridge-cases, the makers warrant that the discharged cases may be refilled and used again with the same facility and effect, some of them two or three times. This, however, is not always so; on the contrary, the cases expand so much on explosion of the powder, that when refilled they are sometimes not only difficult to thrust into the barrel, but on second explosion they stick so fast that in many instances the copper end comes off, on the case being attempted to be withdrawn, and the paper is left inside. And then, unless a loading-rod is at hand with which to force out the paper case, your breech-loader is powerless.”

Were it not for the next clause, one could suppose that Dead Shot had never heard of an extractor, which is a little instrument not so large as a cone wrench, always carried in the shooter’s pocket, and with which the paper can be pulled out in about two seconds’ time, without possibility of failure; until this is done, and for those two seconds, “your breech-loader is indeed powerless.”

“None but those who have experienced the difficulty of extracting a bursted cartridge-case, which adheres firmly to the sides of the barrel, can imagine the annoyance it causes; and if the cases get damp, or if refilled ones are used, the difficulty is constantly occurring. And then the ‘extractor’ is of little use, beyond pulling away the brass bottom of the cartridge and leaving the paper case more difficult to remove.”

New cases, whether they burst or not, scarcely ever stick in passably well-made guns, and reloaded ones rarely; but when they do, the extractor will, in nine times out of ten, withdraw them at once; and if on this tenth occasion the brass capsule is torn off, the extractor, by the aid of a hook at the end, made expressly for the purpose, will tear out the empty paper instantly.

“Unless the brass pin which explodes the cap is made very precisely, a miss-fire is inevitable. If there is any corrosive substance upon it or upon the sides of the hollow in which it is to travel, the hammer will fail to drive it home or explode the cap. The hammer must strike it in exact position, or the pin will bend; any extra length or protrusion of the pin, or any dampness or foulness which causes it to stick, or if the pin be nipped in any way so as to weaken the force of the hammer, a miss-fire will probably be the result; and the pins must not be too loose, or they will drop out of the cartridges on any sudden or violent exertion on the part of the sportsman.”

All but the last clause of this paragraph is prejudice stated as fact, and that is simply ridiculous. It happened that one hammer of the writer’s breech-loader was broken and so badly mended that it did not fall true upon the pin, and yet the only miss-fires he has ever met with arose from his own neglect, in omitting to recap one or two of the discharged cartridges before reloading. The average of miss-fires with a cartridge is asserted by Mr. Eley, the celebrated gun-maker, to be one in a thousand—an assertion openly made, and, as yet, uncontroverted, and which is confirmed by the experience of the writer and his friends. So far from the pin’s being liable to fall out by any exertion whatever, even if the sportsman turned acrobat for the nonce, it is simply to be said that it cannot be withdrawn with the fingers, and requires a small pair of pliers.

“If in drawing out an unexploded cartridge the brass end comes off or breaks away from the paper case, it will not be advisable to use the cartridge in that state: it cannot be safe to explode it in the barrel of a breech-loading gun; in fact, it would be almost as unsafe as a loose charge of powder. And in the event of the cap missing fire in a breech-loading cartridge, it is not desirable to recap the cartridge. When once the brass and the pasteboard part company, the power of retaining the explosive force within the case is considerably weakened, and so is the expulsive force.”