He did not understand that a good gun is expensive; and that a second-hand gun by a first-class maker is much better value (and safer to use) than a cheap new gun.
Acting on his usual principle, he had bought a gun very cheap, “a splendid bargain which I have used the last ten years. I am not as strong as I once was so I bought a featherweight one.”
To buy a light, cheap gun is extremely dangerous. Only a very first-class maker can reduce the weight of a gun to its limit without risk of a burst, and the materials must be flawless.
When I saw the gun I was sorry I had offered to shoot it. The barrels looked fearfully thin at the breech, of inferior metal, and rattled from bad fitting, when one succeeded in closing the gun.
The weakness of the gun, however, was made up by the strength of the cartridges, which were for pigeon shooting, and loaded with a full 1¼ ounces of shot and an enormous charge of nitro powder.
The gun had the proof mark for black powder only!
He was delighted with his cartridges and told me he had bought them at a great bargain from the executors of a celebrated pigeon shot recently deceased.
I ventured to suggest that it might be dangerous to shoot such a heavy charge of nitro powder out of a very light gun proofed only for black powder.
He said: “That’s nothing, I am not as active as I was and I was told these cartridges would kill much farther than lighter loaded ones, and how cheap they are!”
I, with many misgivings, had a clay pigeon thrown, but the gun refused to go off.