Sometimes a bolt, rod of iron, or a gun-barrel, has to be cut off to a given length, and the most convenient way of doing this is to file a row of small teeth upon the back of a handsaw, and with it to saw off the superfluous iron: the first illustration shows the manner of cutting the teeth, and their exact size and shape. Always put in a bit of copper, lead, or leather to protect the gun-barrels from the grip of the vice. It may, perhaps, be well to remark here, that nearly all Russian saws are made to cut backwards, and all the gun breech-screws made in that country are cut the reverse way to ours.
For repairs of guns, it is well to have sufficient wire of different thicknesses; but when a hardened pivot is required, a broken gimlet or a bradawl will often supply the material; and we have before now earned a goat or sheep for dinner by supplying in this manner some deficiency in the arms brought to the white man to be repaired. It is convenient to buy a musket-lock or two before starting, and to save all sorts of screws, tumblers, springs, &c., out of old locks.
We were once asked, far away in Namaqualand, to perform no less a service for a friend than to put a new hammer on his gun. Modest disclaimers of ability were not received, and there was nothing left but to do our best. We found a bit of flat iron, which, fortunately, had a hole in it: this we first squared up with a small “three-square” file, and then fitting it to the tumbler, and making sure that the flat surface of the hammer should strike upon the nipple, laboriously cut and filed away the intermediate parts, and before morning the hammer was fixed. Mr. Rae, the engineer of the Zambesi expedition, proceeded more scientifically; he employed a native to weld up a quantity of iron hooping into a plate quite thick and large enough to make the hammer, then, drawing the outline, he bored small holes close together all round it, broke off the superfluous iron, and finished with the file.
On one occasion we were unfortunate enough to break the little S-shaped bridle which connects the claw of the mainspring with the arm of the tumbler. Most of our readers will remember that this portion of a gun-lock is of a most peculiar form, being not only S-shaped, but flat-cheeked and T-ended. Notwithstanding the apparently complicated nature of the undertaking, a new one had to be made; so we proceeded as follows:—One of our small mining picks chanced to have an iron wedge (which had originally been cut from an old patten iron) in the handle. This we softened in the fire, worked into form on the head of an upturned hammer with one of smaller size, and then roughly finished it up with a handsaw file. The screw hole had then to be made, and, as we had no drill, we took the scissors from our fishing-book, ground down the point on our bit of Turkey hone, tempered it in the candle, and then, by dint of hard labour and persistent boring, made a hole through the end of the bridle. We then gave our work a few finishing touches, tied it up in a bit of old leather, heated it in the fire, plunged it in water to case-harden, and then secured it in the lock, where it performed its work well until we parted with the gun so repaired.
Sighting guns.
Most of the hunters in South Africa find that ivory, from its agreeable creamy white, is better adapted for the “korel,” or front sight of a gun, than the polished metal used for that purpose by the maker. Sometimes the sight is accidentally lost, and has to be replaced; but more frequently the dazzling bit of metal is purposely knocked off.
