Shooting: its appliances; practice; and purpose

Front matter

SHOOTING :

ITS

APPLIANCES; PEACTICE;

Preface

The favour bestowed upon tlie author's writings on various branches of field-sports, first begun in a popular London magazine, while he was yet a youth, and now extending over a period of nearly forty years, demands profound gratitude to his readers. For a considerable time " Shooting Simplified," the basis of the following pages, as well as his several other works, have been out of print. During the last twenty-five years most extraordinary improvements and changes have been made in fire-arms, and so rapidly have these followed each other that great ingenuity and enterprise are required to keep pace with the age. In rifles, no sooner had a prolonged point-blank range for round bullets been attained by a system of grooving at once scientific and judicious than it was eclipsed by the adoption of solid conical bullets, and this advancement was in its turn surpassed by the performances of the breech -loading Express-rifle," now the cJief-d^ oeuvre of sporting fire-arms. In like manner the breech-loading system has operated benefiially on shot-guns, and so far from breech-loaders being inferior to muzzle-guns, as asserted dogmatically they were then and ever would be by prejudiced writers of fifteen to twenty years ago, they have all along quite held their own, and for three years past have in the author's experience far excelled in shooting powers all vi

PEEFACE.

former precedent. This arises partly from a new mode of treating the barrels, incompatible with muzzle-loading, and which, while most injudicious attempts have been recently made to strain it unduly, is on his principle sound and durable. During these recent rapid changes the author has felt himself constrained, however flattering have been the many urgent calls upon him not to let his pen lie idle, to await another definite stage in the onward march before sending forth a new volume, and this he now does, as written up to the very last step, he may say, before going to press.

To those who look for a descriptive catalogue of guns, or of the several parts of a gun from a mechanical point of view, this book is not suited. Its aims and purpose are of a much higher order. It is essentially and emphatically a sportsman's book, written by a sportsman for sportsmen. That he is also a gunsmith merely gives him greater combination. Naturally an ardent lover of the trigger, his profession caused him to study every branch of shooting as closely as if it were an exact science. He endeavours to convey to his readers not dry formulae or receipts as it were, but such information, through the medium of print, as age and experience convey to youth familiarly in the affairs of common life.

Believe me, sir, the knowledge thou dost seek Is slowly gain'd ; yet no one may possess What others cannot gather — step by step — As straw by straw our gleaners make up sheaves.

Old Flay.

PBEFACE.

Vll

All experience in matters connected with practical gunnery is very slowly acquired, and no one without such actual experience would readily believe in the difficulties to be almost daily overcome so as to excel in this art. This arises from the utter absence of absolute rules which might guide to the desired end. Abstract gunnery is little more than scientific verbiage ; following results, not producing them.

In the remarks upon grouse disease " the author makes no pretension to define what the malady is. That is a question for the pathologist, not for the sportsman. Death may be caused by parasites, by inflammation of the liver, or by other forms of disease. He solely concerns himself with the state of matters which brings about conditions in which alone disease occurs. The direct cause of disease and death may be a mystery, but the history of the epizootic attacks be none. The two have been muddled up so as quite to mystify the matter; hence so great diversity of opinion.

The third and concluding part of the volume departs entirely from the common topics of books of this kind. The only difficulty was to condense the matter therein. Hence if any reader think the argument is incomplete, he may rest assured that it is far from being exhausted.