Chapter XXIX
The Effect Of Recoil Upon Shooting
In the days of heavy long barrels with light bullets and moderate charges of powder, the days of muzzle-loaders, the recoil, or "kick," of the rifle was so slight as to have little or no effect upon the direction of the ball. But in these days of short light barrels with long heavy balls and often heavy charges of powder, the effect of recoil upon the direction of the ball is so decided that scarcely any point about shooting is more important than this sometimes is.
The true theory of the recoil of a gun I believe to be this: The backward pressure of the gas upon the breech of the gun begins at the same instant with the forward pressure upon the ball. In each case the powder is acting against inertia or weight. But the inertia or weight of the gun, being one hundred or more times the inertia of the bullet, will resist the pressure much longer before yielding to it than the vastly lighter bullet can resist. So that the inertia of the ball is overcome and changed into motion in a trifling fraction of the time in which the inertia or weight of the gun is overcome and changed into motion. And this great difference in the time of yielding, or in the conversion of force into motion, makes an immense difference in the relative speed of the two motions.
Suppose a fifty-pound anvil hung in air by a cord with a hole bored in one side that will admit a bolt of lead of the same weight as the anvil itself. If the bolt were fired from that hole with a fuse, the anvil and bolt would both move in opposite directions at the same rate of speed. This would be the case whatever amount of powder were used, the increase in charge only increasing the speed of both. If now the hole and bolt were both gradually reduced in size, the motion of the bolt would increase and the motion of the anvil decrease in the same ratio, until with a small enough buckshot and a few grains of powder fired from a short hole there would be no motion in the anvil perceptible to the eye without instruments. And even this small amount of motion would not begin until after the escape of the ball.
Recoil, therefore, depends :
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• Upon the relative weights of gun and projectile. This is the most important condition.
• Upon the time allowed for continuance of the backward pressure. Length of barrel may, however, by its additional weight cancel this effect.
• Upon the quantity of gas evolved and quickness of evolution.
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Many brains have been badly racked over the effect of "air-pack" in the barrel, the "backward rush of air into the barrel," etc. etc. Even if there be anything in these ideas, they are of no use for us to consider, for they cannot be obviated or allowed for; and we therefore might as well confine ourselves to considering those conditions that we can control or make allowance for.
It is probable that in every case where a respectable load is fired the gun yields slightly while the bullet is passing along the barrel, and actually moves back-ward before it escapes. But unless the charge of powder be excessive, or the ball be very heavy in proportion to its caliber, this backward motion will be so directly in line with the axis of the bore of the rifle that the ball will go as true to the line of the axis as if the rifle had been solid as the eternal hills. On the other hand, if the charge is excessive, or the ball very heavy in proportion to the gun, and especially if both these causes conjoin, two very different effects may result.
• The barrel may be thrown up or down, or to one side, before the ball leaves it, so that the ball starts into the air on a different line from that in which the axis of the bore was held when the trigger was pulled; but still always so exactly in the same direction, and so exactly to the same extent, that the effect is precisely the same as if the gun had not moved a particle, it being only necessary to arrange the sights so that the axis of the bore will point the proper distance away from the mark.
• The recoil may be so violent that the barrel is thrown off irregularly, or not to exactly the same place every time, so that the rifle will shoot wildly.
The first of these effects is seen in many of our very best rifles, and does not seem to interfere in the least with their accuracy. The second is seen in many light rifles that are overloaded, and especially in many of the light pocket-pistols made with large caliber, heavy ball, and heavy-charged cartridge. With some of these last-mentioned rifles you cannot hit a deer at a hundred yards more than once in five or six shots, and with the pistols cannot hit a mule, much less a man, at fifty yards in half a day. At the same time, either of these may shoot perfectly true if loaded with small charges and lighter balls.
The first kind, or the regular jump of the barrel to the same position, may be either downward, upward, or to one side, but in most all cases is apparently upward. In a nine-and-a-half-pound Maynard, seventy grains powder, thirty-two-inch barrel, .44 caliber, ounce long ball, that I once owned, the recoil invariably threw the barrel downward. A Sharps .44 caliber, seventy-seven grains, eight and one half pounds, round barrel, twenty-eight inches long, did precisely the same thing. Both these rifles at twenty-five yards threw the ball four inches lower with the full charge than they would with half a charge, or than they would throw a round ball even with full charge. On sighting the empty barrel with the level sight, and then looking through it, the axis of the bore was plainly seen to point four inches above the center, and on the exact spot where the balls fired with half a charge were massed.
So interesting was this question that I once spent a long time in trying to make these rifles kick in some other direction, or to vary in some manner the perfect regularity of their downward motion. I tried hanging the muzzle in a scale, hanging breech in a scale, strapping them to heavy cross-pieces under the muzzle and breech, hanging very heavy weights on the breech while the muzzle rested on a solid beam, and having the weight just touch the surface of a pan of water, with an attendant to watch it; in short, everything I could think of except a vise. In no case, however, could I make them vary a particle. The full charges sent the bullets invariably into the same hole both these, especially the Maynard, were very accurate rifles just about four inches below the bullets with the half charge and the round balls with full charge, all of which also cut the same hole. And the strangest part of it all was that both to me and my attendant the rifles in every case appeared to jump upward; and certainly did so, though they must have first jumped downward before the ball escaped the muzzle, for of course the barrel could not bend. These results were always the same whether the rifles were fired offhand or from rest, no matter in what direction or whether solidly backed or fired from a suspended sling. Yet this Maynard was so accurate that I once fired with it five successive balls into a four-inch circle at two hundred yards.
On the other hand, a light barrel when overloaded is more likely to jump up than down. A very light carbine generally does; so does a shot-gun, especially a double one, if both barrels be fired simultaneously when heavily loaded. So do most all pistols. A Russian model .45 navy at only seven paces with its common cartridge shot two and one half inches higher than it did with the heavy ball and some of the powder taken out and a round bullet put in the cartridge; yet this pistol was very accurate. Most all pistol-cartridges are overloaded, it being necessary with most of them to aim at a man's toes at twenty yards to touch him at all; and it is no wonder that when "the finest police in the world" shoot at a man across the street, the servant-girl looking out of the attic of the house behind him is more apt to suffer than the bifurcated target. So much do some of these pistols jump up that even after building an extra story on the front sight and cutting down the back one it is almost impossible to prevent overshooting with them. Sometimes a pistol will also spring to one side as well as up. A Wesson's .32 short-barrel pistol springs to the side where there is the least pressure of the hand on the stock shooting to the left when fired from the right hand, and to the right when fired from the left hand, and also jumping upward in each case.
A double gun will throw outward with each barrel, or away from the direction of the other barrel. I have a double rifle of which the axes of the barrels converge at about twenty yards, and on looking through them they can be plainly seen to cross. With a moderate load a rifle so built will throw out just about enough to carry the two balls on parallel lines, so that only one sight is needed. But where a heavy charge is used this convergence is not always enough, and the rifle will require double sights. With one sight my rifle will throw each ball outward six inches at thirty yards, and the two sets of sights diverge so as to converge the axes of the barrels still more than they are set. When one barrel is sighted it points across the line of the bore of the other at about only five paces. And yet each barrel is perfectly accurate with its own sight. This gun also throws down a little as well as outward. It shoots a round ball with great accuracy, but it will go higher and inside of the other ball, which is about one third heavier. It will shoot round balls with a single sight, and also the heavy ones with a small charge. It is probable that any double rifle would, for perfect accuracy, require double sights when large charges were used with heavy balls, though the barrels may be set sufficiently converging for light balls or heavy ones with light charges of powder. Double sights are not such a nuisance as one would suppose, for after a little practice the eye shifts at the same time the finger does, and with as little danger of mistake, so that the quickest kind of running shots may be made with them.
From all these facts important consequences flow:
• A rifle or pistol may kick so as to be worthless unless lightly loaded.
• It may be perfectly accurate and yet require different sighting for different balls or charges.
• Bullets and charges should not be changed in any rifle without testing carefully to see the effect.
• A double gun may need double sights for heavy charges.
• The force of a ball may be affected by the yielding of the gun. The heavier the ball, in proportion to the caliber, the longer it will take it to pass along the barrel, and consequently the longer the time the gas will have to overcome the gun's inertia, and the greater will be the loss of force in recoil if the gun yields. This becomes of some importance in long shooting, especially with a long heavy ball; and if the gun be loosely or carelessly held, instead of well backed by a solid shoulder, the ball may drop enough below where it should go to miss a deer at three hundred yards and even less.
• A gun may also throw irregularly, to one side or other, by being carelessly held or not always held alike, such as the pistol above mentioned. I have not noticed this, however, in any rifle I have owned, and should pronounce one that would do it as either overloaded or worthless.
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In buying a rifle this should always be looked after. and before going into the field with any rifle it should be well tested. If its recoil is irregular, do not take it; if regular, it is just as good as if it did not recoil, but the extent and effect of its recoil must still be perfectly understood.
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Chapter XXX
The Killing Power Of Bullets, Explosive, Expansive, And Other Bullets, Slit Bullets, Buckshot, ETC.
Your success in bagging your game without much exertion and labor, and often in bagging it at all, will depend largely upon the mere shape of the bullet you use.
The effect of a bullet depends of course upon the derangement of some of the vital organs of the body or upon loss of blood. But this is the ultimate effect the one that too often benefits only the wolf and the raven. The immediate effect, or that which most benefits the hunter, is often as much the result of the accompanying shock to the nervous system as of the mere derangement of vital organs. In the brain or spinal cord one ball is about as good as another. But not so in any other part of the body; not even in the heart.
The first requisite of a killing ball is of course penetration. But after a certain amount of that is attained excess is superfluous. All rifles of .40 caliber or over, even the small Winchester, have sufficient penetration with a solid ball to kill a deer or antelope stone dead in nine tenths of the positions in which they are generally found. And even a much smaller rifle has penetration enough for nearly all broadside shots. Nearly everyone who has tried increasing the quantity of powder to increase the killing effect of a solid ball has been disappointed, especially if the ball be very hard or sharp-pointed. And many a one has yet to learn that a hundred grains of powder behind a long, tapering, hardened ball is no better than seventy or sixty unless for raking shots on bears or buffalo. And already many a man who has laid aside the Winchester '73 model (forty grains of powder and two hundred of lead to .44 caliber) and bought a new "Centennial" model or the model of '79 (both with longer ball and more powder) has discovered that, except for raking shots or where the ball strikes bones and turns or flattens, he has gained little by the change; the hundredth part of an increase of caliber amounting to about nothing. And if he should buy a .44 rifle, shooting a rod of lead a foot long with half a pound of powder behind it, he would still find no difference upon alt the soft parts of an animal, especially just behind the shoulder. It is often said that a small ball penetrates better than a big one, "cuts sharper," etc. This seems unworthy of notice. It overlooks entirely the question of momentum or crushing force. But, like the idea that "fine shot has better penetration," it is believed by many.
Essential as is penetration, something more is needed. And that is striking surface.
Striking surface is given of course by diameter of the bullet. And this diameter may be given in two ways.
• Normal diameter given by the molds.
• Abnormal diameter given by the ball expanding upon striking.
Either of these is sufficient. But the first requires a rifle of very large caliber. The second gives the same killing power to rifles of smaller caliber. Thus a flat-headed .44 bullet will have as much killing power where excessive penetration is not required as a sharp-pointed ball of .50 caliber. The sharp ball will not spread at all upon mere flesh, while the flat-headed one on striking will spread at once to more than the diameter of the other. Flat-headed balls cannot, however, be shot accurately for any distance. The head must be only half flat or rounded or merely blunt, and this is rarely made blunt enough to flatten a ball traveling at the low velocity of nearly all the long balls, especially when hardened as they generally are. For a very little tin makes a great difference in preventing the flattening of a ball.
Of all solid balls none flattens like the round ball When made of soft lead and driven at a high velocity this is the most killing solid form in which any given amount of lead can be cast, unless great penetration, is needed. And when large enough its penetration is sufficient for all game. And this can be much increased by hardening it.
The flattening power of any ball may be vastly increased by making a hole in the front. This is commonly called the " express ball." An express ball is, however, more properly a short swift ball fired with an enormous charge of powder, and may be hollow or not.
The killing effect of a ball is largely influenced by its velocity. And this entirely aside from the question of penetration. Velocity increases the flattening and also the rotation of the ball; which latter has a decided tearing effect A .44 round ball with ten grains of powder will make in a rabbit a hole but a trifle larger than itself, and if through the "paunch" the rabbit can often run away with the wound. But seventy grains behind the same ball will cut the rabbit half in two. A Winchester '73 model will decapitate a rabbit with its two hundred grains of lead and forty grains of powder almost as completely as an ax would do it. Open a cartridge and take out five sixths of the powder and the ball will barely get through the rabbit's head, leaving it almost uninjured outside of a hole of its own diameter. This difference is probably due to the difference in the spinning motion of the ball as much as to the difference in flattening.
It is said that at too high a velocity a ball will not flatten as much as at a low one, as a tallow candle at a high velocity will pass through a board without flattening. This is true only where the ball is fired through a thin resisting medium. At a high velocity the candle will cut a smaller hole through a half-inch board than when at a low velocity. But if fired at high velocity through something thick, like a beam or several boards, the hole will be not only deeper but larger at the bottom than when the velocity is low. It is the same with the bullet. A ball grazing a deer an inch or two deep will perhaps, aside from the cutting power of increased rotation of ball, cut a smaller hole at a high velocity than it would at a moderate speed. But where the body has any considerable thickness, so that the ball has more time to expand, the higher velocity will tell.
I have heard good hunters maintain just the reverse of this; to wit, that too much powder would make the ball flatten so as to stop its penetration. There is nothing in this. The penetration of a ball that will flatten at all to any useful extent depends upon its momentum; that is, its weight and velocity. Its penetration is more of a crushing force than a piercing force like that of the sharp-pointed balls. And the higher its velocity the farther in it gets; provided it be solid or have' not too large an expansion-hole in front.
It is thought by many that a ball that lodges in an animal is more effective than if it passes through; as the nervous system then receives the whole shock of the ball. This is often a mistake of effect for cause. The ball does not kill better because it stops. It stops generally because it has greater killing power; to wit, its expansive power. A ball having enough extra force to tear its way entirely through an animal and continue its flight must leave about the same amount of force in the animal as if it had only force enough to get just through.
As a rule, it is best to have balls pass through, especially solid balls. From the entrance-hole of a small bullet the animal bleeds little or none, and the flesh on the side where the ball stops will be badly bloodshot. If it goes through you will be more apt to have the aid of blood to help you track the animal if wounded; it will also bleed out much quicker and be much less injured by settling of blood.
Where great penetration is needed it had better be given by hardening a ball with tin than by sharpening its point. As much as twenty-five or thirty percent of tin may be used without injuring the rifle-grooves by an ordinary amount of use. A ball of terrific penetrating power may, however, be made as follows: Take a long bullet and cut it in two just below the point where it rides the grooves by rolling it under a sharp knife-blade. Then drill or bore a large hole through the butt-piece, replace it in the molds, and pour through the hole a hot mixture of equal parts of Babbitt-metal and tin. A mold for casting points like this may be easily made by half-filling the upper part of common molds with two pieces of brass or iron brazed in. The points may then be put in another mold and lead poured around them. But you can easily make all you need by the other method. From a .40-caliber rifle with sixty grains of powder I once shot one of these through two cast-iron stove-griddles and two jawbones of an ox all wedged together in a box, and the ball got through the other side of the box. Such balls are, however, of no use for ordinary hunting.
It is not many years since the English sportsmen in India commenced using a short cylindrical ball with a hole or well in the front, instead of the ponderous round balls and solid bolts they had before used for tigers and other dangerous game. These were sometimes made explosive by the insertion of a cartridge of some kind in the hole. Others were fired without any explosive filling, leaving the ball to fly open with its own force upon striking.
Some of the British sportsmen brought their rifles to this country on hunting-trips, and it was not long before some of our own countrymen tried these bullets.
As about every other great improvement, extravagant nonsense was soon told about them. "Blowing open the head of a grizzly-bear" with a .22-caliber pistol-cartridge inserted in the ball, as if the head were a snuff-box, "pulverizing" heads as if they were puff-balls, were among the least marvelous of the effects attributed to them. Some discoursed of "express shock" as if the ball were a condensed thunderbolt suddenly released in an animal's body; others talked of the velocity being so terrific as to "drive the ball into perfect dust." Still others, with that marvelous love the human mind has for paradox, discovered that the smaller these bullets were the more terrific and killing was "the express shock."
This improvement soon suffered the fate of every good thing that is overrated, and detractors arose. Many old hunters on the plains and in the mountains denounced them as worthless for game of any considerable size. Even foreigners gave the same verdict; one Scotch gentleman, returning from a Rocky Mountain tour, comparing in the Forest and Stream their effect on a grizzly-bear's shoulder to " so many humblebees." Men like Col. Judson and J. H. Batty, who had seen them tried and tried them themselves, men who certainly cannot be accused of ignorance, pronounced them inferior for general use to the solid ball.
For years a voice within which I took for the voice of humanity, but which, judging from the fashion of the day, must have been the voice of folly, had said in thunder-tones: "If you are going to kill an animal at all, kill it. Don't torture it." No sooner did I hear of this improvement than I adopted it. I have shot about three hundred deer with balls so made, have experimented with it in various ways, and must say most decidedly that while it is absurdly overrated it is still the most valuable improvement, next to the breech-loading principle, that has been made in rifles within the century.
I first made them explosive by inserting in the hole a .22 long pistol-cartridge with the bullet either cut off or taken out and replaced with more powder.
The same thing may be done by dropping a very small nail into the hole head first, filling it around with powder, and putting a tight-fitting cap on the nail and covering with wax, etc. These will explode on the softest flesh and even on water. An eight-pound jack-rabbit standing on his hind-legs and struck in the middle was distributed in a hundred pieces for thirty feet around, not a piece big enough to fry being left. Firing into the water just below a mud-hen a .22 cartridge in the ball raised it five feet out of water and broke its back, one wing, and one leg, though none of the ball touched it. From such a ball I very naturally expected tremendous results.
One of the first things I observed was that upon deer, coyotes, wildcats, and foxes the explosion produced no such effect as it did upon hares. Though the balls could be distinctly heard to explode and the flesh found blackened with the powder, there was no blowing or rending effect whatever. The hole was precisely the same as that made by the same ball left with the hole unfilled by anything. The killing effect appeared upon deer to be even a trifle less, and the penetration of the non-explosive ones was perceptibly the best. Determined to thoroughly probe the subject, I bored out some long-range .44 balls so as to admit a .32 long cartridge. Two of these I tried on an ancient Thomas-cat that had outlived his usefulness. Neither upon the shoulders nor upon the head could I discover any blowing or rending whatever, though the hole was blackened by powder. The hole was large and constantly expanding; but was merely cut the same as the empty balls would do it. Blocks of dry cottonwood, straight-grained, one foot long and about eight inches in diameter, that one blow of an ax would split in two, I utterly failed to split or even crack. With eighty grains of powder the balls penetrated only some four inches and were torn in splinters, while the hole was blackened with powder.
The reason of this will be readily seen. A Winchester '73 ball two hundred grains of lead and forty of powder, caliber .44 ball quite flat-headed, will split a rabbit completely in two with a raking shot, or cut it half in two with a broadside shot. But through a deer, a wildcat, coyote, or other tough animal it will make a hole but a trifle larger than itself. A firecracker fired in a glass vial left uncorked will split the vial in a hundred pieces if it be very thin, but will not even crack it if it be tolerably thick like a small ink-bottle. The difference in the first case is of course in the toughness of the flesh, in the second in the toughness of the glass. The tough bottle resists the gas long enough to allow its excess of pressure to escape at the mouth. In the same manner tough flesh resists the pressure long enough to allow the gas to escape around and behind the bullet. And in the case of the bullet the pressure of gas is also relieved by the ball cutting a large and increasing hole in front about as fast as the gas can fill it. Continued experiment and observation convinced me at last that, unless filled with some violently detonating powder that would be too dangerous to use, a ball is actually better to be left merely hollow.
The reason of this is the lack of penetration of explosive balls. In an average of over fifty shots at game, as shots must now be taken, penetration is about as essential as anything. To contain enough of any explosive that could be safely used the hole in the front of the ball must be both large and deep. In any ball of moderate caliber this would leave the rest of the ball so thin that when it explodes there is nothing but splinters from the sides and a light butt. If fired empty it will fly into flinders upon striking, and upon such solid parts as the haunch of a deer will tear a bad flesh-wound and often let the deer get away on three legs. When made explosive, the explosion, which begins at the depth of about half an inch, retards it much more, not only by backward pressure, but by opening the ball faster than it otherwise would open. By exploding around the feet, explosive balls are also much more certain to alarm game that might stand until you get its range by seeing the balls strike.
Much better in the long-run is the ball made simply expansive by a hole in front. It is common to place in this hole a hollow copper tube, filled with tallow or wax. All of which is idle toil. The effect is precisely the same with nothing in them. The accuracy is the same up to all ranges at which it is worthwhile to shoot at game at all. Beyond those ranges they will all turn over butt foremost. No difference is perceptible between the accuracy of balls cast hollow and solid ones, except of course at long range. The extent to which a ball shall expand is a very important question. A ball may be made to fly into pieces so small that you can scarcely find one in an animal. Or it may be made to break up into six or eight or ten pieces. Or it may be made to simply spread out like a mushroom without breaking. Or it may be cast so as to merely increase its diameter about one half, etc.
By many the expansion of a ball is supposed to depend upon its velocity. Up to a certain point this is of course true. But beyond that point it depends almost entirely upon the diameter, depth, and shape of the hole in its front. If a ball be made with a wide deep hole as wide at the bottom as at the top, so that the wall of lead around the hole is thin, stands only on a thin butt and has only a thin attachment to that butt, it will fly into flinders the instant it strikes the softest flesh, even if the velocity be quite moderate. On the other hand, if the hole be small, shallow, and tapering to a point at the bottom, the ball cannot be driven into splinters by any velocity that can be given it. It will merely fold back over its base like a mushroom. Bone of course would splinter it somewhat, as it would a solid ball. But upon soft flesh it would not splinter.
The effect of these different balls can be almost predicted. Suppose you have a fair shot at an animal, and hit it behind the shoulder, in the chest, or in the kidneys with the first bullet. The effect of a ball thus dashed into a hundred splinters upon the most vital organs must be terrific. We can readily see how persons can talk of the terrific effect of "express shock" upon even such an animal as the tiger. It is practically a charge of small shot fired directly into the seat of life.
But suppose you do not have a fair shot, and you strike your animal where penetration is necessary. Suppose your little hollow ball hits a bone heavy enough to tear a solid ball in two. What then? As there is a limit to the penetration of fine shot beyond which no powder can drive it, so is there a limit to the penetration of ball-splinters to pass which no "express" power will avail. If the ball is to penetrate or crush very far, it must have momentum. To have momentum it must have weight. To have weight it must hold together.
Here is, I think, the whole ground of disagreement about these bullets: A thing once highly praised is soon fancied good for everything. Found not good for everything, the natural conclusion often is that it is good for nothing.
I very soon found that the killing power of such balls upon an animal struck in or very near the right place was immensely greater than that of solid balls, that they were but a trifle better upon "paunch-shots" and not as good upon "haunch" and "stern shots" as the same ball solid. I lost deer struck in both places, and even a half-grown fawn I followed for over two miles, though a ball had exploded exactly in the center of its body. As one may shoot twenty successive deer with a .35-caliber solid ball and drop them all inside of a hundred yards, so one may shoot as many with one of these balls and see most all of them wilt like wet rags almost in their tracks. From such data the reflective hunter reasons not. He well knows that two hundred shots might tell a very different tale, and that, year in and year out, penetration is just as essential as striking surface.
The ball made with a small tapering hole will not produce such instantaneous death upon striking the vitals as does the ball that flies to pieces. But as it nearly doubles its diameter, its effect is about four times what it would otherwise be. And this is quick enough upon all the vitals of ordinary animals. Such a ball can also be given all the penetration that is necessary for ordinary animals. For unusually large animals they must be vastly superior to the more hollow ones.
Making a ball expansive does not, however, completely compensate for smallness of caliber. For penetration and crushing force it must positively have actual weight. A pound of powder could not drive a ten-dollar gold piece much over two or three inches into solid flesh, striking of course with its flat surface. And lead is only about half the weight of gold. There must be weight behind to force the widening front of an expansive ball through solid flesh, or even through the contents of the stomach. Now if the ball be made long so as to give this weight to a small-calibered rifle, you lose much of the velocity which is so essential to a good trajectory as well as to the rotatory and cutting power of the ball, etc.
The killing power of all long bullets is, however, vastly improved by making a hole in them. But the quantity of powder must be increased where it is small, as expansion checks the penetration immensely. To increase much the efficiency of such a bullet as the Winchester '73 model, the hole should be small and tapering and hardly half way through the ball; but then it should shoot at least a hundred grains of powder instead of forty grains. The Winchester "Centennial" would be improved in the same way without any increase of powder, because it has a much longer ball. All the rifles on the market shooting long or mid-range balls with seventy or eighty grains or more of powder can be much improved in this way, though all would be much better to have more powder and a shorter ball with smaller hole.
The hole in the ball is generally made by a plug inserted in the molds. A hole equally good can, however, be made with a gimlet or awl, unless you want a large deep hole. The ball can be replaced in the mold and bored through a hole at the front end. Or it can be bored more true by having a guide-hole bored in the "loader," into which you can run a gimlet and bore into the ball after it is loaded in the shell.
A round ball, if large enough, makes a splendid expansive ball, being most truly "express" up to a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. For the reasons before given it must, however, be large so as to have penetration enough. The hole must also be made more flaring at the entrance than in the other balls, or it may slip through without expanding at all.
I have tried very large and very small holes in both long and round balls, and am satisfied that there is no way in which a ball can be made to first penetrate well and then fly to pieces. Its flying into splinters depends so entirely upon its shape that it will fly at an inch or two of depth no matter what its velocity. And if it be made with a very small hole it cannot be driven into “splash" upon mere flesh.
I have tried and am still trying to so shape a ball that it will expand upon the stomach and soft parts of an animal, yet penetrate the solid muscle, etc., without expansion. The results are not wholly satisfactory. Hollow balls can be so made as to penetrate wood without expansion, yet expand upon water. But they all tend to expand upon flesh if the hole be of any size; and if too small, to slip through without spreading.
A ball well hardened with tin is much less likely to break up than one of soft lead. But if the hole be too large the very hardest ones will splinter at once.
Deer are occasionally still-hunted with buckshot in shot-guns. It is a wretched apology for the rifle, and the distance at which deer can be killed with buckshot is vastly overrated. Even at forty yards, with ordinary guns, two are crippled to one that is killed. Neither Ely's wire cartridges nor any mode of loading buck-shot can remedy this very much. Of the cartridges over one half will either go like a solid ball and miss generally entirely, or they will go like loose buckshot. Not one half will go as they are intended to go; and when they do, they do not add much over twenty-five yards to the range of the gun. The killing effect of a single buckshot is not to be compared to the effect of a rifle-ball of the same size. It lacks both the velocity and flattening quality and the cutting power of the rotation. Buckshot kill only by their number or by the accidental striking of a vital part; generally both conditions are necessary. The temptation to shoot with them at deer too far off is almost irresistible. And the certainty of crippling is about in inverse proportion to the probability of killing with them. Before a pack of hounds or for close night-shooting the gun may be tolerated. For still-hunting its use is an outrage and a sin.
I have never tried bullets slit or sawed into pieces half way to the center. Where great penetration was not needed they would doubtless be better than the solid ball. But they would be hard to make well, and could not give the same striking surface as if made with the proper-shaped hole in front. Neither could one made with an expansion-hole in the rear. Such a one would doubtless expand upon bone or a solid mass of muscle like the haunch. But almost any ball will expand enough on such parts. And they are precisely the parts where much expansion is rather undesirable.
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Chapter XXXI
The Hunting-Rifle, And Flight Of Balls
So much space has already been and still must be devoted to more important matters matters, too, upon which you will find little or no information elsewhere that the subject of the best hunting-rifle must, like the care and management of the rifle, in next chapter, be passed by with the briefest mention of a few important points. To properly discuss such subjects requires almost a volume of itself; and as they are already somewhat discussed in works now extant, we must subordinate them to the principles of field hunting and field-shooting.
In the first place, then, the action of your rifle, as is also the question of repeater, single-loader, or double barrel, is largely a matter of taste. All actions are strong enough and durable enough. The quickness and ease of the action you can yourself decide as well as any one. All hunters have their preferences, and all have a peculiar weakness for their favorites that makes their opinions as to the best rifle nearly worthless. Different rifles are "all the rage" in different sections of country, and scarcely anything else is worth having. And this according to the opinion of the ablest shots and hunters.
All American "sporting" rifles now shoot accurately enough, and all about equally well. That is, if properly loaded and handled they will shoot as well as any rifle in the world in which the ball is seated in the shell and started below the grooves. The finest shooting can be done only by detaching the two and starting the ball in the grooves, either by pushing it in ahead of the shell or loading from the muzzle. One or the other of these modes is now followed by all long-range experts.
The question of twist, depth, and number of grooves, etc., you can quite safely leave to the rifle-maker. The slower the twist up to a certain point, however, the better for all high-velocity rifles. One turn in fifty inches is enough for rifles shooting heavy charges of powder and very short bullets.
For accuracy, range, and penetration .44 caliber is sufficient, and with an expansive ball properly made is amply killing for nearly all shots on the soft parts of an animal. For the solid parts a large round ball of soft lead is the more effective, and taken for an average of a hundred shots is the most effective form in which the same weight of lead can be cast. It is objected to large calibers that they tear and spoil the animal too much, But they bleed an animal so much more, and kill so much more quickly and certainly, that in the long-run there is not a tenth of the waste with them that there is with solid balls in the small-bores; and owing to the comparative lightness of the ball, it being generally round or very near the weight of the round ball, the recoil is not at all unpleasant. Popular opinion, however, favors the smaller bores with solid balls, in spite of the amount of game crippled and lost by them.
No rifle need be over thirty inches long, and even twenty-eight is enough for quite high velocities even with quite coarse powder. It should be as handy and as well fitted to you as a shot-gun. For the ill-balanced, clumsy, straight-Stocked, long-stocked, awkward things often seen on the market there is absolutely no excuse. Neither is a crescent-shaped scoop in the stock that requires adjustment to the shoulder anything but a nuisance, especially for running shooting. It is a stupid relic of the age that thought sixteen pounds of iron four feet long necessary to shoot a pea-bullet with accuracy.
A hunting-rifle of caliber as large as .55 need not weigh over ten pounds, and eight pounds is plenty for one of .44 caliber.
The only other point important enough to mention now is the trajectory of the rifle for a hundred and fifty yards or so. The trajectory is the path of the bullet through the air, and is always a curve, although for some distance no curve can be detected either by shooting at targets or at game.
The greater the initial velocity or the speed with which the bullet is driven from the gun, and the greater the bullet's power of retaining that speed, either by increase of caliber, elongation, or sharpening of the bullet's front, the greater the distance over which the bullet will be driven without making curve enough to overshoot or undershoot your mark.
When you have once had some experience of the marvelous tendency to overshoot game under most conditions of light and ground, of the extreme difficulty of calculating and allowing for distance, of the great danger of missing by raising sights, holding over game, taking "coarse bead" on the front sight, etc. etc., you will see that it is of the utmost importance to extend as far as possible this distance over which the path of the bullet appears to be level. And when you find that a hundred yards for the woods, a hundred and fifty yards for open hills, and two hundred yards for the plain (plain rolling enough to be worth hunting antelope on by stalking) are the distances within which five sixths of your opportunities to kill game will occur, you will be still more convinced that the higher the velocity the better the rifle for hunting all else of course being equal, as it may easily be, except very long-range power.
For high velocity slow twist is best; but two things are indispensable; viz., plenty of powder and a light load for it to drive.
Nearly all American sporting-rifles, as now manufactured, are low in velocity. They are chambered for too little powder, nearly all the makers furnish molds, loading-tools, etc., for too long a bullet, and the bullets in the factory ammunition are all too long. A long- bodied bullet is indispensable for a long and steady flight, and hence is essential for long-range accuracy. But making a ball three or four times the weight of the round ball of the same caliber acts precisely like doubling or tripling the charge of shot in a shot-gun. It cuts down immensely the speed with which it passes up the barrel, and decreases immensely the amount of powder that can be endured by the shoulder. It gains only in momentum or continuing power. And though by virtue of this it will make a thousand yards in about half the time that a round ball from the same gun could make it with any amount of powder, the round ball will, on the other hand, make seventy or eighty yards or more in half the time the other does, and therefore make much less of a curve. And if the weight of the round ball be increased one half by making a longer ball, and the charge of powder be doubled behind it, it may make a hundred and fifty yards in the same time the long-range ball makes a hundred, and thus add fifty or sixty yards to the point at which you will be able to hit your mark without in any way allowing for or thinking about its distance; in other words, in- crease what is unphilosophically but popularly called "the natural point blank" of the rifle.
This is what is now called the "express" system; although it is commonly confounded with the expansive principle, owing to the fact that the bullets for the "express rifle" are generally made expansive also. The "express" or high-speed system concentrates all the power of the gun on the first hundred and fifty or two hundred yards, a thing you will in time deem eminently wise if you take the trouble to measure your distances instead of guessing them, and practice target-shooting at a mark between seventy-five and a hundred and fifty yards, with the mark changed from twenty to forty yards in distance between each shot. This high-speed idea is supposed by many to be an English notion. But it is in fact nearly as old as American rifle-shooting; although there were few of the old hunters who ever put powder enough behind the light sharp-pointed cones short, sugar-loaf-shaped balls that they used for the purpose.
For measuring the velocity of balls an instrument called the chronograph is used. But there is much reason to suspect its accuracy in registering high velocities. At all events, it is expensive and difficult to use. It is far easier, and better for your purpose, to measure it by the fall of the bullet below the mark at certain points. This gives you the mean velocity for the distance at which you shoot; a mean compounded of the ball's initial velocity and its sustaining power; its starting speed and bottom. Moreover, the velocity in feet per second is of no consequence to the mere hunter. The velocity compared with the velocity of other rifles is all he need consider. This method shows not only the comparative mean velocity in a way easily measured, but gives also a view of the bullet's path that no chronograph can ever give. The method I use is as follows:
Twisting a wire into a hoop, I fasten it on the end of a stake about shoulder-high. Two of these are set in the ground about fifteen yards apart, the first one about eight or ten yards from the firing-point. Over these thin paper is pinned. In line with them, but at a hundred yards, or a hundred and fifty yards, or whatever the distance for which you wish to measure the drop of the ball, is something to catch the balls; a smooth tree-trunk or old door, etc., will do. The rifle is then fired through the screens so as to strike the tree or other object.
As the fall of the bullet up to twenty-five yards is imperceptible to ordinary observation, and is a constant factor in all the experiments anyhow, the two holes made by the bullet through the two papers may be considered the line on which the bullet leaves the muzzle. The distances of the screens may of course be reduced to the nearest point at which the powder will not spoil the first hole, if greater accuracy be desired.
A heavy pencil-mark is then made on the side of each screen on a level with the bullet-hole. By the aid of a glass these are then "ranged in" by an assistant with a horizontal line on the tree. The distance from that line to the bullet-hole will give the fall of the bullet within at least an inch if care be used in making the lines.
Greater accuracy may be obtained by setting a surveyor's "transit" telescope-bearing instrument at the first hole, centering the two holes with the cross- hairs of the telescope, and having someone to "line in the point on the tree as in "centering" a corner post. This test may be made almost perfect.
By putting another screen a trifle over half way between the gun and the last target (say at fifty-five yards from the rifle for a hundred-yard shot), then stepping aside and looking down the line of the screens, you will see how much the bullet has to rise to strike a bull's-eye at the farther target. This may also be nearly obtained in inches by "lining" the hole in the first screen and the bullet-hole in the tree on the side of the half-way screen, and measuring from that line to the hole in the same screen. It will be between a third and a fourth of the fall at the tree.
Such experiments may be simplified or made still more accurate by a little care and ingenuity, and will give you an idea of the most important thing connected with the rifle an idea, too, that you will never get in any other way. The ignorance upon this point among even good practical hunters is positively appalling. The vast majority even of the best shots think a good rifle "shoots level" up to two hundred or three hundred yards ; and he who should have the audacity to assert that a rifle that will make twenty successive bull's-eyes at a thousand yards may at a hundred and twenty yards drop its ball many inches below that of another rifle that probably could not hit the same bull's-eye at all at five hundred yards, would be considered a fool by fully three fourths of the best rifle-shots in the country.