Shooting: Its Appliances; Practice; and Purpose

: SHOOTING ITS APPLIANCES; PEACTICE; AND PUEPOSE. BY JAMES DALZIEL DOUGALL, F.S.A., T.Z.S. AUTHOK OF '* SCOTTISH FIELD SPOETS," ETC., ETC. First, ril indruct tliee in the rudiments^ And then thou ivilt be per/'ecter than I. Christopher Marlowk. As Sir Hainplirey Davy and I shot partridges together in the morning J perceived that a man might pursue philosophy without uha^idoiring field imports. Sir Roderick I. Murchisox. SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEAIILE, CEOWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET, E.G. 1875. \_All rights reserved.l : LONDON aiLBEET AKD KIVJN&Tair; PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. W APPRECIATION OP MANT INTERESTIN<> AND INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS ON THE HiaHER BRANCHES OF A MOST DIFFICULT AND RESPONSIBLE ART, AND OF MUCH PERSONAL KINDNESS, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR EDWARD WELLINGTON KEANE, BARON KEANK OF GHUZNEE, BY HIS lordship's EVER GRATEFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. 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 extra- ordinary 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 benefi- ially 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 informa- tion, 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. INTRODUCTION. 1II"AN is by nature less endowed with the means of at- -^-^ tack and defence in proportion to his requirements than any other animal. His wants are numerous ; his natural means of supplying them are of the most inferior order. He has neither the teeth of the lion, the claws of the tiger, nor the exquisitely deceptive powers of the fox, to beguile, strike down, or rend his prey. His skin is soft and smooth, and demands, save in the torrid zone, artifi- cial covering. If he seek this in the warmly-furred coats of other animals, he has neither speed to overtake them in flight, or strength to seize and master them if so overtaken. Nearly every want must be supphed by arti- ficial means. These means his reason supplies. His powers of observation in early ages taught him the elasticity of wood ; hence sprung his bow. Simultaneously, if not indeed previously, he had observed that a long- armed man could throw stones farthest, and he artificially prolonged this length by the sling. Step by step he improved the art of throwing projectiles, in war or in the chase, finally calling in chemistry to his aid, and by the use of gunpowder obtaining an elasticity excelling that of all former instruments. B 2 INTEODUOTION. Slowly, extending over centuries of years, man has improved upon the mode of using this great agent, gunpowder. The principle has remained the same, confine- ment and ignition in a closed space, the breech of the gun. But, in the mode of loading, of ignition when loaded, in the material and dimensions of the fire-arms, in the endless little niceties which go to make up the science of gunnery (even yet far from being defined), there has been expended an amount of ingenuity and labour positively beyond all comparison with the simple primd-facie appearance of a rifle, fowHng-piece, or cannon. To touch lightly on th^ more recent advancement in construction, to convey in a popular manner the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime, and some reasons why a modern gun should or should not shoot well, is my purpose in the following pages in the first place. In the second, I will endeavour to teach something of the art of shooting—its Practice ; and in the third place, I will endeavour to expound, so far as space may permit, the Purpose of shooting :—What men shoot for as a sport. I am induced to write this last by recent utilitarian attacks upon the morality of field sports, in which the assailants have rashly assumed that their arguments are unanswerable, simply because sportsmen have rarely troubled themselves to reply, and when at all, only in short and fugitive writings, more impassioned; perhaps, but certainly less logical than those of their practised adversaries. I hope to write less as a defender than an assailant, or at least to show that field sports require no apologists. At no period in history has so great attention been paid to, or advancemen|} made in, the IIS^TBODUCTIOK, 3 art of gunnery, in all its branches, as during the last twenty-five years. Beginning with the startling an- nouncement that a Lieutenant Minie, of the French army, had invented a new form of rifle bullet, of formerly unheard-of capabilities, the movement has gone on with increasing rather than diminishing speed, and it is not too much to say that, how in warfare to throw projectiles still farther and farther on the one hand, and how to build ships and fortifications able to sustain the shock of these projectiles on the other, lie two of the greatest and most interesting problems of the present time. In this movement sporting fire-arms have naturally been made to bear a part, and it is difficult to say whether they have pre- ceded or followed the sweeping alterations that have been made in the construction of military weapons. Sports- men certainly adopted breech-loaders before these came into general use in warfare, but this may apply more to adoption than to actual invention. Governments, like all other large bodies, are slow to move, while sportsmen act individually, and with greater alacrity. Very probably, however, the rapid adoption of the breech-loader in field- sports had some influence on its being introduced into warfare, which is affected in a very high degree thereby, the change being all on the side of civilization and progress, the breech-loader being pre-eminently the weapon of the soldier of intellect and education.

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