Part 3

Once Mr. Purdey expressed the opinion that he could learn as much from his customers as they could from him. The author thought this so shrewd a remark, that, having a knowledge of the many good sportsmen and big-game hunters who employ the weapons of the Messrs. Holland & Holland, Messrs. John Rigby, and Messrs. Westley Richards, he wrote to each of them to ask their opinions of the best bore and weight of rifle, sort and weight of powder, sort and weight of bullet, and velocity of bullet to be expected, for each of the following animals, as if each were the only object to be pursued by the sportsman. He stated at the same time, that compromise to meet the requirements of several, or many, of these animals he regarded as a personal and individual matter to the sportsman. He pointed out also that in asking for opinions he knew that he was asking for a consensus of opinion of the past customers of the firms in question. It is interesting to compare the views of each maker as to the best rifle to use for everything, from a rook and rabbit, to an African elephant charging down on the gunner, and requiring the frontal shot. What is intended is the very best weapon to have in hand at the moment, if there were nothing else to be considered. Mr. Holland’s reply is as follows:—

“98 NEW BOND STREET, LONDON, W., “_October 11th, 1906_

“DEAR MR. TEASDALE-BUCKELL,—It is impossible in the space of a short paragraph to go thoroughly into the question of the best bore, weight of rifle, etc. etc., best suited to each kind of game. A good deal must depend upon the conditions under which the rifle is used, the capabilities of the sportsman, etc., but taken generally the rifles mentioned below are those we have found to give the best all-round results, and our opinion is formed upon the reports received from a large number of sportsmen, including many of the best known and most experienced game hunters.

“_Rooks._—.220 or .250 bore.

“_Rabbits._—.250 bore; weight about 5 to 6 lbs.

“_Red Deer, Scotch._—(1) .375 bore double-barrelled; weight 9½ lbs. (2) .375 bore sporting magazine rifle, Mannlicher-Schonauer for choice; weight 7½ lbs. (3) .375 bore single-drop block; weight 7½ lbs.; velocity about 2000 ft.; charge 40–43 grains of cordite or its equivalent; 270 grains bullet, either soft-nosed solid or hollow point.

“_Chamois._—Same as for Red Deer, also .256 Mannlicher.

“_African Antelopes._—.375 bore as above.

“_Indian Deer._—.375 bore as above.

“_Moose, Wapiti, and big 35–50 stone Deer of Hungary, etc._—.450 bore double-barrelled rifle; weight 10½ lbs.; charge 70 grains of cordite powder or its equivalent; bullet soft-nosed solid 370 or 420 grains; velocity about 2000 ft.

“_Lions._—(1) 12 bore Magnum Paradox; weight 8–8½ lbs.; charge of smokeless powder equivalent to 4½ drams of black powder; 735 grains hollow-point bullet; velocity 1250–1300 ft. (2) .450 cordite rifle same as for Moose, etc.

“_Tigers, from houdah or machan._—12 bore Paradox; weight about 7¼ lbs.; charge equivalent to 3¼ drams of black powder; 735 grains bullet; velocity about 1100 ft.

“_Lions and Tigers, followed up on foot._—12 bore Magnum Paradox.

“_Elephant, Buffalo, etc., in thick jungle._—10 bore Paradox; weight 13 lbs.; nitro powder charge equivalent to 8 drams of black powder, in solid drawn brass case, solid nickel-covered bullet 950 grains.

“_Elephant, Buffalo, in more open country._—.450 cordite rifle same as above; charge 70 grains cordite or its equivalent; nickel-covered solid bullet 480 grains.”

Mr. Rigby replies as follows:—

“_Rooks._—.250 bore, shooting usual Eley or Kynoch cartridge.

“_Rabbits._—.300 bore, shooting usual Eley or Kynoch cartridge.

“_Red Deer, Scotch._—Double-barrel hammerless .303; shooting cordite and split-nose bullets; weight of rifle about 8 lbs.

“_Chamois._—Mauser-Rigby magazine rifle with telescope sight; weight of rifle 7½ lbs.; Mauser 7 mm. cartridges with split bullets.

“_African Antelopes, Indian Deer, Ibex, and Tibet Wild Sheep, Lions and Tigers._—.350 bore Rigby double barrel; weight 9¼ lbs.; cordite cartridge giving 2150 f.s. m.v.; bullet 310 grains, split and soft nose, or Mauser-Rigby magazine shooting same ammunition; a grand rifle.

“_Eastern Elephants, Eastern Buffalo, African Buffalo, African Elephants._—.450 high velocity cordite double barrel; weight 11 lbs.; bullet 480 grains m.v. 2150 f.s.”

Mr. Leslie B. Taylor replies for Messrs. Westley Richards thus:—

“BOURNBROOK, BIRMINGHAM “_October 13th, 1906_

“DEAR MR. BUCKELL,—I regret that I could not give you the information earlier, being up to my eyes in work. I have filled in the sizes I think suitable for each kind of game gathered from our clients’ own opinions formed from experience. You will notice that in some cases I have mentioned the .450 high velocity rifle. As regards India, this rifle will now be unavailable; a recent alteration of the shooting regulations excludes the .450 bore, which like the .303 cannot be imported into that country for private use.

“The new accelerated express rifle .375/.303 will no doubt, on account of its being associated in the minds of the officials with the actual .303 bore, come under the same ban. But this is a powerful rifle, as you will gather from the enclosed particulars, and when used with the capped bullet becomes a most formidable weapon, and has been satisfactorily employed against Tiger.

“I have just introduced a new extension of the accelerated express system .318 bore, 2500 feet velocity, 250 grains bullet, muzzle energy 3466 ft. lbs., and this ranks only second to the .400 bore rifle. It is remarkably accurate, and as it is used in conjunction with the copper-capped expanding bullet, it will take the place of the .450 bore now prohibited.

“I merely give you these particulars, as you will see that very shortly, if the Indian regulations continue in force, as I have no doubt they will, the other information might be considered out of date.—Yours very truly,

“LESLIE B. TAYLOR

“_Rooks._—.250; some prefer .297/.230, a similar one.

“_Rabbits._—.250 or .300; latter preferred if country will permit.

“_Red Deer, Scotch._—Many sizes are used, from .256 Mannlicher; the .360 high velocity is effective. For those who prefer a very flat trajectory superior to the Mannlicher, the new accelerated h.v. .375/.303 is taken.

“_Chamois._—Nothing less than .360; the .375 with copper-capped bullet is very effective, although the .256 is often used: it is found not to kill the beast.

“_African Antelopes._—.360 and nickel-capped bullet, a .375/.303 accelerated express; many sportsmen are using the .303 with nickel-capped bullet.

“_Indian Deer, Ibex, Tibet Wild Sheep._—.256 Mannlicher, Mauser .275, also .360 and .375 bore with capped bullet; some use ball and shot guns 12 bore.

“_Lions and Tigers._—.360 to .450 h.v. express; the new .375/.303 has proved successful at Tigers with the capped bullet.

“_Eastern Elephants._—The best weapon I know, of which I have the most excellent accounts, is the .577 h.v. rifle, 100 grs. cordite and 750 grs. solid and capped bullet.

“_Eastern Buffalo._—.360, .400, and .450 h.v. express.

“_African Buffalo._—.450 h.v. express and .577 h.v. express.

“_African Elephants._—The .577 .100/.710; some use the .450, but the former is a most deadly weapon.

“I have just received information from an African sportsman that he has shot an African buffalo with a Westley Richards 12 explora, the horn measurements of which are strikingly fine, and promise to be a record.”

In reply to further questions, Mr. Holland writes as follows:—

“_October 13th, 1906_

“DEAR MR. TEASDALE-BUCKELL,—I don’t think it necessary to distinguish between African and Indian elephants. No doubt the former is more difficult to kill with the frontal shot, but you must try and get another shot; then, again, the 480 grain (450) bullet gives enormous penetration, and probably would penetrate the head of an African elephant as well as any bullet you could use. For a charging elephant, there is nothing like the big bore for stopping, or at any rate turning the animal. Velocity: it is a curious thing that we appear to get _practically_ the same elevation with the 375 (450) bullet as the 480 gr. one, and practically the same velocity. We attribute this to the extra weight of the 480 gr. offering more resistance to the powder, and thereby setting up higher pressure, greater heat, though practically making the powder do more work.

HENRY HOLLAND”

It may be said that at this moment velocities are undergoing radical change, due to the improved powder Axite, and that one maker offers rifles giving to the 303 bullet a muzzle velocity of 2700 f.s. This means a greater stride than that from the express to the high velocity rifles, and if it is accurate, then trajectories have been very much reduced.

In reply to a still further question, the following is a reply that explains itself:—

“_October 15th, 1906_

“DEAR MR. TEASDALE-BUCKELL,—I have your letter of the 12th inst. With regard to the .500/.450, I think I said 2000 ft.; it should have been about 2100 ft. As a curious confirmation of the above, I may point out that in Kynoch’s book on the ballistics of various rifles, it gives 2150 ft. as the muzzle velocity of a .450 bore rifle with 70 grains cordite and 480 grains bullet, whereas with 70 grains powder and 420 grains bullet it gives the muzzle velocity as 2125 ft.

“The muzzle velocity of a 950 grains bullet from a 10 bore Paradox, nitro powder, is 1500 ft. The bullet is made either of solid hardened lead or steel cored; see the enclosed illustrations of the latter. With regard to the rook and rabbit rifles, the .220 shoots 3 grains powder and 30 grains bullet, and the .250 7 grains powder and 56 grains bullet. Solid bullets for rooks, and hollow-point bullets for rabbits.—Yours faithfully,

“H. W. HOLLAND”

ANCIENT AND MIDDLE AGE SHOOTING

It is difficult to know where to start an account of the early history of shooting. The long-bow was used in deer shooting, as also was the cross-bow, and if we may believe the early artists—and I do not see why we should—deer running before hounds and horses were shot from the saddle with the cross-bow, and the arrow went in behind the neck and out at the throat. The artists of old were obviously as imaginative as Royal Academicians when it came to sport. For instance, nearly every picture of a woodcock or snipe on the wing, including one of J. W. M. Turner’s, puts the beak of the bird sticking out in front, on the principle of “follow your nose”; but every woodcock and snipe treats even Turner with contempt, and hangs its beak in spite of the greatest master of English landscape. Mr. Thorburn makes no such mistake, but even he has made a couple of cock partridges court one another; and it is really very difficult to believe in the accuracy of artists such as the delineators of the Bayeux Tapestry, where five men may be seen applauding Harold’s coronation and with only eight legs between them, most of them clearly disconnected with the men.

When, therefore, we see drawings of the fourteenth and fifteenth century people engaged in smiting down flying birds with an arrow from a cross-bow, we may be permitted to believe that an ideal has been drawn, and that most of those who tried to kill birds in flight in time learnt to prefer the falcon or the net. Even stricken deer that the Middle Ages artists show us shot through the neck from behind must have had totally different habits from their present-day relatives, because it is not the habit of pursued deer to hold up the neck but to carry it horizontally at such times, so that the back-to-throat arrow would be possible only from above.

It is less difficult to believe the writing in the _Master of the Game_ and its French original than to believe the pictures with which the latter was adorned—probably long afterwards, by someone who had not the authority of the author.

Artists were not then sportsmen, but in Assyria they obviously were so. In the British Museum room devoted to that ancient kingdom, in low relief may be seen much that is looked for in vain in the technically superior sculpture of the classic periods of Greece and Rome. That is to say, the actual feelings and characters of the beasts are conveyed in the outlines. The horses were obviously of precisely the same character as the arabs and thoroughbreds of to-day. They are not obstinate brutes, little better than mules, like the ponies of the Parthenon, which all lay back their ears _at_ their masters, but, on the contrary, the Assyrians are generous, high-spirited beasts that fight _with_ their masters, pursue in spirit with them, and fight with ears laid back only when they are face to face with a lion, and going to meet him. The artists saw it all, or they would have blundered in the expression of the horse, which is mostly in his ears, but they never blundered. Surely this was the first shooting recorded, and whether it was done by bow and arrow or by hurling the dart matters nothing. It is the most ancient and the most authentic of all the ancient records of sport. If it were untrue, it would be the most contemptible, because the most flattering art. But it bears internal evidence of its own truth, and that the country of Nimrod produced mighty hunters, for which there is also Biblical evidence; no race or nation of sportsmen has since been able to boast similar sportsmanship. For man and horse to face a charging lion and kill him with a spear, or dart, is to place sportsmanship before human life; and even David, who killed a lion and a bear, did not do that, but merely defended his flocks, probably in the only way open to him. He was a mighty shepherd and a mighty king, but not a “mighty hunter,” and “no sportsman,” as the story of the one ewe lamb proved.

It is a long jump from Nimrod to the hunting in the New Forest, which was obviously as much shooting as hunting, when Rufus was killed by an arrow, meant, or not meant, for a hart. Whether there ever were outlaws named Robin Hood and Little John does not matter, because fiction is always based on fact, or it does not live a day. The fiction or fact of the great shooting of the king’s deer by these outlaws has lived seven hundred years, and it is more easy to believe that there were many generations of such poachers and highwaymen than that there were none at all. The highest office in the land was then one of robbery, and it is a poor king who has not some subjects who will offer him the sincerest form of flattery, namely imitation.

Gunpowder is said to have been invented in China many years before it was re-invented in Europe. We are apt to marvel that no explosive was made use of before, but learning was very much in the hands of the priests at a time when the latter class was especially sincere, and when the people were full of superstition or belief. It may be, then, that the first discoverers of gunpowder for conscience’ sake made no use of what must have appeared to be an invention of the Devil. Such inventors, if there were any, might have been the more disposed to this course because the stuff was clearly as destructive to its users as to an enemy, until the building of guns had progressed for many years.

It is not quite certain in which battle was first employed gunpowder—a fact which indicates that it did not do much for its side. It appears to have been the guns that were weak, not so much the powder, which was probably very much the same when used by Henry VIII. as black powder is to-day.

It is, moreover, not certain that guns were any better at Waterloo than they had been in the time of Elizabeth. The reason for this was the want of good metal. It is a known fact that thickness of metal becomes useless after a certain point is reached, so that iron and brass guns could not be made to take enormous charges of powder and heavy shot without bursting. This might have been done by making them very long and using a slow burning powder, but that way out never seems to have been thought of until recently. The reason modern big guns will take such enormous pressure as the big charges behind heavy shells give, is, first, that they are made of steel, and second, because the tension on the steel internally and externally is equalised by a very clever method. The guns are built up by being bound in wire in a heated state, so that when this wire cools it contracts the internal tube as it contracts itself. This being the case, when an explosion takes place in the finished gun, it has to overcome the wire contraction on the outside of the gun before the internal tube can begin to expand beyond its natural size. That is how a thickness of metal is made serviceable, and prevents a bursting of the internal surface before the external bigger surface is strained. In other words, the pressure is resisted equally all through the thickness of the walls of the barrel. This has entirely revolutionised big gunnery during the last thirty years, and has enabled ships of war to hurl 800 lb. shells through the armour of enemies who are hull down beyond the horizon.

Gunpowder was for centuries used in war before it was much used in sport. The reason for this was that there was no good method of letting off a sporting weapon. To apply a match to a touch-hole obviously took a good deal of time, and besides gave warning to the game, so that, although shooting flying game had been at least an ambition in the days of the cross-bow, shooting the game upon the ground with “hail shot” was practised for many years before anyone attempted to kill flying game with shot guns. It is curious that when this practice was in vogue dogs were taught either to point or to circle their game at their masters’ pleasure. This circling had the effect of indicating the exact position of the crouching covey, and at the same time of preventing the birds running away from the shooter. A dog that would “circle” was held in much more esteem than one that would only point, but one that would do both was far the most highly valued. The shooter had to see the birds on the ground before he could bring his lumbering weapon to bear, and begin to let it off. This probably continued long after the wheel-lock was invented, in 1515 A.D.

The flint and steel method of ignition enabled the shot gun to be used on flying game, but the flint and steel came in somewhere about the year 1600, and shooting flying game did not become general until after 1700 A.D.

Meantime there had been royal prohibitions in this country, as well as in France, against the use of hail-shot, and it can well be understood, at a time when shooting at coveys on the ground was considered no breach of sporting etiquette, that some restraint became necessary. Before the use of the flint and steel, the heavier weapons were employed by using for them a stand to rest the muzzle upon, and this was made necessary, not so much by reason of the weight as by the uncertainty of the precise moment of the explosion, and the expediency of keeping the weapon “trained” on the object until the powder chose to catch fire and explode.

Before the invention of the flint and steel, the value of rifling had been discovered. There is a doubt whether the discovery is due to the late fifteenth or the early sixteenth century, but at any rate it was well known on the Continent about 1540 A.D. There are rifled barrels at Zürich arsenal that have been there since 1544. The most ancient in this country was brought from Hungary in 1848, and bears the date 1547. There has been an idea that the first grooves in weapons were not spiralled but straight, but this does not seem to be correct, as all the most ancient grooved weapons known are spirals of more or less rapid turn. Some of them have a variation of twist within themselves. There have been many straight grooved weapons, but the object of them is lost. It has been suggested that they were used for shot, but they could have had no advantage over smooth bores for that purpose, and no advantage over muskets for ball. Nevertheless, the science of ballistics was not generally understood when they were made, and probably a rifled shot gun would have been attractive, as an advertisement, when it was known that a rifle was accurate with ball, and when the reason of its accuracy was unknown to most people.

Although it was at once recognised that the rifle was far more accurate than the smooth-bore musket, nevertheless three hundred years after the invention of the former it had not come into use for the British Army, and this in spite of the work done with it by the American sharp-shooters in the War of Independence. Even long after Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington was against arming the soldiers with the rifle, and yet he, and every authority, knew of its infinite superiority as a weapon of precision. The reason for this was very easy to understand. The muzzle-loading rifle was no more accurate than the smooth bore unless its ball fitted close and took the grooving. In order that it should do this it had to be forced down the muzzle by means of a stiff ramrod and a wooden mallet. This operation took too much time for war purposes, and it was generally considered that a musket could be used five times for once of the rifle. This was the disadvantage that did not really totally disappear until modern breech-loading was invented, although many attempts were made to get over the difficulty in various ways. One of the principal of these was the screwing of the trigger guard into the barrel, in a hole big enough to take the proper ball for the bore; then the barrel was charged from the muzzle, and loaded with the bullet afterwards from the hole in the breech. This was a clumsy makeshift, which cut away nearly half the barrel at that point, and this the metal of the day was ill able to stand. The other plan was the adoption of the principle of the expanding bullet. The best form of this bullet was that one with a hollowing out behind. This hollow, of course, admitted either the powder or the powder-gas, which expanded the rear portion of the bullet, and forced it into the grooves at the same time as it also forced it forward.

It is extraordinary to consider that the rifle had existed for three centuries and a half before this plan became effective, and made the rifle a much superior weapon to the musket. If any country had discovered it at the time of Marlborough or Wellington, it would have made that country master of Europe, just as the first use of the breech-loader as a military arm made Prussia and her needle gun invincible, until other nations also armed themselves with the breech-loader.

It has often been said that “vile saltpetre” was the deathblow to chivalry. That was not so; the long-bow and the cross-bow had before this made Jack as good as his master, and as a matter of fact the bow was much more highly valued up to the reign of Elizabeth than the gun was.

Nevertheless, one French writer attributes the loss of the battle of Crecy to the English use of guns, and he goes on to show that, although the French had used cannon in the sieges of castles, they would not employ them against men. The fact that gunpowder was known in Europe long before Crecy, and is _said_ to have been used by the followers of Mahomet, and by the defenders of India against Alexander the Great, goes to support the French author’s views, that chivalry forbade the use of such a method of warfare.