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Nothing is better to punch your wadding on than a round block, sawed out of some close-grained kind of wood; such as beech, chestnut, lime, sycamore, &c.: lead is improper, as it wears out the punch.

Be careful not to let your wadding get damp, or, in drying, it may shrink so much as to become too small for the caliber of your gun.

If you have a punch which is too large, and you have consequently trouble in forcing down the wadding, just bite it a little edgeways, and you will contract it so as to load in a quarter of the time, without the risk of either leaving a vacuum or breaking your ramrod. This, of course, I only name as an alternative, till you can change your punch. If, on the other hand, the punch is but a mere trifle too small, it may be enlarged by being rubbed on a whetstone; to do which, place it flat, as you would on the pasteboard; and unless you grind it too much, there will still remain a sufficient edge, owing to the gritty substance in its composition.

If you have separate wadding in two pockets, and have that which covers the shot pierced with a small hole (or, what is better, cut with Mr. Joseph Manton's dented punch), you will load as quick again. I detest all frivolous. trouble, but you will here find great advantage in the saving of time. The pasteboard which covers the powder should (as before observed) be kept airtight from the shot. This, indeed, seldom troubles you, as the air that passes, more or less, through the vent-hole, will admit the first wadding to go down pretty freely; but after this and the shot are in the barrel, the resistance, if the wadding fits tight, as it ought to do, is then so great as to be unpleasant to the hand, and inimical to expedition.

Both pockets must be in reach of the same hand, as there would be no time saved if you had to shift hands with the ramrod.

When using different waddings, have them of different colours to avoid mixing them.

NEW PREPARED WADDING FOR PERCUSSION-GUNS.

Since I first had the honour to address my readers on the subject of wadding, as complete a revolution has taken place in that as in guns. Instead of sending sportsmen sheets of pasteboard and a punch, it is now the order of the day to serve them with bags of, what is called, “patent wadding." But who really has a patent for the article, or who has not, I never took the pains to ascertain. The artist who first started this new concern is Mr. Wilkinson. He brought out his "elastic concave wadding," accompanied by a treatise on it, with explanatory drawings. At first, he made it a great deal too thick; and I begged of him to reduce it to one-third the size of the caliber; since his doing which, it has shot remarkably well. This being made of felt, is the only wadding, EXCEPT OAKUM, that I have ever found to answer well in duck-guns.

Mr. Purdey, and Mr. Lancaster, then brought out waddings, cut by a dented punch, and anointed round the edge with a chemical preparation (mercurial ointment will do), that has the effect, not only of cleaning the gun, but, in a great degree, of removing that increase of lead which is now occasioned by retarding the charge, in order to make a detonater shoot equal to a flint-gun. I received

a sample of this wadding from Mr. Lancaster, and it answered most excellently; because, with this, the gun kept clean, and shot equally well throughout the whole day; and nothing could be more pleasant to load with. Mr. Eley sent me a sample of cork wadding; but with this the gun sooner became leaded. Then down came a batch of wadding from Mr. Joyce, with a request that I would try it. I then underwent the operation of blazing away for a whole morning, at quires of paper, with these waddings, against Joe Manton's best pasteboard. (Nothing but a wish to give correct information, in a work that has been so kindly received, would have induced me to submit to this insufferable "bore.") While the guns were clean, the difference, between them all, was so trifling, as scarcely to be worth naming; and indeed Joe's pasteboard was rather the best. But the guns which were loaded with cork and pasteboard soon began to "lead;" while those with the "patent" wadding kept clean, and free from being what Tom Fullerd used to call "choked up." There is not a question, therefore, as to their merit. But it is somewhat singular, that after all this exertion of their brains, our artists never served us with one kind of wadding for the powder, and another for the shot; because, if there is any way of making a gun shoot stronger into the bird, and easier against the shoulder, than another, it is this. For I must repeat, that the wadding which covers the powder should be thick and airtight; while that which covers the shot should be thin, and with vent. This and a few trifling improvements in wadding, I was anxious to see put in practice; as I have had my day, and therefore wished to serve others, if I could. I then resolved to explain this to some new wadding-merchant; and as the

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gun-makers have enough to do, if they mind their guns, I thought no one more proper to select than Mr. Joyce, as the quality of his waddings has proved most admirable; and he is a practical chemist, who looks a little to the esprit de corps, as well as to the £ s. d. This wadding is now out, and every day increasing in circulation over the kingdom, which is the best possible proof of its efficacy. Mr. Joyce, I see, has made the shot-wadding with a hole in the centre; though my wish was to have it triangularly dented round the edge.

Some of the wadding-merchants object to the trouble of serving two sorts: when this is the case, let me recommend young sportsmen to wad their shot with thin pasteboard, cut by a dented punch. For the powder, however, they should use one kind or other of these anointed waddings; or their guns will soon get "leaded," and become as dry as the very subject I have been writing on.

Since the last edition, our uncle, Bishop, has started Westley Richards's wadding; and it proves so good, that half the gun-makers in town buy it, and call it their own.

There are also metallic waddings. But they never can keep the powder airtight like an elastic substance, nor can they assist in cleaning the gun like the chemically prepared waddings, or even common oakum; and I may add, that their injuring the inside of a soft twisted barrel does not appear to me an impossibility].

[1846. I have given the wadding invented by Messrs. Perks and Co. many trials, and have found it decidedly good.]

[1853. The elastic cloth wadding prepared by Messrs. Eley has been proved to be of great utility, and is in very general use.]

LOADING.

MUCH as may be said on this important head, I shall attempt to explain it by one simple example: for instance, to load a single gun of six, or double gun of seven or eight pounds weight, take a steel charger which holds precisely an ounce and an eighth of shot; fill it brim full of powder, and empty it into the barrel; to this add the same measure bumper full of shot, and then regulate the tops of your flasks and belts accordingly. For a gun of nine pounds weight, an ounce and a quarter of shot, with an equal measure of powder, may be used.

Some little difference of charge will, of course, be required between a twenty-two and a fourteen gauge; and in this we may be guided by the shoulder, observing, at the same time, the proportion of each here recommended: but, unless the gun is very heavy, a gauge of fourteen will recoil more than one of twenty-two; so that, after all, the above charge might do equally well for both.

Much experience, attention, and numerous experiments have convinced me, that the usual proportions adopted by the generality of the gun-makers for loading, or rather overloading, are inimical to good shooting, and neither do justice to their own guns or to the performance of their customers; for they ought to remember, that if a gun is overloaded with shot, a great part of it, at any distance, drops short of the object; and the remainder has not so

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