The gravitating stops, I should not omit to mention, require to be kept very clean, as, with rust or dirt under them, they will not fall so readily, and thereby prevent the gun from going off. This I name as a caution to a slovenly shooter, and not as an imperfection in the plan. It may, perhaps, be regretted, that these gravitating stops have gone out of fashion, when they have been the means of preventing many serious accidents to young sportsmen. I should still recommend them to beginners in the use of a double gun. How Joe could have reconciled himself to putting them forth as indispensable, and then become the first to discard them, is to be accounted for in no other way, than because they were, of necessity, superseded, to admit of a clap-trap-looking thing, called "the cover," which receives and holds copper primers.

** Before I dismiss the subject of safety-stops, it is but justice to state that in 1837 I was waited on, by Mr. Corner, the gunmaker in Weymouth, who walked fifty miles to see me and show me a gun of his own invention, by which he not only precluded the risk of a careless person shooting himself; but also rendered it impossible to shoot his companion accidentally.

DETONATING SYSTEM.

Now that every gunmaker and almost every sportsman has adopted the detonating, or percussion-system, I can easily imagine that all of this edition, that relates to the flint, will by many be considered an obsolete subject, and therefore an useless insertion. I fancy that I see a fashionable sportsman opening this little work, his eye catching the word "flint," "pan," or "hammer," throwing down the book, walking out of the shop, and exclaiming

"A hundred years out of date!" little aware, however, that for these last thirty-four years, I have made, perhaps, more trials of detonaters than any gunmaker in the kingdom; and were I to print every schedule that was carefully noted down at the time of trial, I might compile a work, which would be formed of pages more in appearance like a book of arithmetic, than a work of sentences. I shall therefore not trouble my readers with a dry detail of evidence, but merely insert one of the schedules, with a copy of an impartial opinion which I sent to Mr. Joseph Manton in 1822; as every subsequent trial, up to the present time, has only served more strongly to confirm that opinion.

Were I inclined, however, to make any further observation, it would be to say: that on further and more general trial, I find, so far from not having done justice to the percussion principle, I have, like all other modern shooters, been rather over-rating its merits than otherwise: for the more shots I fire, the more I am persuaded that the flintgun shoots the strongest into the bird, and by far the easiest against the shoulder.

It seems a paradox that a percussion-gun should fire quicker, and yet not stronger than a flint-gun; but, most assuredly, this is the case. It may perhaps, in some measure, be thus accounted for: the gas flies instantaneously through the whole charge of powder, and puts it in motion with such rapidity, that one half of the powder is not ignited till the other half and the shot, have made some progress up the barrel, and, consequently, there takes place (owing, perhaps, to the vacuum which is thus occasioned) a violent concussion or reaction, which, so far from giving strength to the shot, is rather inimical to

projective force, though it causes a severe strain on the barrel, and therefore shakes every other part of the gun. For this reason I find, that instead of almost equal measure of powder and shot* (the sure proportion for strong and good shooting), a detonater, in one's own defence, had better be loaded with three quarters in measure of powder, to four quarters of shot; and that long barrels, which are opened behind, and nip the charge, in the cylinder, till more of the powder is burnt, do more justice to the percussion system than the others.† I had ample proof of this by an experiment with a musket of three feet six inches, and a double gun of two feet eight inches. The musket, when made into a detonater, shot very near, if not quite as well as when a flint-gun; but the double gun did not shoot so well, afterwards, by at least one fourth! which evidently shows that quickness and strength are not always combined. For instance: load one gun with large-grained powder, and another with very fine canister-powder. We are quite sure that the latter will fire the quickest; but I would back the other to fire the strongest if of equally good quality, because the larger powder has the more projective force. Again, fire a small detonater and a swivel-gun, ay, a twelve-pounder if you please, at a mark only thirty yards off, and see if the little gun does not shoot up to that distance as quick as, or quicker than the others! And yet would it not be ridiculous to compare them for strength?

The late Mr. D. Egg made to me a droll, though a

* Further experience has led me to adopt the alteration in these proportions, as will be seen at p. 91.

† I have proved, since the 7th edition, that, for these guns, an equal measure of powder and shot is the proper charge.

good, comparison, on the ignition of detonating guns: he said, "If I were to kick a fellow out of my shop, would he go off so strong on his legs as if I allowed him to walk out?"

I am not fond of quoting, but nevertheless I must copy a few lines on the percussion principle by the late Ezekiel Baker, one of the very few master-gunmakers in London who understood barrels. I never saw Mr. Baker, though I have read a few extracts from his work, which prove that he had the ability to discover, and the honesty to publish, the real state of the case. He says, "By the detonating, or percussion principle, the whole of the powder is fired instantaneously; but the very quickness with which the powder is burned, in my opinion, lessens its general effect, and I am satisfied, that more execution will be done at an equal distance with the charge from the common flint. Indeed I have proved this by many experiments from the same barrel. In rain, or snow, the percussion-lock will act, from its detonating power, more correctly than the common flint-lock; and this, by sportsmen, is considered its greatest, and, I must confess, it appears to me, its only, advantage." This, and I should add (as I observed in 1822) the "wonderful accuracy it gives in so readily obeying the eye:" and (as I observed in 1824) "having scarcely any flash from the lock of the first barrel to intercept the sight of the second."

Another observation should be made: A well-known gunmaker (not Joe Manton), in presence of a well-known

* "The whole of!" These are the only three words that I have the least doubt of throughout Mr. Baker's observation; as this question, I conceive, depends on what quantity of powder you put into the gun.

F

sportsman, offered to bet me fifty guineas that a detonater of equal size, &c. would beat a flint-gun. I immediately took up the bet, told his clerk to book it, and offered to double it if he chose. He then fought off, and would not stand to what he proposed. Soon after the sportsman left the shop, the gunmaker then said to me, "You are quite right; but if you had not taken me up I should have got an order for a brace of detonating guns!" Let this be a lesson, then, to gunmakers, not to be so ready in offering wagers to gentlemen. This was before the late improvements in barrels, and the new mode of boring were adopted; for then every gunmaker knew that he was deceiving his customers when he asserted that a detonater would shoot even equal to a flint-gun.

In short, it does not require a succession of arguments and anecdotes to prove, that if guns on one principle are sooner shook to pieces, and worn out, than guns on another, it is the interest of the trade not only to universally adopt them, but to employ people who will write anything, for so much a sheet, to overrate them to the credulous, through the medium of some publication or other. Let the reader, however, put down all that I have said, or that others in argument against me may say, as nothing; and only take a walk to some field with a few flint-guns and detonaters, of equal sizes, and fairly try them at two or three quires of paper, and then let his opinion be guided by facts instead of words.

In the mean time, I will proceed to repeat the same trials that I gave in the earlier editions.

TRIAL on the 8th of November, 1822, of a 17lbs. Joseph Manton-duck gun, at fifty yards, loaded with four ounces of B. B. shot, and rather more than an equal mea