FLINTS. NONE are better than the most transparent of the common black flints. Great quantities (considered as good as any) come from Lord Cadogan's estate, at Brandon. They should be put in with the flat side upwards, stand well clear of the hammer, and yet be long enough to throw it. Screw them in with leather; as lead strains the cock, and cloth is dangerous, from being liable to catch fire. If very particular about the neat appearance of your gun, get a punch for stamping the leathers, and change them as often as you put new flints. To make a flint strike lower, you have only to reverse the usual way of putting it in; but if you want it to strike higher, you must either put a very thick leather, or screw the flint in with a bit of something under it. This temporary way of regulating a lock, so as to make the hammer fall, is worth knowing, as it often saves vexation and loss of time. WADDIN G. PAPER not being stiff enough, hat dirty, card too thin, and leather apt to soften with the heat of the barrel, the common, and perhaps the best punched wadding, is pasteboard. The larger the bore, the thicker should be the wadding. All this attention, however, is only required in covering the powder; as (except in double guns, where the charge of one barrel has to encounter the explosion of the other,) it would be better to wad the shot with common card, or even paper, knowing that much resistance on that does more harm than good. Common cartridges are bad, as they do not keep the powder sufficiently air-tight, like the proper wadding; add to which, they sometimes fly unbroken, and can never be depended on. I should therefore make use of them only when I wanted to load in a hurry. I have a friend, however, an old sportsman, who would for many years never even hear of any other mode of loading. He was at last persuaded, by a gentleman in Dorsetshire, as good a shot, and as good a judge of a gun, as any man living, to try some experiments, which he readily agreed to do, from a confidence of making good his argument in favour of cartridges. What the particulars of this trial were, I do not exactly remember; but I know that my friend has never used a cartridge since. 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 paste-board which covers the powder should (as before observed) be kept air-tight from the shot. This, indeed, seldom troubles you, as the air that passes, more or less, through all locks, 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 PER- 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; though it may be known immediately by application at the Patent Office. 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, (mercu rial 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 beautifully; because, with this, the gun kept clean, and shot equally well through 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, with a request that I would try it, from Mr. Joyce. 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, among 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 |