then fill each of them with hot water; which, by the time it has nearly run out at the touchhole, will accelerate their being wiped dry, as much as though boiling water had been used; and before they have completely discharged the water, stop the muzzles and touchholes; and after shaking it up and down in the barrels, turn it out at the muzzles, by which means you will effectually stir up and expel any extraneous matter that may have lodged in the bottom of the chambers.

I have recommended washing guns with cold water, from having found that it always more readily removes the foulness occasioned by the powder, which, from sudden heat, is apt, at first, to dry and adhere more closely to the caliber: whereas, with cold water, it remains in a moist state, and immediately mixes.

In cleaning barrels, a little fine sand or brickdust will remove the lead. If hot water should be required for this purpose, the gun may be scoured with it, after having been washed with cold.

Some have their guns, occasionally, only dry wiped, which is not so well, as the introduction of the cleaning-rod drives the dirt into the chamber, from whence it becomes difficult to remove it without water. But when a gun is put by, after a few shots only have been fired, there is no objection to wiping out the barrels, with dry tow or cloth, provided it be so sparingly applied as not to force the dirt into the breechings.

The tow proper for cleaning guns is that fine sort, which is called surgeon's tow, and sold by the chemists: but for cleaning barrels, the breechings of which cannot be readily seen through, and particularly those of detonating guns, I should recommend using nothing but cloth, which answers nearly or quite as well, and by which means you are not liable to the serious accident that might happen from having tow left in the chamber.

Cloth is also more portable for travelling, as the same pieces of it may, by being washed, serve for several times.

Some of our moderns recommend a sponge! fitted to the end of the cleaning-rod. Let us have a receipt to kill birds without shot, and this will do vastly well; but unfortunately guns, after being fired, become leaded, and then of what avail is a sponge? We are told, that a barrel should be cleaned after having been

fired about twenty rounds; but, as it is not every manor that will now afford so many shots in a day, it becomes a query, how often we may venture to put away a gun which has been used. I think, that if eight or ten shots have been fired from each barrel, it will be best to have the gun washed on returning from the field; and, if not, the way to prevent it hanging fire (if kept loaded) is simply to prick the touchhole, put fresh prime, and give the butt a few smart strokes with the hand: or, with a detonater, to prick the hole of the nipple, and lodge therein a few grains of powder, before you put on the cap, which, by the way, should never be left on, when the gun is put by for any length of time. Should the gun have been in the damp, or loaded some time, the more certain way is to fire it off; then put in a fresh charge of powder, while the barrels are warm, and afterwards take off your locks, and wipe them, as well as the outside of the breechings and touchholes, which may be warranted free again, by being probed with the clipped end of a stiff feather; and all this is done in less time than it requires to explain it.

When you put away your gun empty, you, of course, always let down the springs of the locks; and, as their being kept long at the half-cock tends so much to weaken them, it would even be advisable for those who keep their guns loaded to do the same. A piece of tow should be put in the pan (or on the nipple, if a detonater) to prevent damp, and the ramrod left in, as a caution to those who might otherwise take up the gun. It is highly improper, however, under any circumstances, and particularly where there are children in a house, ever to leave fire-arms about charged, unless secured out of reach, or by lock and key.

A little cleaning ought to be occasionally had recourse to in the field. Were the pans of a flint-gun wiped, and the feather inserted in the touchholes after every shot, your gun would scarcely ever be known to hang fire, unless this precaution had been counteracted by your forgetting to load it while warm, or some other circumstance; and I see nothing to justify your neglect in this, except the incessant rising of birds, in which case you may be permitted to await a leisure opportunity. Nothing is more absurd, if a gun has been washed, than dirtying it, long efore there is any occasion for so doing, by what is called

squibbing, which answers the purpose only of alarming women and poultry, putting your cattle into a gallop, and your kennel full cry; and, in short, making a general disturbance among your domestic animals!—very excusable in a boy, who would desire no better fun!

If a gun, after your having probed the touchhole, should ever flash in the pan, you had better draw the shot; and, in firing off the powder, hold the gun sideways (that is, with the touchhole uppermost). I have seen shooters plagued for half an hour with their guns, which have gone off immediately on being held in this

manner.

The proper, safest, and most certain way of ascertaining that your gun be perfectly clean, is to hold it to the light, and look through it (as before recommended); and to prove that neither oil nor damp be left behind, put your charge of powder into the barrel, and, before you add the wadding, see that the few grains, which you can shake into the pan, are quite dry; and if so, prime, and finish loading; but observe, that in trying this with Mr. Joseph Manton's original patent hammers (which are the best he ever invented), you must, for the moment, leave the pans open, or no powder will pass.

If a stupid fellow wedges dry tow into your gun, with the cleaning-rod, pour boiling water on it, and the rod may then be turned round and drawn out. I remember this occurred with a large punt-gun, at which I caught four men hauling away most unmercifully, but to no effect. I luckily came by and saved the destruction of the cleaning-rod, if not the injury of the barrel, by suggesting this simple contrivance.

These little remedies, I am aware, must be insipid to the reader; but, when wanted, often prove worth double the price of a book; so that I have never failed to pencil down, and afterwards insert here, all that I thought had the least chance of being original to the average of sportsmen.

GRAVITATING STOPS.

An insurance from accidents, with a double gun, is completely effected by the late Mr. Joseph Manton's gravitating stops, which

act of themselves, to remedy the serious danger of loading with a barrel cocked; and, with these stops, you may, by holding the gun downwards, carry both barrels cocked, through a hedgerow, with little or no danger, if any circumstance could justify such determined preparation.

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.

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 precludes the risk of a careless person shooting himself, but also renders it impossible that he can accidentally shoot his companion.

DETONATING SYSTEM.

Now that every gunmaker and almost every sportsman is so infatuated with the detonating, or percussion system, I can easily imagine that the whole of this edition, which relates to the flint, will by many be considered an obsolete subject, and therefore a useless insertion. I fancy that I see a fashionable sportsman opening this little work, catching his eye on 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 twenty-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 flint-gun 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 accounted for thus 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 projectile 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. 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

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