ADVICE TO SPORTSMEN.

Kumara Times, Issue 512, 18 May 1878, Page 2

ADVICE TO SPORTSMEN.

At the present season the subjoined advice as to how to use a gun properly may be of value to some of our local sportsmen :

Accidents have lately been recorded from the bursting of one of the barrels of sporting guns. The cause of these accidents is almost always the same. Of a double-barrelled gun one barrel'(generally the right hand one) is far nv>re frequently discharged than the other. A bird is shot at and then the sportsman loads the discharged barrel. With every shot the charge in the undischarged barrel is started, and makes some way towards the muzzle, till there is sufficient space, and then, an explosion certainly follows. Practised sportsmen, in loading a discharged barrel, make it a point to drop the loading-rod down the other barrel to see that the charge is home.

Guns should always be carried at the half-cock, as then neither a blow on the striker, nor pull at the trigger, will bring the former into action. There is no neccessity whatever for a gun to be otherwise than at the half-cock unless game is immediately in front; and further, it may not be out of place to add that it is dangerous when shooting in company for the gnn to be swung round in taking aim, with the finger on the trigger. The eye should follow the line of flight, and the gun.be raised at the proper moment. Accidents from guns bursting are rare ; but caution is very necessary in getting over fences to see that no earth gets lodged in the muzzle, or in wintertime that the latter does not get blocked up by snow drop ping from bushes, or otherwise. These obstacles, although they may be easily removed, arc quite sufficient, if they remain, to burst the strongest barrels when the piece is fired. This is causfed by the wonderful velocity of the expanding gases. This expansion which is S lid to be at the rate of 7,000 feet per second, is the same in all directions, and the least chock in the muzzle of the gun emses such a sudden increased pressure on its sides, that the latter are unable to resist its efforts, and are burst open. No one is more cautious or scrupulously careful in the use of his gun than an old sportsman, and no one more readily than he detects and condemns carelessness in the manipulation of their guns in others.