portion to their weight; so that, on holding each of them flat on the left hand, with the end of the lock opposite the little finger, he will find a sufficient equilibrium to make the gun rest perfectly steady on the hand.

I have proved, that this degree of balance answers best, as a butt too much loaded is apt to hang on the right hand in bringing it up, and vice versa, on the left, with a gun which is top-heavy.

N.B. The lower down the butt the lead is let in, the steadier the gun will keep to the shoulder; as it then acts like ballast to a rolling vessel.

All stocks should have a good fall in the handle, and not be, as some are, nearly horizontal in that part. This has nothing to do with the general bend or mounting of the stock, but is merely to keep the hand to the natural position, instead of having, as it were, the handle wrenched from the fingers, while grasping it. This is the only point on which we are beaten by those execrable gingerbread guns, which some of the foreigners have the effrontery to compare with ours.

Of late years the French arquebusiers have made considerable improvement in the manufacture of their guns, as was observable by the specimens submitted for inspection at the Great Exhibition; many of these, however, were more conspicuous for elaborate carving, and external ornament, than for that perfect finish of the more essential parts of a gun, which characterised the workmanship of those exhibited by our own first-class makers. ·

If a stock, in every respect, suits you as to coming up to the eye, &c. &c., the way to have one precisely like it, is to leave with your gunmaker a thin piece of board made to fit with the greatest accuracy to the profile of the bend,

all the way from the upper part of the butt to the breeching. By later experience, I should say even farther still. Let the profile extend at least a foot beyond the breeching. Why? Because you may have two stocks as much alike as if cast in the same mould all the way to the breeching, and yet the barrels, by being sunk deeper in the wood, may point so much downwards as to give the line of aim more bend; or, on the other hand, by not being let in so deep, they would mount straighter than the profile. But if continue the profile for a foot along the gun, you will then be pretty sure of keeping precisely to the bend you want. By being made to fit into this, your new stock must be like the old one. But if you trust to a set of memoranda, that are often mistaken, or, in the hurry of business, not half attended to, you may have as many new stocks as would almost amount to the price of a gun, before you would get two precisely alike.

you

A stock that is deep, and comes out well at the toe, or bottom of the heel-plate, is the most steady when pitched on the object.

I lately had a hack gun for boat-work, with which I could scarcely touch a feather, because the barrels dipped so much in mounting that the muzzle never came up to the mark. I made a carpenter saw off the end of the butt, and then put on a piece of wood which came well out at the toe; then shot (without a heel-plate) and killed everything in good style.

Many a journey to town would be saved to a sportsman if all these trifles were properly attended to by the

makers.

For those who take a pride in the appearance of their stocks, and select handsome pieces of wood, I know of

nothing better, to keep them polished, than a little linseed oil, and plenty of what is vulgarly called elbow grease; unless sportsmen choose to take the additional trouble of adopting the following recipe; which I shall here give, under the idea, that, if considered too troublesome to apply to gunstocks, it may still be found worth inserting, from its excellence in giving a dark polish to tables, or any kind of furniture.

Boil these together, and put them in an earthen pan to stand for a day or two, after which the mixture will be fit for use.

To apply it, rub a small quantity on the wood: let it lie on all night, and rub it off clean in the morning. With a few such dressings, you will bring out a superior polish.

An effectual recipe, however, for polishing gunstocks is to varnish them precisely like the pannels of a carriage.

If a stock, which in other respects suits you, is in a trifling degree too straight, or too much bent, the maker could rectify it by means of boiling it in hot water.

BREECHING.

A gun breeching, till of late years, was simply a plug, screwed into the end of the barrel, so as to reach to the touchhole.

The first improvement was to bore a hole down the centre of this plug, and bring the touchhole to it in a right angle, thereby having the communication directly through both the male and female screws. How far this may be safe, I leave to the more experienced to judge; but it certainly shoots so well, that I never could find any solid breeching to beat it, until Mr. Joseph Manton brought out his, which, like the rest of his work, has been abused and imitated by most of his filing fraternity!

To treat on the various kinds of solid breechings, that have been made since the original invention of Mr. Nock, would be wasting time, and consuming a volume, when we can at once warrant that there are none superior to the one above mentioned.

For example, a breeching on Mr. Manton's construction places the touchhole literally to the chamber, and thereby not only cuts off all superfluous angles, which impede quick firing, and collect dirt, but the narrowness of this chamber admits of the outside metal being filed away, with the most perfect safety, and lets in the lock so far that the pan is brought close to the charge of powder, by which means the discharge of the gun becomes instantaneous. All this, however, may be more clearly demonstrated by a reference to the sections of the different gun breechings, of which there are now published so many engravings, and in comparing which the other decided advantages of this improvement are fully manifested.

Should it be suggested, that the narrowness of this tube renders it difficult to be cleaned, let it be remembered that the rod, when it goes to the bottom of the breech, forces the air through the centre tube with such violence, that neither oil nor damp can be left behind; and, in the event of any dirt falling in, there is a probe, which you screw on the ramrod: and this little appendage is, or should be, carried in your pocket.

It may be well, however, to observe, that many of the gunmakers who now adopt this breeching, commit a sad fault, by making the centre tube too small: they are led into this error by knowing that the narrower the tube the stronger the gun will fire, and are satisfied with the result of a few shots. But were they to take their guns out for a whole day's work, they would find, that by thus attempting to improve on a ne plus ultra, they had rendered their breechings liable to repeated flashes in the pan, as well as more difficult to see through (for ascertaining that all is clean and safe), when held to the light.

Let me now conclude my observations on the foregoing gun breechings, by recapitulating on each, in reference to the following woodcuts.

Letters of Reference, which apply to all the following Sketches. A-Calibers.

B-Male screws as they go into them.

C-Chambers which fill with powder.

D-Screws for getting at and countersinking touchholes.

E-Touchholes.

F-Solid iron, which in Mr. M.'s breeching, admits of being cut away.

N.B. My attempt to give a clear conception of each breeching, in one sketch, makes it necessary to deviate, in some degree, from perspective, which would not fully admit of showing every part.