Thirteen years among the wild beasts of India : their haunts and habits from personal observations, with an account of the modes and capturing and taming elephants . -barrel, however, missed fire on one occasion andnearly brought me to grief, so I gave it up and had a No. 4 double smooth-bore, C. F., weighing 19i lb., built by W. W. Gieener. This I have used DIAGRAM OF RIFLE BULLETS. 179 ever since. I ordinarily fire 12 drams of powder with it. This is as faras man can go with powder and lead, if I except Sir Samuel Bakers half-pound shell-rifle, the Baby; and though the above gun has failed m
Thirteen years among the wild beasts of India : their haunts and habits from personal observations, with an account of the modes and capturing and taming elephants . -barrel, however, missed fire on one occasion andnearly brought me to grief, so I gave it up and had a No. 4 double smooth-bore, C. F., weighing 19i lb., built by W. W. Gieener. This I have used DIAGRAM OF RIFLE BULLETS. 179 ever since. I ordinarily fire 12 drams of powder with it. This is as faras man can go with powder and lead, if I except Sir Samuel Bakers half-pound shell-rifle, the Baby; and though the above gun has failed meonce, as I will hereafter relate, it usually effectually settles any differencewith an elephant. I have another favourite weapon, a No. 8 double rifle, firing 12 drams,and weighing 17 lb., also by W. W. Greener. As may be imagined it hasenormous penetration, and is very accurate. I have stopped and killedcharging elephants with it, but I prefer the 4-bore for certain occasionsin elephant-shooting. The illustration shows the relative and actual sizesof balls of the different calibres above mentioned. Gauge means thenumber of spherical lead balls to the No. 4.(Four oz.) No. S.(Twooz.) No. 12.(One and a half oz.) •500. -450. (Kx press.) NOTE.—Eleys No. 4 cartridges do not take a bullet of much over h oz. A breech-loading 4-bore,therefore, carries a bullet only a little larger than a muzzle-loading No. 5. Heavy-game rifles are, of course, only taken in hand when the gameis met; the sportsman could not carry them far himself. Any man ofmedium strength will find himself capable of handling a 17 to 20-lb. rifle,and of firing 12 drams with spherical ball, under the excitement of ele-phant-shooting. As regards recoil, it is not serious with such weightyguns. A friend of mine, the well-known Smooth-bore of Madras, oncefired at a tusker with my No. 8 double rifle and 12 drams. I usually keepthe left barrel of heavy pieces on half-cock, as the jar to the left lock intiring the
Size: 3012px × 830px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidthir, booksubjectelephants
