Evening star., 1915-09-12

| This column. is open to questions
which should be sent in care of the
Sporting Editor, and to discussions by
the readers on anything connected with
hunting or target shooting.
Many hunters have wondered why
the open rear sight on a rifle is placed
part way up the barrel and not as
near the shooters eye as possible. In
fact. just the other day 1 read a letter
from a sportsman in which he stated
that certain rife would be perfect if
only the rear sight were placed way
back near his eye.
The rifle designer is 'twixt the devil
and the deep blue sea on this point.
The farther the sights are placed
apart, the greater the sigting radius,
which tends toward accuracy. On the
other hand, if the rear sight is placed
too far back it appears to the eye as
fuzzy as French poodle. and it does
not therefore improve the accuracy to
any noticeable extent.
The problem is to strike a COM
promise which will give best results
under average conditions. A very in
teresting experiment along these lines
is to cut out some sights from light
pasteboard. place them on a table lined
up with an open window and sight
through them at some object hun
dred feet or so away, and you will be
able to observe for yourself the above
mentioned difficulty.
A. Ell. Which powder has the long
est range, black, smokeless or Ballistite
Answer-From your classification, ii
seems that you are little con-
fused. There are two kinds of pow
der in use, black powder and smoke
less powder. Black powder is the orig
inal gunpowder made from char
coal. sulphur and saltpeter. All smoke
less powders are either nitro-cellulose
or nitro-glycerin or some comb. ma
ton of the two. Roughly speaking,
nitro -cellulose is produced by treating
either wood or cotton fiber with nitric
acid in the presence of sulphuric acid.
and nitro-giycer!n is the result OF
treating glycerin in the same way
with the above named acids. When
black powder burns in the barrel, a
considerable part of the product of
the combustion is solid matter When
smokeless powder burns the amount
of solid matter is very small. indeed.
Nitro-slycerin Or nitro-celluose when
used in their natural state are entirely
100 powerful and tngovcrnable for
use in rifles and shotsuns. They are
therefore toned down by the addition
of various materials which retard their
burning qualities. Bulk smokeless
powders for use in shotsuns are so
compounded that when used in the
same bulk as the old black powder
load will give approximately the same
results Dense smokeless shotgun
powders are compounded to produce
the proper ballistic results without re-
gard to their bulk. Bulk smokele.s
powder should be loaded by bulk
that is, by the actual volume occupied
by the powder. Dense powder should
be loaded by weight on!y-that is, the
actual weight of the charge. From the
foregoing description of the properties
Of shotgun powders, it is not possible
to say that any one of the three men,
toned will give better range than an
other
9. Which is best for the 1o-sause
gun?
Answer-Shctgun barrels are the cas-
lest of all firearms to keep clean and it
makes very little difference which kind
of powder is used. so long as the guns
are cleaned the same day the shooting
is done.
4. Is there any advantage in using
smokeless POWDER.
Answer-There are many advantages in
using smokelesS powder aside from the
fact that there is no smoke. One is less
recon and another is that black powder
is extremely dirty when compared with
smokeless powder and fouls the barrel