The natural
supposition would be that this divergence resulted from the axes of
the barrels not being in the same vertical plane as the center line of
the stock. That this is not the true explanation of the fact, the
following experiment would tend to prove.
[Illustration: EXPERIMENTS WITH DOUBLE-BARRELLED GUNS.]
Fig. 1 represents a single barrel fitted with sights and firmly
attached to a heavy block of beech. This was placed on an ordinary
rifle rest, being fastened thereto by a pin at the corner, A, the
block and barrel being free to revolve upon the pin as a center.
Several shots were fired both with the pin in position and with it
removed, the barrel being carefully pointed at the target each time.
No practical difference in the accuracy of fire was discernible under
either condition. When the pin was holding the corner of the block,
the recoil caused the barrel to move from right to left in a circular
path; but when the pin was removed, so that the block was not attached
to the rest in any way, the recoil took place in a line with the axis
of the bore. It will be observed that the conditions which are present
when a double barreled gun is fired in the ordinary way from the
shoulder were in some respects much exaggerated in the apparatus, for
the pin was a distance of 3 in. laterally from the axis of the barrel,
whereas the center of resistance of the stock of a gun against the
shoulder would ordinarily be about one-sixth of this distance from the
axis of the barrel.
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