To prove that it is impossible to get all the circumstances alike, so as accurately to ascertain the exact force of the recoil, one instance only need be cited. Fire your gun at a fixed object, then fire at an object in motion, and to your senses the recoil will appear double when fired at the fixed object; but it is not really so: in the latter instance, the body of the person firing the gun, and the gun itself being in motion, a considerable amount of the force of the recoil is absorbed in overcoming the motion of the gun, and then that of the shooters body, so that the effect is not noticed. I have already alluded to the greater force of recoil felt from the lighter pressure of the gun against the shoulder; here the tendency of the gun and body moving in one direction is to close them together, and the proportion will be as the velocity of that movement. Therefore, to bring this to a conclusion, I find that under ordinary circumstances a 12-bore gun of 7-1/2 lbs. weight, 30 inches in length, with a charge of 2-1/2 drams of No. 5 grained gunpowder, and 1-1/4 oz. shot, the barrels draw-bored cylindrically, with the least possible easing at the breech ends, and metal of the best laminated steel, will recoil with a force of from 40 lbs. to 48 lbs., or on an average 44 lbs.: this is the most satisfactory conclusion I have been able to draw from my experiments. This of course will vary, as I have shown; and it is also liable to deviations, according to the state of the atmosphere, and other collateral circumstances. Great variations will of course arise from guns of fine or rough insides; guns new or old, well kept or neglected; and in guns bored larger at the breech-ends, in order to give artificial resistance to the escape of the charge. These last are now, I trust, obsolete, except in that abortion of science the “French breech-loading crutch gun;” and as an exception, all ill-constructed guns. The science of the question may now be regarded as clearly established. Gun-barrels of the utmost tenacity, with insides of a cylindrical form as true as possible, polished as fine as a mirror, with a moderate weight of shot calculated to suit the gun and a good charge of large granulated gunpowder, will give the greatest killing power, with the greatest amount of comfort, or absence of recoil, that is to be found in the pursuit of shooting. A point of considerable importance in obtaining regular and good shooting--one, however, which is frequently neglected--is that of ascertaining what sized shot is particularly suited to the size of bore used.