Facility of loading is no doubt to a certain extent an advantage, but doubts exist whether breech-loading guns, if brought to such a state of perfection as to come into general use, would not, from their very facility of loading, become a serious evil. The difficulty which Commanding Officers have to contend with in war is in restraining their men from firing too rapidly, using two shots where one would suffice; but the process of loading inculcates care of it, takes considerable trouble, and hence men husband their fire the more. The two different principles of revolvers illustrate this. The self-acting one is apt to be fired more than once; a man in a state of excitement may pull twice before he pauses, and two shots are expended where one would have sufficed. The cocking-lock pistol, in addition to the less pull required in firing, gives time for observation, as the necessity for cocking every time creates a pause, and is an admonition to coolness: this is often very advantageous in shooting game, in which, as in the more serious affair of shooting men, deliberate coolness is required. Therefore, excepting only the chance--the very remote chance, that may arise, requiring you to fire six shots as rapidly as possible--so rapidly that the cocking pistol would be too slow, I would myself prefer the cocking pistol; from the fact of being able to take much better aim with it, and there being less chance of missing, through the heavy pull necessary to raise the cock and fire the pistol on the self-acting principle. The almost general adoption, in the present day, of the cocking-lock, and its application in both Adams’s and Tranter’s self-acting principles, is proof of the general bias towards the same opinion. The tendency of all revolving pistols, and of course revolving rifles also, to foul in the barrel after a few shots, is a very serious drawback to their efficiency in use. The following quotation from Lieutenant Symons’ work is one opinion which I select from a number in my possession:-- “Revolving pistols only ought now-a-days, in my opinion, to be made breech-loading; and of these the pistol of Colonel Colt is a very good specimen. I can generally hit a target the size of a man with this pistol at a distance of 150 yards when clean, _i. e._, with the first shot; and I on one occasion put five out of the six shots into the target successively. When foul, however, the bullets will not fly steadily and on their points. I one day, for the purpose of experiment, fired 60 rounds without cleaning, at planks placed a few yards off only, when latterly the bullets, instead of cutting the circular holes they had been doing, commenced to make marks in the planks as if nails an inch long had struck them sideways. On taking off the barrel to ascertain the cause, I found that it was nearly choked up with lead. The barrel of this pistol rapidly fouls, though the chambers do not.”