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how can a person tell the difference between a black and tan coonhound and a leopard hound with black and tan colour and is it true that leopard hounds have the best feet.

No hard and fast rules but here's a few pointers. Bnt have a thinner ear less coat normally less tan often a redder tan color the eyes are more uniform in btn dark color. Probably a bit more skin around the face /neck more pronounced bawl . if its a bnT cross these things can change and some lines are different. Most BnT are more track minded . head dome and muscling is sometimes different. The quality of feet just varies between lines more then between the breeds some black dogs have indestructible feet. A picture and supposed line would probably get a better answer.

There is a lot more diversity within the leopards. I have seen some b/t leopards that look closer to a Rottweiler than a hound, all the way to a jug bred b/t can look like the prettiest pure bred b/t hound you ever saw with exact same coloring. Their feet, in my experience look horrible though. And if I saw a b/t hound with show winning feet, I would never guess it was a jug leopard. But as much as I hate their feet, they would be the last of my dogs to actually have foot problems. So I guess you could say they have good feet if you don't look at them.

If you see a thicker/shorter head and more pronounced jaw muscles I would think leopard. But if you had that type leopard you probably wouldn't be asking.

But as pegleg said, the biggest differences will be in the way they hunt. I won't give my take on that, but if you go to the UKC leopard hound classifieds, or forum, ask for the hunting traits/trailing/locating/Treeing style of the leopards. Some might be given in the breed standards also. There are some distinct differences, and if I saw some of them in a Black and Tan coonhound, I myself would suspect the introduction of leopard blood.

I will give you one example of leopard style that I have never seen in a PURE hound: uncanny ability to locate game,wether moving or stationary, on the ground or above the ground, with or without stationary scent on any object such as ground or tree. If I see locating that seems to have no possible logical explanation, I myself will be thinking of the John Clark influence. I am sure he found it somewhere, but I don't know where and this is the only place I have seen it in my limited experience.

Well ok, here's another distinction:not all Black and Tan hounds do this obviously, but if you see a b/t nose dragging, ears dragging, snorting and popping, it is not a leopard cur/leopard hound. Again the leopards are diverse. One of the coldest nosed trail dogs I ever witnessed was a leopard. But this is rare. And if you saw him work you would think he was hot nosed till you put him with your coldest nosed hound and he ran away with the track.