Although we are straying from the main subject of the thread but what has been said of late does bring back memories of what happened in the family . I am the fifth generation of our sporting shooting family I still own my father and grandfathers guns , but one thing that comes to mind is a great uncle of mine he was the one that got me into muzzle loaders much to the dissatisfaction of my father who would say [dirty old things you want nought with them]. He was one of the old breed fought through WW1. he stored his muzzle loaders in a glass fronted tall cabinet and also in the grandfather clock, he wore pigskin boots and leather farmers gaiters a moleskin waistcoat and a Norfolk jacker. I would go out with him shooting he never carried a powder or shot flask the percussion caps he carried in his waist coat pocket the powder was in a little bag which went into his inside pocket of his coat and the shot went into his out side pocket .The first walk up was always a field of turnips for partridges and to start he would pull a turnip from which he would cut a slice about a 1/4 inch thick then taken his powder measure which was the bowl of a clay pipe and put a full measure of powder in each barrel ,then taken the slice of turnip which he placed over the muzzle ends and pressed on it with his hand so the muzzle end cut the two wads of turnip which were rammed home this was repeated with the shot the gun was caped and off we went walking the rows of turnips .Yes I remember those days when I was roughly 10 years old and still in short trousers which on shooting days got nettled , and scratched with thorns and gorse but at the end of the day with a pheasant , partridge or rabbit in the back it was a good day out. Little did he know or even myself that I would become a muzzle loading enthusiast as I am today .
Feltwad
Feltwad
