Writing about his experiences on the Kentucky frontier in 1784, Spencer Records wrote: “As our guns were wet and out of order, we let them remain so; which I think was providentially ordered; for if we had put them in order that night, which could only be done, by picking powder in at the touchhole, and shooting them off; the Indians would have heard them, and have come in search of us, and found us by our fire.”
That caught my attention. It seemed impossible, so I tried a little test. I wet some powder on a paper until it was like black mud, then laid a trail of dry powder to it and lit it. When the flame got to the wet powder there was an instant of hissing, then it flashed just as if it were dry. The paper was dry, with dry residue, no water. I was surprised, and decided I would try that in a gun, one day soon. It wasn’t soon, but I got to it today.
I repeated my earlier test, today, but never could get the wet powder to flash as it had then. It burned through very quickly, though, and was completely burned.
For the test in the gun I wasn’t sure how to go about wetting the powder. Doing it on the paper wasn’t easy, had to stir it with a stick to make it happen, so I wasn’t sure just dribbling water into the vent would do. Thought about loading dry powder and then drizzling water into the bore, but the same problem remained, I wouldn’t know how wet the powder was. I decided to do just as I had done before to make certain the powder was well and truly wet, so I stirred water into a charge of 40 grains of 3F until it was a black mud, not soupy but absolutely wet through and through. A tough test is the best kind. I then put it into the bore of my 20 ga. smoothbore and rammed a single overshot wad over it so the bore would be scraped clean, all the powder on the breech. I then primed as usual and tried the shot. Nada, flash in the pan. Tried that twice more, same result. I then primed the same, but spent some time picking dry prime through the vent before firing. Nothing on the first three tries except a little fizzing at the vent, but on the fourth there was a second of hissing/fizzing with flame obviously shooting from the vent, then the gun “fired”, but with a loud “foop” and the wad popped out of the muzzle about 10 feet. Impressive. I tried a second time, the same except I used tow as the wad. This time it took almost a dozen tries, but eventually it happened just as before, fizzing stream of fire out the touchhole, then a loud “foop” and the tow was blown out. I ran a dry patch and it came back dry so I then loaded with dry powder, primed as normal, and it fired as normal.
Those old boys knew a thing or two.
If I wound up with wet powder I’d pull the ball, if I could, but it’s good to know that soaking wet BP will burn, and as a last resort it is possible to clear your gun in this simple way without tools.
Spence
That caught my attention. It seemed impossible, so I tried a little test. I wet some powder on a paper until it was like black mud, then laid a trail of dry powder to it and lit it. When the flame got to the wet powder there was an instant of hissing, then it flashed just as if it were dry. The paper was dry, with dry residue, no water. I was surprised, and decided I would try that in a gun, one day soon. It wasn’t soon, but I got to it today.
I repeated my earlier test, today, but never could get the wet powder to flash as it had then. It burned through very quickly, though, and was completely burned.
For the test in the gun I wasn’t sure how to go about wetting the powder. Doing it on the paper wasn’t easy, had to stir it with a stick to make it happen, so I wasn’t sure just dribbling water into the vent would do. Thought about loading dry powder and then drizzling water into the bore, but the same problem remained, I wouldn’t know how wet the powder was. I decided to do just as I had done before to make certain the powder was well and truly wet, so I stirred water into a charge of 40 grains of 3F until it was a black mud, not soupy but absolutely wet through and through. A tough test is the best kind. I then put it into the bore of my 20 ga. smoothbore and rammed a single overshot wad over it so the bore would be scraped clean, all the powder on the breech. I then primed as usual and tried the shot. Nada, flash in the pan. Tried that twice more, same result. I then primed the same, but spent some time picking dry prime through the vent before firing. Nothing on the first three tries except a little fizzing at the vent, but on the fourth there was a second of hissing/fizzing with flame obviously shooting from the vent, then the gun “fired”, but with a loud “foop” and the wad popped out of the muzzle about 10 feet. Impressive. I tried a second time, the same except I used tow as the wad. This time it took almost a dozen tries, but eventually it happened just as before, fizzing stream of fire out the touchhole, then a loud “foop” and the tow was blown out. I ran a dry patch and it came back dry so I then loaded with dry powder, primed as normal, and it fired as normal.
Those old boys knew a thing or two.
If I wound up with wet powder I’d pull the ball, if I could, but it’s good to know that soaking wet BP will burn, and as a last resort it is possible to clear your gun in this simple way without tools.
Spence
