Cleaning a Muzzleloader

[Haggis]

Okay color me

 

[musketman]

Here I go again, I think they, (our forefathers) peed down the barrel to clean their bores.

98.6 degree water, so to speak, hot from the tap... (we talked about this back in the summer)
Hotter yet if the trapper had a fever.

They drank coffee, so they had means to heating water, melt some snow for cleaning. A rock can be beat into a crude bowl and water boiled inside it by placing the rock into the fire...

I believe they only cleaned their barrels when they were in a "safe" place, like a fort or at rendezvous, or in large groups.

Other than that, they may have just scrapped the fouling loose and swabbed it with a clean cloth...

There was flannel and canvas duct (for sails) back then, and they could have just used patching material to clean the bores too...

 

[tg]

I have heard mention of water being used, one thing to remember is the difference between the iron barrels of old and the steel barrel of today, wiping with a tallowed rag or hank of tow may have been all that was needed for cleaning, in the past the frying pan theory might be plausible...shoot and wipe..

 

[tg]

I have heard of some folks today who use grass for cleaning and for wadding to keep the ball in place, it was probably a common practice in the past.

 

[Haggis]

Musketman & TG
Aggreed on a variety of premisses, but how often did one get to a fort? What of the salt in the urine? How much "rag" type material could have been carried? Wouldn't cloth in any form be worth more than beaver in the mountains?

My father-in-law, who could neither read nor write, yet knew every part of a muzzleloader; lock and all. I built one years ago when we lived near him and he picked up my lock and noted the "fly". He said the fly kept the hammer from catching after the trigger was pulled.

Now I know that he never owned a muzzleloader while I knew him, nor in my wife's memory. He said his Daddy would make him scrape down ram rods, cast balls, and clean his gun. I ignored most of what he said back then, now he's gone and I wish I had listened more closely.

He did say that they had a "worm" that looked like two wires twisted that went on the end of the ramrod. They would use "tow" to clean the barrel.

The question begs to be asked, "Whould plain old dry grass work?"

Has anybody heard of this?

 

[musketman]

Cloth, (flannel) was a big trade item with the indians of the Rockies, so it was out there...

 

[Darkhorse]

I don't recall ever reading any true accounts of rifle cleaning, after all this was basic knowledge so why document it right? Shooters had been doing this for centurys and everybody knew and would always know how it was done....

I always thought that the Mountain Man and the Longhunters carried their arms loaded all the time. I think this load was on a clean gun. So it would always be ready without worrying about rust or residue attracting moisture.
When in a battle I think they probably used a spit patch to quickly swab the bore when the fouling built up and/or went to the unpatched ball.
If a quick cleaning was needed they probably just used the nearest creek, turned the barrel upside down, then dried it with patches.
When they had time they probably heated water and did a thouroh and complete job in camp. Many times both the Rocky Mountain trappers and Longhunters traveled in companys. This way they could rotate and take turns cleaning and being on watch.
I have heard reference to using "Tow" and a worm to clean. I think this is some kind of coarse grass though I am not sure.
I really cannot see them using urine. There would be no advantage to this. The corrosive effects would far outweigh the little bit of drying heat generated. And it would dissolve and clean no better than plain old water.
JMHO

 

[roundball]

Darkhorse, I agree...the temperature of a big old heavy muzzleloader barrel wouldn't change enough to notice it with that little amount of 'urine' in it, not much hotter than summer air temperature.

I clean mine in buckets of hot water that's at least 160 degrees coming out of the water heater and even after being submerged a few minutes, the water that initially leaks into the bore comes out cold...takes a lot to heat up that much steel.

Only supposition on my part of course, but with the constant need for water just to survive, I suspect their travels were always geared towards or included terrain that would usually have abundant water sources anyway...rivers, creeks, valleys, bottoms, etc

I know they'd think we were foolish to wish we could have lived back then, given all their hardships, but it sure would be interesting to "go back" for a couple years

 

[Haggis]

This subject is kind of like the bumper jack discussions that I heard in college. In five hundred years when people are reading about cars, will there be written accounts of having or using a bumper jack? Or will it be assumed that only the wealthy had bumper jacks because so little is written about them?

Everybody cleaned their guns in some way and with some frequency, but therein lay the questions. As with the bumper jack, it was so common that people didn't bother to write about it.

 

Perhaps we give our ancesters too much credit on the method and frequency of cleaning after all, how many original guns do we see without any signs of corrosion due to neglect. Also, if you look at diaries of 18th & 19th century makers, a common job was refreshing a barrel. This also may indicate that the guns wheren't always cleaned to our standards.

Cody

 

regarding the having to clean more with smokeless powders, it wasn't the powder, it was the mercuric priming.....which is more corrosive than black powder.

Worms have been around for a long time. I expect a worm and some tow were used. We still use a worm as a retriever of lost patches.....or I do!!

Vic

 

i think tow is the yellow grass used to make flax. tow head s are blonde.

 

[Haggis]

Anyone interested in traditional ML owes it to themselves to study planting of flax and the production of linen.

This little plant furnished: clothes for the longhunter, oil to finish his gun stocks, tow for cleaning his rifle/gun, and an endless variety of supplies around the homestead and campfire.

 

[Chuck Deaton]

The only time I saw an old timer clean a muzzleloader, Uncle George used a wasp nest and water. He oiled it with hog lard. This was about 1950.

 

[Rancocas]

"Tow" was a waste product of making rope. It used to be that rope was made from hemp and flax, both of which are straw-like plants. The plant fibers were separated and then spun into rope. The "tow" was the waste fibers, too coarse to be of use in the manufacture of rope.
Many an old boy was known to carry a hank of tow in his shootin' bag. Although I have never tried it, I would think that many common weeds, such as milkweed, could be broken down into fibers while you sit about a camp, thereby making your own "tow".
Food for thought. Hey, this hobby is also called "Experimental Archeology", so lets experiment.

 

[Stumpkiller]

We're getting somewhere, but to say tow is a 'waste product' of ropemaking is like saying gun stocks are a waste product of sawdust production. Flax plants are pounded out and stripped to produce tow (the tough fibers). Linen is made from the #1 grade on down to rope from the courser grades. Hemp and jute are similar fibers used for producing cloth or rope.

Years ago (16?) I bought eight pounds of flax tow when my musket was new to me and I wanted to clean it 'authentically.' The source was a company called "The Silver Shuttle" in Tennessee. I think it was like $2/lb. then, and a pound would produce 200 or so cleaning wads. This came in twisted hanks of fibers several feet long (not the chopped up floor sweepings I see offered now in catalogs) and was intended for the weaving of linen. It looked like a box of blonde wigs. I don't know if they are still in business, but it was finest quality and smelled so nice that even my wife commented on it being the only thing I ever used in muzzleloading that didn't stink up the house. Also note: eight pounds will prove to be a 25 year supply at current consumption. Much longer if I reused it - as you can be certain the founding fathers did. I've seen some museum pieces that still have a wad of tow wound on the end of the 'wiping stick.'

TG brings up an excellent point about barrel metals, too. Iron is actually much less prone to rusting than carbon steel. Indoor plumbing and 'citification' has changed the way we think about oils and fats. "Oil" came out of whales, rendered vegatables or animal hooves & parts, but not the ground. Before garbage collection and sewer lines we had to seperate our wastes for burning, burying or composting. And as proper back-to-earth hippies my young bride and I did also. Grease and fats were skimmed and saved for re-use as is (Crisco is pretty modern) or candle and soap making.

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by Rancocas:
"Tow" was a waste product of making rope. It used to be that rope was made from hemp and flax, both of which are straw-like plants.And to think of all the hemp wasted in the '60's... All of that cleaning material, up in smoke...

 

[Haggis]

Talk about "up in smoke", flax tow, as everyone knows, was used as tinder for fire starting. I rekon, spekelayshun o'course, that dirty tow from cleaning a rifle could be dried and used for fire starting. It would be covered with carbon and old unburned powder. Seems to make sense.

The "traditional" fire starting method I like the most is mentioned by Captain Bonneville, "Indeed, the captain and his comrades had to be dependent on their Indian friends for almost every thing, for they had lost their tobacco and pipes, those great comforts of the trapper, and had but a few charges of powder left, which it was necessary to husband for the purpose of lighting their fires."

 

[Stumpkiller]

Using powder as a fire-starter has the added advantage of keeping you clean shaven without needing a blade. PWOOMF!

I guess it was pretty common practice to plug the vent and use the pan to flash and ignite tinder. And coincedently to 'accidently' shoot a member of the party so's you got victuals to boot.

"I Donner what happened? It was an accident."

 

[Curry Mosher]

My grandmother used to tell about her father lighting the fireplace in the morning with an old flintlock rifle. This was in the 1890's in the southern tier of New York state. He used a small amount of powder with a "nest" of wood shavings, according to Grandma's tale. According to her, the gun was unloaded at the time, so there was no danger of an accidental discharge.

He also instructed the girls and their mother on how to load and fire the gun "in case of burglars". He was frequently away on business, leaving his wife and girls home alone.