People need to remember that horns were used to store lots of commodities beside powder. The Late Tom Verhoeven, who lived near Danville, Illinois, had a very fine collection of horns in his log cabin home, but showed me that many of the larger horns carried corn, corn meal, and "shortening " or "lard". rather than powder. He took the plug out of one of his large, long horns to show me the residue of lard in the one, and a second to show me, and let me smell, the residue of corn meal.
While there is no doubt that some POWDER horns where HUGE, and long, and designed to carry a couple of pounds of powder, these were generally carried on pack animals, and not over the shoulder.
Several of my gunclub friends acquired very large horns, and were carrying them and using them at the range. Then, we dressed up in our " skins", and walked in a town parade. By the end of the mile and a half walk, the guys with those huge horns were putting them in one of the trucks we had pulling a cannon.
I have an original horn that dates from the last 1790s, to early 1800s, according to my expert horner( Bruce Horne.) He restored it, and repaired damage and a bad repair that dated back to the early 1900s.
Some of the end of the horn had been cut off, so I don't know its original length, or how wide the open end was before it was cut. All we know is that there is original "Primitive" scrimshaw work that is cut through where the horn ends and the plug begins. But, the length is under 12 inches, and the horn carries less than a full pound of powder. The diameter of the plug is about 1 3/4 inches.
The thinness of the horn at the opening suggests that not much( possibly less than an inch) of the horn was cut off, however.
If you want a lot of surface to scrimshaw, think about using a smaller, flat horn, rather than a " Grain Horn", as Mr. Verhoeven called them.
Oh, his large grain horns were clearly made from long horns you would find only on "Long Horn " cattle today. One had an end diameter in excess of 4 inches, and had to be almost 30 inches long. The pointed end was NOT cut off, nor was any attempt to drill a hole made to allow contents to pour out that end . It could only have been a storage horn. The plug, even after all those years, was still a very tight seal. Tom said his research indicated that these big horns were carried in wagons, or tied to the sides of wagons, of immigrants moving West, and then into the Southwest.
Just some thoughts. Paul
