Deer skin patches

[D Sanders]

Read a good article in the June muzzleblast about shooting patched round balls with leather patching. The auther says it works pretty well. Has anyone had any experience with deer skin patching? Did you have any luck?

HH 60

 

[Crewdawg445]

Why waste good leather when other proven materials exist and have been used for decades? Not to mention the expense? What's the added benefit that makes it so much better?

Personally, no need to start cutting up my mocs for patching...

 

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

I'd think it would be to hard to get a consistent thickness.

 

[Crewdawg445]

I'd think it would be to hard to get a consistent thickness.

Good call, I know many use it for smoothbore shooting when shot is involved, as a patch material... I'm doubting this nor will I try it. Can't figure out why in the first place? People have been shooting cotton and linen for hundreds of years. Is there a need to re-engineer the wheel here?

Hopefully some of our more seasoned gents can chime in here, looking forward to seeing what they have to say.

 

[Cruzatte]

I cringe just a little when I read about using deer skin patches. I can just hear the old cash register ringing "There's seven bucks per sq. ft. gone...." :shake:

 

[tenngun]

I never have used them but have heard good reports of them. Skin patches were also used in the old days in place of cloth. I understand deer skin can be shot several times :idunno:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I tried chrome tanned deer skin, a few years back....the results were less than encouraging...

Recovered patches showed tearing and they were difficult to load.....

Possible....yes!
Easier or better than cloth....NO!

Have fun experimenting.... :haha: ....I did!

 

[BrownBear]

Why waste good leather when other proven materials exist and have been used for decades?

On the other hand, why throw away all those deer skin scraps you generate when making your own stuff? I have bags of it laying around. Grease lubes don't seem to have any problem with tearing.

Might not be my first choice, but I worked with it long enough to know how to do it.

As with cloth, thickness has to be right. I just sort through the bag and sort by feel. Close enough.

Easy to imagine the frontiersmen we're trying to emulate stopping their shooting and hiking a week or two to the nearest store to buy the "right" patch cloth isn't it. :rotf:

In their world, I'm betting the cloth was the stuff that was too expensive to cut up and shoot down the bore, while they were up to their hineys in deer hides.

 

[Cruzatte]

Didn't I read in one of Mark Baker's columns in Muzzleloader some years back about a hunter working out of the Illinois country, Joseph Hollingshead perhaps, who had a list of purchases Baker reported? And here listed with a large amount of powder, lead, and gun flints was a certain amount of linen, but not enough to make a shirt. Baker tentatively concluded the hunter in question might have used it as patching.

 

[Artificer]

I was also a skeptic on the old accounts about using a leather patch, BUT prior to his passing, LaBonte wrote he had been using brain tanned deerskin for patching for some time and it worked extremely well.

Gus

 

[FishDFly]

Read a good article in the June muzzleblast about shooting patched round balls with leather patching. The auther says it works pretty well. Has anyone had any experience with deer skin patching? Did you have any luck?

HH 60

In the literally world, the article is called publish or perish.

 

[Crewdawg445]

I agree BrownBear, even then I always find use for my leather scraps. I can honestly say I've never thrown any away, to precious IMO. As a patch material it never crossed my mind.

I'm betting it works, probably creates a good seal (when the use of a mallet is not involved to load).

Richard, good point as well. We all know everything published in magazines is true...

 

[George]

We all know everything published in magazines is true...

But not as true as anything posted on an internet forum, obviously.

Spence

 

[Patocazador]

I throw my deer skins away. The very thought of de-hairing, curing, scraping, etc. makes my arthritis act up. If it weren't so much work, I'd give it a go.

I see these ads where you send them 6 deer skins and they make you stuff for about the same price as just buying it to begin with. Not worth keeping them. I used to save some for a fly maker but he died.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Read a good article in the June muzzleblast about shooting patched round balls with leather patching. The auther says it works pretty well. Has anyone had any experience with deer skin patching? Did you have any luck?

HH 60

In the literally world, the article is called publish or perish.

Yep! filler articles....Ranks right up there with "daisy" patches..... :haha:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I tried chrome tanned deer skin, a few years back....the results were less than encouraging...

Recovered patches showed tearing and they were difficult to load.....

Possible....yes!
Easier or better than cloth....NO!

Have fun experimenting.... :haha: ....I did!

I misspoke..... :redface: The patches were not chrome tanned deer skin......they were cut out of the back of an old leather "flight type" jacket.....Thickness was very uniform....

 

[crockett]

Why do you mention DEER skins. I have only read one account from Kentucky and it was rabbit- very thin leather.

 

[BrownBear]

...they were cut out of the back of an old leather "flight type" jacket....

Huh. I thought those flight jackets were made from thinned horse hide. Having cut up a couple myself, I can assure you the leather has no resemblance at all to deer. Deer is a lot more pliable, making it compress better on loading and resist tearing on firing. I've never recovered a torn deer hide patch.

 

[Crewdawg445]

We all know everything published in magazines is true...

But not as true as anything posted on an internet forum, obviously.

Spence

Well, can't say much else to that! :hatsoff:

 

[tenngun]

Didn't I read in one of Mark Baker's columns in Muzzleloader some years back about a hunter working out of the Illinois country, Joseph Hollingshead perhaps, who had a list of purchases Baker reported? And here listed with a large amount of powder, lead, and gun flints was a certain amount of linen, but not enough to make a shirt. Baker tentatively concluded the hunter in question might have used it as patching.

The volume of cloth that went west from the earliest days is mind blowing, both rough and fine cloth. By the middle of the eighteenth century most Indians are painted in cloth. Boone is recorded as having used 200 thread count linen for his shooting, fine stuff.the steamship Arabia was found with enough cloth to supply Townsend for a bit of time. And a boat was just a few miles behind. And several passed her the next day.
Bolts of cloth and premise clothing filled the inventories of stuff sent to the rendezvous, and wagons full to Santa Fe.
As I said I have never tried it, but have read of boys doing it with good results. It was referenced in the past, but I doubt that many frontiersmen were out of reach of cloth.