Flax Tow As Wadding

[sawyer04]

wool 'tow' is 'fleece', i.e. unspun wool. Doesn't burn any better than a sweater.

Yeah, I didn't mean tow from spun wool. An older residenter couple had a cottage industry close by , raised, sheared and fabricated wool products. I have seen wool smolder a bit, but went out, never flared. I used flax until I got my last batch two years ago and it just seemed to hold fire too long.
The only thing I have against raw wool is sometimes it stinks.
The question was asked "where did I get the wool tow,?" I believe an internet search will answer, but from what I have seen some of it is fairly crappy.

 

[toot]

Locally from an old crabby sheep herder. His wife, now deceased used to spin some of their wool harvest.

thank you for the answer to my question. I never have heard of it before.?

 

[toot]

wool 'tow' is 'fleece', i.e. unspun wool. Doesn't burn any better than a sweater.

thank you for the answer to my question, also. you rely clarified it for me.

 

[Brokennock]

I would love to know how folks are carrying around enough wasp's nest for a day of squirrel hunting or a bunch of shooting practice on the range or woodswalk.


I lube the fiber with my patch lube blend and haven't had issues with smoldering balls of fiber.

 

[George]

.... it is free and historically correct.

Does anyone have a reference showing wasps/hornet's nest was actually used for wadding in the 18th or 19th century?

Spence

 

[tenngun]

I d

Does anyone have a reference showing wasps/hornet's nest was actually used for wadding in the 18th or 19th century?

Spence

I doubt there is one.
1) most writing comes from wealthy hunters that didn’t have to scrounge
2) we know paper was used, paper referenced in the frontier could be paper wasp(?)
3) it may not have been used, but
Millions of shots on the frontier may have been all sorts of stuff never written down. Grass, cedar bark or birch bark, scraps of leather, Buffalo or deer hair wool all MAY have been stuffed down bores with out written evidence.
The first reference I know of to PRB in a smoothbore was offhand, as if well known
By the by paper that is historically referenced Seems fist the easiest and most convenient to me.

 

[George]

I d

I doubt there is one.
1) most writing comes from wealthy hunters that didn’t have to scrounge
2) we know paper was used, paper referenced in the frontier could be paper wasp(?)
3) it may not have been used, but
Millions of shots on the frontier may have been all sorts of stuff never written down. Grass, cedar bark or birch bark, scraps of leather, Buffalo or deer hair wool all MAY have been stuffed down bores with out written evidence.
The first reference I know of to PRB in a smoothbore was offhand, as if well known
By the by paper that is historically referenced Seems fist the easiest and most convenient to me.

A sterling example of the shoulda-coulda-woulda philosophy, tenngun. I'll give you this, it does make reenacting the old days a lot easier than having to find out what they actually did.

This "well known fact" that wasps/hornets nest was used for wadding in the day has been accepted without question by a lot of people in the hobby for at least the last 45 years to my personal knowledge. Based on what? Made up shoulda-coulda-woulda as far as I can tell. Everyone seems happy to pass along the myth without every even trying to check it out, like so many other things on the historical side of the hobby. I shouldn't be surprised at that, I suppose, it seems to be the standard operating procedure with a lot of modern life.

Spence

 

[tenngun]

So did people only use felt from the inside of old saddles or rubbed paper, and tow?
of course indians used old blanketing. Was nothing else used?
I recall a gun found loaded from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century that had wads of coconut fiber.
Was there a traffic of coconut fiber trade? Were french trappers importing coconut fiber in early eighteenth century to feed their guns?
The guys looking for a treasure on Oak Island have uncovered eighteenth century coconut fiber there. So it’s not impossible.
I don’t recall any mention of that in loading manuals, yet here is a gun with it in it. In fact I find I don’t recall people writing about it when they played their seams on ships, but it seams to have shown up.
We know tow was used and cards too. On this thread folks have mentioned hemp. Was all the tow mentioned in the past flax? Can we confirm hemp was used? Yet you don’t call that out.
I try to go pretty minimalist and we see this in many writings
So it’s fall 1789, westren edge of the Great Lakes. Jules discovers he is out of tow, felt from saddles,and paper. He doesn’t want to clip off pieces of his clothing is he SOL?
He has got powder and lead but I guess he can’t hunt because he has no wadding?

 

[George]

He has got powder and lead but I guess he can’t hunt because he has no wadding?

Of course he can hunt. Since it's fall the hornets have abandoned their nests, so he collects some of that and has moose for supper. The only reason we don't have his account of this little fairy tale is that old Jules is illiterate, couldn't write it down, so the documentation I've been looking for for almost 50 years doesn't exist.
Hey, making it up as you go along to fit the need of the moment is much easier than all that research, I think you may be on to something.
Besides tow, punched cards, rubbed brown paper, leather, hat and 'saddle pierce', I've collected documentation of Spanish moss, cork, moss from apple trees and fearnought cloth being used as wadding.
No hornet's nest, so far, but I haven't given up hope. Maybe it's just that those in the 18th century who could write couldn't spell hornets, or maybe they called them something we don't recognize.

Spence

 

[tenngun]

Im sure your not going to find it Spence. Largely because Jules and everybody he knew was illiterate. Does Spanish moss grew in the Great Lakes area ?
I don’t know, and don’t care enough to look it up. Because that is not the point.
We want to be able to document what we use, or not. We have lots of boys on this forum that use premesured plastic tube quick loaders when hunting, I even have a pair of vice grips in my shooting box.
There is always the ‘if they had it they would have used it’ crowd that justifies whatever. But I honestly don’t understand the concept of people not useing stuff all around them.
Keep in mind our Jules here is on the land before apple trees are planted there, and card is an import he may not want to buy. Cork isn’t found on every oak and fear nought might be a little more handy on your back then in your bore.

 

[George]

Keep in mind our Jules here is on the land before apple trees are planted there, and card is an import he may not want to buy. Cork isn’t found on every oak and fear nought might be a little more handy on your back then in your bore.

I'm not arguing nest wasn't used. I understand completely that its being used is completely separate from its being recorded that it was used. I simply asked if anyone has ever seen it reported in primary material that it was. I've been asking at appropriate opportunities for a long time. No one has ever offered a smidgen of evidence. And yet....it's not at all uncommon to see someone post a flat, supposedly factual statement that it was commonly used in the day. Based on what? Uncritical acceptance of a statement by someone else who didn't check it out, either, and he the same, and he the same. It's gospel now, shame on you if you question the truth of it, it's scripture in the BP holy book. In the same way, I expect, that it became gospel that swan shot were those shot dropped into water with a curved, swan-shaped tail. And just about as factual, I submit.

Finis.

Spence

 

[toot]

some people just stuff the ball down into on top of the powder. I think it is called bare balling? I have done it and there is not a problem one. just go up one size in ball DIA, to keep it from rolling out. or course at a loading bench at the range there is no problem just don't point it down, and you will not need a larger ball.

 

[toot]

I would love to know how folks are carrying around enough wasp's nest for a day of squirrel hunting or a bunch of shooting practice on the range or woodswalk.


I lube the fiber with my patch lube blend and haven't had issues with smoldering balls of fiber.

I carry mine in a plastic zip lock bag, on the trail or at the range, I know that it is not HC, but who cares it is me at the range or on a woods walk. not a reenactment event.

 

[BillinOregon]

Spence raises a good question about wasp nest being mentioned in primary documents. I haven't seen it either. And to risk boring you all ...
"Now search for tow,
And some old saddle pierce.
No wadding lies so close
And drives so fierce."
Pteryplegia, George Markland, 1727

 

[Pete G]

Maybe Jules knew better than to mess with a hornets nest

 

[flntlokr]

some people just stuff the ball down into on top of the powder. I think it is called bare balling? I have done it and there is not a problem one. just go up one size in ball DIA, to keep it from rolling out. or course at a loading bench at the range there is no problem just don't point it down, and you will not need a larger ball.

I have had to 'bare ball, a few times; it works ok, but cruds up the barrel VERY quickly. I only do it when it is important to get as many shots away as I can in a short time. (fort shoot, or stake cut, for example)

 

[toot]

yes we at my club have a shoot the rope in half. but that is the nature of the beast. not a real problem, you just bring your cleaning goodies with you.

 

[Stony Broke]

I've been at a match where we all had to get out and stomp on burning grass to try to keep it from spreading over a large area. One shooter was using something similar I think. I have used wasp nest a lot between powder and patch with good results.

 

[toot]

yeastedy I had a friend over and he brought me a coffee tin full of WOOL TOW. I was surprised! as a week a go I was machining it to him, to use as you would FLAX TOW! it is grey and very dense, look's kind of like a girls braid. it will have to be pulled apart to get a ball of it to load over the powder and over the ball. well I am going to give it a rest run today.

 

[toot]

has any one tried WOOL FLAX for TOW? if so does it burn and stink like hair burning?