Flint rifle as a back up

[54ball]

Hello.
Was it a common pratice for a mountain man or any pioneer for that matter to keep a flintlock as a second rifle. I own both types and with percussion if you lose or run out of caps, your done. With a flintock even with cannon grade powder you can grind it down to FFFF.

 

[Ohio Joe]

That's a good question... I think you also have to look at the fact that he, the mountain man, who "may" be prone to losing things could just as easy lose his powder, rendering any muzzleloader he had, useless...

I believe the mountain man preferred the flintlock because he could get his flint right off the ground if needed, just about anywhere...

On the other hand, middle to late in the fur trade, how does one explain away the caplock rifle's of Bridger and Carson if the flintlock was his preferred muzzleloader of choice? Look at Jed Smith. He was packing two percussion pistols in 1831 when he was killed by indians...

I think he used what he could afford, and what he liked. I couldn't say for sure he even carried a backup rifle as a rule? I'm sure some did, and I sure some were just "one gun men"... :imo:

 

I don't know what common pratice was but it would seem that rifles were very expensive and having two, different types yet, would seem self defeating just from the perspective of cost.
It would be lots cheaper to buy a couple hundred caps than keeping another rifle.

 

[Keith]

It seems as a practical matter if a mountain man were to have a second long gun it would would be a smoothbore for its' verstility.

 

It was common for travelers, trappers - whatever, to have more than one firearm, but it was usually handguns that increased the ammament. From 1 extra "piece" to 4 is well documented, however 2 pistols + the rifle OR smoothbore were most common. After 1820, use of smoothbore became much more prevelent in the west, whether musket or shotgun, didn't seemt to matter. Revolving arms rapidly increased the amount of arguing travellers could do. Having 5 to 36 shots without having to reload seemed common enough with peperboxes being most widley spread.
: There were some hold-outs with flintguns well into the ctg. gun era, however hostilities with the natives pretty much rules out the muzzleloaders as quickly as possible. Multishot guns were much preferred, including any ctg. gun single shot or repeater. The Cap lock's reign on the frontier was a short one indeed, compared to the flintlock. Cap guns were dethroned by ctg. guns very quickly after becoming common place on the frontier, which was much later than it's 1820ist invention date.

 

[RussB]

It seems as a practical matter if a mountain man were to have a second long gun it would would be a smoothbore for its' verstility.

Indeed a good question! And one to start you thinking. My best guess is the smoothbore just might be the ONLY rifle he "carried". I'm sure there is a whole bunch we don't know about these colorful folks, and another whole bunch of speculation that we accept as truths.
I, personally, don't think "the average Mountain Man" would have owned, or carried more than one, and that would have been a smoothbore.
Then again, I have to ask if there was ever such a thing as an average Mountain Man? It was certainly not the pictures we see of someone all decked out in leathers, skins, knives, and powder horns hanging off 'em.
That "second gun" would have made for some powerful trading, and that was another form of survival.
Perhaps some of the more "better read" will weigh in on this, and set the record straight.

I don't think the question had anything to do with this, but rather flint & percussion. I feel it would have been flint due to the uncertainty of "caps" in their early stages.
I also think that powder, of that time frame, was much[url] better...in[/url] all grades...than the powder we use today, I'm not sure that if the grinding of powder was not a more common practice than we think of it today.
Russ

 

Russ- black powder was ALL they had back then with almost as many different "makes" as we have today, but only in the small number of granulations. Curtis and Harvey used numbers to designte between different useage or guns, as in #3, #4, #6, all rifle powders as well as the "F"'s, while most of the rest mostly used only the common "F" numbers.(IMHO)
: Pretty much ALL of the power they had was better than our GOEX. Swiss comes close in power per grain, but is still a bit dirtier burning than C&H#6, according to Seyfried. I found the American Dead Shot powder I used, to be excellent in power and clean burning - amazing stuff- really, much improved over GOEX. Alas, it's gone, long ago.
: 2 rifles or smothbores- not likely, but one rifle or one smoothbore plus a pistol or two is most likely.