flintlock rifle

[wildeagle]

A lot of interesting thoughts on this thread. There are alot of things that our fore fathers did pertaining to bp that we would not dare do today. I'm wondering if there are any accounts(legit) of huffin down the barrel from the old days. Breath moistening fouling,not so sure about.Blowing on an ember after pouring in a charge,I would think it would cook off before you wrapped your lips around the barrel.I think the main reason for huffin would be to see if the touch hole is clear and even then your taking the chance of clogging the hole w/ your breath down the barrel.As for putting out an ember, wet patch(spit)unless your being shot at by your enemy.Maybe as a culture we've gotten safer,it's still not a wise idea to put the barrel of a gun in ones mouth!! just my .02 WE

 

[Johnny Tremain]

As far as blowing down the barrel: Wouldn't blowing down the barrel introduce more oxygen to a glowing ember, not extinguish it -- sort of like blowing on an ember on char cloth to get it to burn?
I don't know the science, but ember plus oxygen plus powder equals a very hot flash (or at least the possibility of it).

What was in there is already down range. For us flinter shooters, blowning the crud out the vent hole, clears it for the next shott.

And all that smoke coming out looks cool too.

 

[Dphar]

If you lived where the humidity was low you would understand. Never needed this when I was in Iowa.
Out here when the humidity drops its either blow or wipe every shot or 2.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

The problem here is people transposing breech loader safety measures on muzzle loading guns. Its IMPOSSIBLE to load a ML without having SOME portion of your body over the muzzle. Thus its unsafe and MLs should be banned from all ranges.
Maybe we could get C3PO to come along and load for us.


Dan