how did the long hunters clean there guns,,,,,,,,,,,

[rich pierce]

Exactly how do you refresh the rifling? Special tool? Thanks

CASTING A LEAD LAP. After unbreeching the barrel and cleaning it as well as can be done, I get a hickory rod close to bore diameter and at 1/8” from one end I file a square section 2” long. Below that I file a narrow groove and wrap string around that groove till it acts as a gasket. I slide the whole length of the rod in from the muzzle so the end with the relieved square portion is about even with the muzzle. I hold the barrel upright in my bench vise, heat the top 6” of the barrel to sizzling with a torch and pour molten lead in and top it up. This forms a lap that, after trimming a bit, will follow the rifling.
MAKING CUTTERS. I then make 2 cutters. One is precisely the width of the rifling grooves and about an inch and a quarter long. It is about 1/8” tall and has about 12 hand filed teeth per inch. It is inlet into the lead lap, precisely aligned with one of the ribs on the lap; the ones that slide in the rifling grooves. Opposite that I inlet a cutter for the lands.
CUTTING AND SHIMMING. The cutters which are inlet in the lap are shimmed up in their mortises till level and barely cutting. Paper about 0.0015” is used as shims under the cutters. Then the lubed cutters are drawn through the bore one groove at a time, cleaned of fine shavings (swarf) and drawn through the next groove. Typically 3 passes are made in each groove before it passes without cutting and needing shimming up. Eventually the cutters cut continuously end to end and remove all pits. The bore is then lapped with lapping compound. Usually on a modern barrel, half a caliber is enough. Like from .500 to .505. On an original of my own I’ve gone from .34 to .370. That barrel has about 20 hours in it.
This work is not for the faint hearted or impatient type. These are pix of a set of cutters and lap, very dirty after a job. The lap is beat up and worn from use and running through fine shavings a thousand times. I make no attempt to evenly space the hand filed teeth. All that matters is they are of the same height.

 

[CapPopper]

That's pretty darn cool

 

[FishDFly]

Another valuable piece of information that needs to be saved here someplace or made into a sticky.

Information like this does not come along very often.

 

[Okie Hog]

I don't think they cleaned their guns nearly as often as they should have.

Same here. Since 1960s i've owned and/or examined dozens of original rifles made in the 1800s. The vast majority have ruined bores. Almost all those rifles had serious rust and pitting around the nipple and on the first several inches of the barrel.

i worked part time as a heavy truck mechanic for a trash hauler while stationed in southern MD. A driver came in with three muzzleloaders he found in a dumpster in suburban VA. The bores of two rifles were filled with something like tallow. The Hacker Martin rifle bore was filled with butter. When cleaned out the bores of those rifles were in great shape.

 

[Eterry]

Same here. Since 1960s i've owned and/or examined dozens of original rifles made in the 1800s. The vast majority have ruined bores. Almost all those rifles had serious rust and pitting around the nipple and on the first several inches of the barrel.

i worked part time as a heavy truck mechanic for a trash hauler while stationed in southern MD. A driver came in with three muzzleloaders he found in a dumpster in suburban VA. The bores of two rifles were filled with something like tallow. The Hacker Martin rifle bore was filled with butter. When cleaned out the bores of those rifles were in great shape.

Are you saying someone threw a Hacker Martin muzzleloader in the trash? Omg.

 

[FishDFly]

"The bores of two rifles were filled with something like tallow. The Hacker Martin rifle bore was filled with butter"

I've read that in the past, that was the way rifles were put up when stored for a long time.

Guess the cosmoline of the 1800's

 

[Okie Hog]

Are you saying someone threw a Hacker Martin muzzleloader in the trash? Omg.

Yep. According to the collector i talked with in 1975 the rifle was made in the 1930s. A relative of mine owns the rifle today.

When great white hunter dies the first thing madam divests herself of are the trophy heads followed by the guns.

 

[Carbon 6]

Exactly how do you refresh the rifling? Special tool? Thanks

http://www.flintriflesmith.com/ToolsandTechniques/freshening.htm

 

[Eterry]

But back on subject I think the rifle or smooth bore was a tool to the long hunters, just like their knives or traps. And like all people, some take better care of their "stuff" than others.

Although the YouTube video was interesting, I truly doubt many stripped down their lock on a regular basis. And taking the fly out and placing it anywhere but a container of some kind is a disaster waiting to happen.

Looking at Ned Roberts and Walter Cline books shows cleaning tow and jags. That and some bear grease might be all they had. You may not have had a turnscrew to remove the lock.

Having shot tons of corrosive ammo it's amazing how you can clean your gun, then a few days later find places you missed or just didn't clean well enough.

Im wondering if after using flintlocks for ever and switching to percussion anyone told them the caps were highly corrosive.

 

[DaveC]

The absolute ultra-best in firearm preservative during the age of the American longrifle and later Hawken was spermaceti oil from Yankee whalers. Recommended by U.S. Ordnance of the era. Short of that, animal fats would serve, but in extreme cold are not that good.

Tow and tow worms, and bits of rag or old cordage. Dried after use, these could certainly be repurposed to light fires.

 

[flintlock75]

i woke up this morning half dreaming, wondering how did the long hunters and even frontiersman who were on the road or trail clean there guns? did they clean them as much as we do today?

Having spent weeks at a time on the trail or hunting , I would say that they did not shoot very much, just as needed. I cleaned my gun by just wiping it down on the outside unless I had shot it. Depending on weather I would pull the load every couple of days and do a hot water wipe down then some light oil on outside and then reload. If it is very wet I run a lubded cloth down the barrel after loading to keep rust out of the bore. We were hunting one time in some very wet weather, we set up camp under a big spice tree, everyone had leaned there rifles against the tree. The next morning we found all the guns had filled with water in the bored, all were cap guns except mine. I had a toothpick in the vent. One of the youngsters wanted to see if they would shoot, all failed until he primed my lock. It just about knocked him over when it fired instantly.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Watch this video. I would think that this is close to how they did it. Just my opinion.

Flintlock Rifle Breakdown and Cleaning - YouTube

Man, I would NOT disassemble the lock out in the field. You really don't need to disassemble it unless you are having trouble with it. Just too many chances of losing the small parts that are in the lock once you start pulling it apart and they can easily get lost in the grass or dirt where you're sitting...ask me how I know.

I used my Early Lancaster longrifle with its L&R Queen Anne lock for about 30-40 reenactments the first couple of years that I had it (at least 20 blanks a day or ~40-50 shots per reenactment). Then I made the mistake of removing the frizzen spring (from the outside face of the lock) outdoors. If fell into the tall grass where we were set-up and I never did find it. Good news is that you can fire the gun without the frizzen spring. Bad news is that it can bounce back and chip or break your flint without the spring to hold it in the open position once you've fired it.

I called L&R up to see about getting another (really nice folks!). They said they could supply it, no problem and if I wanted to send the lock into to them, they'd be happy to install it and inspect the lock for just the price of the part. So I sent the lock in to them and got it back a week later with the new frizzen spring installed for just the price of the spring. They also included a short note that said, "Nice Lock!"

The point is that you can easily clean the inside of the lock with either MAP or just hot water and a period toothbrush (bone and boar bristle), which is what I use. Clean it with the **** (hammer) in the full-**** position first and then lower it all the way to the fired position to expose the parts obscured from cleaning by being in the full-**** position.

Then drops of gun oil on all the moving parts (my oiler has a long tip inside a cork specifically to allow you to dip it in the oil and them place drops of oil in small spaces). If you have bear oil, that was commonly used and is great stuff instead of gun oil (bear oil on these parts, not bear grease). They also had whale oil back then too but on the frontier away from trading posts, bear oil was more easily available. Othewise modern gun-oil works Just fine.

Also clean the outside of the lock being sure to clean with lock in both positions and then wipe it all off. Be sure to clean the frizzen spring where the frizzen rotates on it. The put some oil on a rag - I usually just use some oil on a patch - to wipe it all down.

You'd honestly be crazy to tear that thing apart in the field because your life depended upon it for both food and protection, and you couldn't just get parts easily. Don't tempt fate because you'll lose!

I actually left a fairly long comment on his You Tube a year ago. If you follow his instructions you are likely to:
• Lose parts because you dropped them and can't find them, thus disabling your rifle.
• put the lock back together a little bit off making it either non-functional or dangerous (won't hold a half-****)
• end up at least with pits in the breech area of the barrel from not cleaning the gun after every use. More likely to end up with a lot of rust in the barrel because of leaving it for two weeks. If you do that and run a patch down the barrel, it will come back brown with rust from the inside of the barrel. In the wrought iron barrels of the time, that would be disastrous and a very expensive repair because you would have to "freshen" the barrel - ream it out again and re-rifle it.

Clean your rifle or smoothbore EVERY DAY that you use it. Black powder residue is very corrosive.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

The absolute ultra-best in firearm preservative during the age of the American longrifle and later Hawken was spermaceti oil from Yankee whalers. Recommended by U.S. Ordnance of the era. Short of that, animal fats would serve, but in extreme cold are not that good.

Tow and tow worms, and bits of rag or old cordage. Dried after use, these could certainly be repurposed to light fires.

FYI: Bear oil works fine in sub-zero temps. Whale oil was easily available in towns and trading posts and preferred...not so much on the frontier while there were lots of bears around.

 

[tenngun]

I don’t dissemble my locks regularly. They are ‘in the white’ on the inside and wipe clean and oil, but find little fouling in it.
Some time after the long Hunter time Meek records an episode in his first year west where the brigade commander inspecting guns on the trail, paying him ten dollars to clean another’s rifle that had been uncleaned.
looking at old guns in poor shape doesn’t tell us much as the guns spent a century or more untended.
Knowing how fast a gun in moist conditions can rust I just can’t see that guns were left dirty. The issue of worms to soldiers and the amount of worms sold with guns makes me think they kept then clean.

 

[Flinty Scot]

It also makes sense, to me at least, that it would have been easier to find someone able to repair a rifle than it is for many of us
Maybe not on the frontier, but in many villages. Not a gunsmith, making guns, but someone who could repair or rebuild one. Even a blacksmith would have been able to make repairs.

 

[rich pierce]

Jim Bridger had been apprenticed to a blacksmith and was reported to be able to do gun repairs. I agree that gunsmithing services were in demand and likely available where enough customers could gather. I often wondered if supply trains to the Rocky Mountain rendezvous brought gunsmiths or at least some parts to the gatherings.

At a much earlier date, but on the frontier, one of my ancestors, Myndert Wemple, wintered among the Seneca to repair their arms, cooking utensils, and so on. “
From a paper titled THE WEMPLE FAMILY by William C. Wemple sent to the compiler by Michael Lee Wemple of Bay City, MI on September 5, 1995:

Meindert was sent by Sir Wm. Johnson to the Senecas to stay until their corn was a foot high and keep their arms in order and working utensils in repair. The Indians in 1726 requested that He being a good and charitable to the poor that some of his sons may reside among them as they are they smiths, and are acquainted with them and know their language.”

 

[Winterhawk]

Exactly how do you refresh the rifling? Special tool? Thanks

Basically, it involves chasing the existing rifling grooves to sharpen the lands and make the grooves deeper, thus smoothing out the bore. So it's not reboring the barrel, just cleaning its innards a bit.

~WH~

 

[toot]

rely cool!

 

[Rudyard]

For what its worth I have taken alone trips of 13 to 18 days duration through' big country' mostly off track where any might once have exsisted. My rifles or double gun ever loaded. I would' field clean' by wipeing out the bore with spit soaked patches till tolerably clean, dry, then lightly oil over the ball or shot charge ( The Double 16 bore shot gun being the best sort since you want small game for the pot but the left barrel I had a ball in case , There being Bears & likely amourous Moose to consider ) .(I never ran into a Mountain Lion or Wolverine to worry about ) Such largely big river' Passages' where often soaked and once I used the rifle barrel to feel for a foothold ledge to get by a particularly murky swollen creek . .However I gave them every care come camp. They didn't suffer rusting enough to notice . I have them still only one rifle had a steel barrel being made from a surplus Martini Henry barrel at least in Canada. On NZ trips I used all sorts, steel & twist or scelp brls both . People all differ but I cant emagine Long hunters neglecting their kit.
Rudyard

 

[smoothshooter]

i woke up this morning half dreaming, wondering how did the long hunters and even frontiersman who were on the road or trail clean there guns? did they clean them as much as we do today?

Some took good care of their guns. Others didn’t, just like now. If they lived in a dangerous area, they were probably pretty serious about gun care. Remember, few people in America in the 1620-1880 period lived in areas where a firearm was a necessity.
I am sure modern shooters on average clean their muzzleloaders better than our ancestors did.