Ignorance with bag molds

[Notchy Bob]

It's a cold, rainy day. That happens now and then, even in Florida. The upshot being that I had a little time to pull together some historical references that I thought were interesting, and that may be of interest to some of the rest of you folks, on the topic of old-time bullet moulds and "running ball."

Anyway, here is a quote from G.F. Ruxton's Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains:

This suggests that bullet casting was a very routine, spare time activity with the trappers. However, if someone ran short of bullets, it was apparently not a big deal to make a few more as needed, on the spot. This is from John Kirk Townsend's Narrative of a Journey... :

Townsend and his hunting buddy were able to round up "an old iron spoon" to use as a ladle. It might have been an actual spoon, but some of the writers didn't differentiate between "spoon" and "ladle," when it came to casting. This is from Washington Irving's description of life at the Osage Agency, in A Tour on the Prairies:

Irving, a man of letters, described "iron spoons in which to melt lead for bullets," but James Hobbs, who was a simple mountaineer, specifically mentioned a ladle (from Wild Life in the Far West):

So, casting bullets was a commonplace activity for the hunters of the far west, back in the day. I don't know where the ladle or spoon was carried... maybe in the "possible sack," which was a very large container for one's personal belongings, like a cowboy's "war bag" or a soldier's duffel. I've seen it mentioned that extra lead was carried there, so it would make sense that the possible sack would be the right place to carry a lead ladle. There are several accounts, though, that tell us the mould was kept handy, frequently tied onto the strap for one's powder-horn or bullet pouch, along with some of the other tools and accoutrements necessary for maintaining his rifle. This quote from Rufus Sage's Rocky Mountain Life is pretty typical:

Those old boys put a lot of us to shame! There is more to this muzzleloading game than just shooting. Even if you don't reenact or attend rendezvous, casting balls over a campfire can help us connect with the past.

I need to put in an order to Mr. Callahan...

Notchy Bob

 

[Rod Man]

It's a cold, rainy day. That happens now and then, even in Florida. The upshot being that I had a little time to pull together some historical references that I thought were interesting, and that may be of interest to some of the rest of you folks, on the topic of old-time bullet moulds and "running ball."

Anyway, here is a quote from G.F. Ruxton's Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains:

View attachment 110620
This suggests that bullet casting was a very routine, spare time activity with the trappers. However, if someone ran short of bullets, it was apparently not a big deal to make a few more as needed, on the spot. This is from John Kirk Townsend's Narrative of a Journey... :

View attachment 110621

Townsend and his hunting buddy were able to round up "an old iron spoon" to use as a ladle. It might have been an actual spoon, but some of the writers didn't differentiate between "spoon" and "ladle," when it came to casting. This is from Washington Irving's description of life at the Osage Agency, in A Tour on the Prairies:

View attachment 110623
Irving, a man of letters, described "iron spoons in which to melt lead for bullets," but James Hobbs, who was a simple mountaineer, specifically mentioned a ladle (from Wild Life in the Far West):

View attachment 110624

So, casting bullets was a commonplace activity for the hunters of the far west, back in the day. I don't know where the ladle or spoon was carried... maybe in the "possible sack," which was a very large container for one's personal belongings, like a cowboy's "war bag" or a soldier's duffel. There are several accounts, though, that tell us the mould was kept handy, frequently tied onto the strap for one's powder-horn or bullet pouch, along with some of the other tools and accoutrements necessary for maintaining his rifle. This quote from Rufus Sage's Rocky Mountain Life is pretty typical:

View attachment 110625

Those old boys put a lot of us to shame! There is more to this muzzleloading game than just shooting. Even if you don't reenact or attend rendezvous, casting balls over a campfire can help us connect with the past.

I need to put in an order to Mr. Callahan...

Notchy Bob

Very Cool Notchy!, Very cool indeed!

RM

 

[cynthialee]

Now I am left wondering what a "graining block" is. Google did not assist.

 

[Notchy Bob]

Now I am left wondering what a "graining block" is. Google did not assist.

That was a smooth log, planted or laid at an angle, with the high end about waist high. I have also heard it called a “fleshing beam.” You lay a fresh hide on it so you can scrape downward on it with a knife or fleshing tool to remove the fat and tissue from the meat or flesh side. This was called “graining.” You could turn the hide over and scrape off the hair on the same apparatus, if needed, as for making buckskin, although the fur trappers would obviously not be doing this with their fur pelts.

I expect a graining block would be too heavy and bulky to move, and I can tell you from experience it is a little troublesome to build a good one, as the surface has to be made very smooth. Bumps and dips in the working surface will result in cuts in the hide. So, Ruxton was probably describing a semi-permanent base camp.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

 

[Bighorserider]

Contemporary accounts I've read generally only mention having a few bullets in the pouch.

 

[Flintlock]

Contemporary accounts I've read generally only mention having a few bullets in the pouch.

Sure cause it's always been common sense that when running into a band of hostiles to shoot your three shots then build a fire and cast a few more while they wait. If they had the lead they cast ball at every chance, it weighs the same in bar or ball.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Love that you used litres. A proper unit of measurement. Might civilize you yanks yet

The medium woman is a Brit, I guess its rubbing off on me after a few decades with her.
In real life I say: liter, I got some on the the end of my fishing line.
It the only way bottles some these days. Yet my 2.5L lorrie, is really 140 cubic inches.
My Harley is a 107 cubic inch motor, dont even know how many fishing line that is. :-O

All model As were 5 window coupes. The 3 window did not come out until 32. I sold my 30, young and dumb I was.

 

[GoodRabbitPilgrim]

The medium woman is a Brit, I guess its rubbing off on me after a few decades with her.
In real life I say: liter, I got some on the the end of my fishing line.
It the only way bottles some these days. Yet my 2.5L lorrie, is really 140 cubic inches.
My Harley is a 107 cubic inch motor, dont even know how many fishing line that is. :-O

All model As were 5 window coupes. The 3 window did not come out until 32. I sold my 30, young and dumb I was.

Just wait until the day you guys start measuring in millimetres or driving in kilometres per hour, more straight forward than hamburgers per bald eagle or whatever you guys use in Imperial

 

[tenngun]

I'm told they were for men living off the land and making LRB as needed. You're not going to sit and make 150 balls by the fire, but 5 or 6 should get you a deer or two. Kind of a subsistence tool when you weren't going to be back in civilization for a while. Not something you want to carry around if it's not needed, and you would have to carry some lead too. Heck, I have over 600 ball for .54, .50, and .45. Dont know how I would ever need one.

We have many references to men caught and forced to travel some distance on their own. They have a full horn of powder but only four or five ball cast
We do see a bag with mold on strap but I suspect most molds were in the packs and not the bag

 

[Daryl Crawford]

Just wait until the day you guys start measuring in millimetres or driving in kilometres per hour, more straight forward than hamburgers per bald eagle or whatever you guys use in Imperial

Now it is the good season of our Lord, so I won't smite you for the heresy. Be a cold day in the infernals before I quit measuring by my beloved hamburger and eagle. Bald of course!

 

[Brokennock]

I'm sure they had other kinds of moulds available than just a "bag mould" back then.

Sure they did. Someone already posted some pics of some period "gang" molds. But that doesn't mean they were common or universal. Maybe the one guy to have one in a given frontier "neighborhood," didn't make it to the blockhouse in time. Or the balls from that mold don't fit your gun,,, but the mold that cams with it does.

It's another example of applying modern thinking to people from am entirely different culture. Our ideas of convenient or inconvenient are based on having almost anything we could want available to us relatively easily. And because of this we tend to want things easy and efficient, to our own idea of what easy and efficient is.
Listen to someone who grew up in a depression era farm with no electricity and maybe no running water. They will often say that they didn't realize it was am inconvenience, because everyone around them lived the same way, and it is all they ever knew.
The folks in that fort or blockhouse didn't know anything of bottom pour pots, precision machined multi-ball molds, or molds with comfortable big wooden handles. They used what they had and probably never questioned it.
Look at the handles of the second gang mold that @Rató:rats posted, those handles aren't any better than your typical bag mold, and the big block mold has no handles How many of those were really in use by your average settler or frontiersman?

 

[Brokennock]

Now it is the good season of our Lord, so I won't smite you for the heresy. Be a cold day in the infernals before I quit measuring buy my beloved hamburger and eagle. Bald of course!

I sort of measure distance by hamburgers. Almost anyone who has traveled with me will tell you that I navigate by restaurant and old school burger stand. Drop me off anywhere in Connecticut or between where I live and either Cape Cod, Derry New Hampshire or Lee/Stockbridge Massachusetts and I'll find my way from good place to eat to good place to eat until I get wherever you asked me to get.

I do have a friend who measure distance by 6-pack. His wife does the vacation driving and he sits there and drinks. From one place to another might be one six-pack to another might be three.

 

[brazosland]

Just wait until the day you guys start measuring in millimetres or driving in kilometres per hour, more straight forward than hamburgers per bald eagle or whatever you guys use in Imperial

There are two kinds of countries…those that use the metric system, and those who put a man on the moon! Just saying there, cousin!

Great thread! I carry a Callahan mould in my possibles bag along with a small folding ladle. Seems like essential gear to keep the gun running. Recovered balls, and captured balls can be melted into useable balls.

 

[Notchy Bob]

Good discussion. In reading the eyewitness accounts of the western frontier, I've seen several references to people running out of bullets, either in battle or hunting. I've also gotten the impression that the typical American beaver trapper or plainsman carried balls loose in his pouch. This is not stated explicitly, but people describe groping in the shot pouch for bullets. Sometimes the balls spilled out and got lost.

I don't think they necessarily carried very many pre-cast balls, either. I recall reading of a squad of six or so early Texas Rangers, I think in the pre 1840 period, charged with the responsibility of protecting the entire northern border from Comanches. They had twenty-six loads between them. Much later, in the 1870's James Cook reported one of his neighbors, on a remote ranch in Apacheria, during an uprising, had a total of three cartridges for his rifle. As @Brokennock said, they lived in a very different world in those days.

We think about this, and assume carrying just a handful of balls while in a hostile environment would be mighty risky. Maybe so, but it appears that's what they did. Running buffalo was an insane thing to do, but they sometimes did it. Nowadays, driving distracted or intoxicated, or driving too fast, is risky, but people do it anyway. A lot of mountain men lost their lives due to the risks they took. I used to take consults in the Trauma unit of the hospital where I worked, and I can tell you if people would quit drinking and speeding, trauma centers would go out of business, but it ain't gonna happen. People take risks.

It is true that a pound of cast balls would weigh the same as a pound of lead bar stock, but a hunter's shot pouch carried the things he would expect to need for a normal day's activities. Certainly balls and patching material, and caps for a percussion rifle, but the Rocky Mountain trappers usually carried a flint and steel in there also, and frequently a bundle of sinew for mending moccasins (the awl, as noted in the quote from Rufus Sage, was on the shoulder strap). The most common name for the rifleman's pouch, in the early western literature, was "bullet pouch," although "shot pouch" was also pretty common. His "possible sack" was a much larger container, big enough for extra clothing as well as other personal belongings, and I have seen specific mention of people carrying extra lead in it.

An analogy would be that a mountain man was like a traveling businessman. His business was hunting and trapping. His shot pouch was carried on his person and was his "briefcase," with those essential items needed to get him through his workday. His "possible sack" was his "suitcase," which was carried on a horse or mule and contained all the extra items he might want when settled down in camp for the night. He could then pull some lead out of the possible sack and run a few balls to put in his shot pouch for the following day.

Notchy Bob

 

[tenngun]

We have to keep in mind price. Lead in 1815 was .10 per pound in st Louis.
Today about $3.00.
Average wage today is about 50k, in theory fifty thousand could but sixteen thousand pounds of lead.
Average wages then was less then five hundred dollars in theory about five thousand pounds
Lead was over three times more expensive

 

[brazosland]

And every rifle barrel was handmade early in the era. Even the later factory made barrels varied and then were freshened…I don’t see any possible way you could expect to have balls that fit your gun unless you were prepared to make them yourself.

 

[GoodRabbitPilgrim]

If you had 5 balls or 50 would it really make much difference if you were set upon by a group of Indians?. I like to think I can load relatively quickly but in the time it takes to fire 5 balls I think you're going to know the outcome of the skirmish.

In empire of the summer moon, the author talks about guys getting three shots in when Indians attacked, one from each of their two guns and a reload. By then they were swamped. He was writing of Comanche specifically

 

[tenngun]

Even military went in to battle with ‘light’ loads. I’m thinking standard British was about twenty in a box.
Battles could take hours but the actual fire fight was just a few minutes
Indians didn’t absorb causulties well. If they couldn’t get hand to hand pretty quick it degenerated in to sniping.

 

[DuncNZ]

I have always made balls in my shop, two 2 liter bottles full a year.
Never had a reason to make them in the field.
Now Im gonna have to go get one of them contraptions.

If you are hundreds of miles from home and can carry just so many balls ,you would make every effort to recover bullets from game and re mould them

 

[Packrat]

I have to agree that a Bag Mold is just extra weight. For hunting I would want my kit to be as light as possible. Going to a Rendezvous and shooting the Trail Walk, our club sometimes throws in fire starting, Bullitt making events just to add challenges to the event. Replicating what it was like back than . There is no real need to carry a bag mold and "heavy" lead for a days hunting