"New" Priming Horn

[Arrowstorm]

I actually made this horn a couple months ago, but when I couldn't get a decent picture that did justice to the carvings I did on it, I neglected to post it. I took these pics with my phone.. but they still came out crappy. I'm not that great of an artist, but I'm rather proud of my carvings here.

Here is an eagle carving I did on the outer side of the horn. By the way, it's a buffalo horn.

In this pic, you can see the harp carving I did. I carved a harp into my priming horn because I do, in fact, play the celtic harp. You can also see the buttplug I whittled from a fenceboard. For the strap holder or whatever you want to call it, I whittled down a dowel rod and then screwd it in from the underside of the buttplug.

I'll edit this later and include pictures of the spout. For the spout, I whittled a dowel rod to fit about 2 inches into the horn itself with a wee "v" groove in the stopper that pulls out about 2-3 gr ffff when I actually use that feature. It's nifty.

This is my first horn. So go easy. :redface:

 

[Derrick Pugh]

Good Job!!! :hatsoff:

 

[MSW]

Your first horn came out a good bit better than mine did. The photos are, as described, a bit low resolution. Eager to see the v- groove in the dowel...

By the way, i've tried a 3 grain charge in the pan and it's a bit on the thin side... barely coats the botton, so I usually put two or sometimes three 'pumps' into it and this seems to work OK.

Anyway, it's nice work- I like the carving. Where did you get the horn?

MSW

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Your first horn came out a good bit better than mine did. The photos are, as described, a bit low resolution. Eager to see the v- groove in the dowel...

By the way, i've tried a 3 grain charge in the pan and it's a bit on the thin side... barely coats the botton, so I usually put two or sometimes three 'pumps' into it and this seems to work OK.

Anyway, it's nice work- I like the carving. Where did you get the horn?

MSW

Hey MSW,

You'd be surprised just how little powder is needed to efficiently prime the pan. From suggestions made on this board, I switched to just priming the outside half of the pan - no powder at all next to the vent. Ignition is virtually instantaneous.

I had been told that you could effectively fire a flintlock by rubbing a wet finger on the pan, putting in the powder, and then dumping it out. The stuff that stuck to the moisture on the bottom of the pan was supposed to be enough to fire the main charge. I was pretty skeptical, so I tried. It worked...over and over again. Ever since then I only put a few grains of powder in the outside half of the pan. Try it, you'll be surprised how well it works.

--------------------------------------------
Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[Arrowstorm]

Oh absolutely!

The MORE powder I put in my pan, the slower the ignition.

I use very little powder anywhere in the pan, and ignition is instant.