The loaded flintlock above the hearth

[Trev]

Not just a Hollywood invention?

 

[Twisted_1in66]

I’m guessing the gun hanging over the hearth in the flintlock era was loaded. Most pictures today seem to show them with the cock down and frizzen open - not primed. Does anyone know if they were ever hung with a priming charge and on half cock?

Guns at Grandpas Ranch were kept under the antler hat racks inside the enclosed porch (like a big mud room). You'd come into the house, lean your gun up against the wall between the pegs (to keep them from falling over); put your hat on one of the antlers and then open the door and go into the main part of the house. Young Grandkids would lean their .22's there and once you were 12 and got your license, you could use one of Grandpa's rifles for deer hunting. All rifles and shotguns went against the wall in the porch.

You always treated guns at Grandpa's ranch as if they were loaded because they usually were. Actually, we had to clear the chamber before setting the gun against the wall, but they all had full magazines and were always treated as if there was a round in the chamber. Rule #1, "Treat every gun as if it is loaded."

I never really thought much about guns being elsewhere in the house until the time we were taking horses up to a buck hunting camp in the nearby mountains, and our two pickups both got stuck in the sand. We saddled up the horses and rode them back about 7 or 8-miles to the ranch house, leaving our other two compadres with the pickups and other two horses. But we didn't go inside the house when we finally got back. Instead, we went to the bunkhouse and slept there until the morning. Grandpa said that Grandma kept a pistol under her pillow when he was going to be gone overnight, so it was safer to sleep in the bunk house than startle Grandma in the middle of the night.

I remember that night well because I ended up having to ride a horse with a saddle that didn't have adjustable stirrups. Didn't know there was such a thing before that night. And, of course, the stirrups were too long for me so I couldn't really stand in them. You really NEED to be able to stand up in the saddle. I'd switch back and forth from leaning towards one sideand standing in that stirrup and then leaning over to the other one. I was saddle-sore for days after that night...

Grandpa drove one of his tractors up the sandy dirt road to the stuck pickups and horse trailors the next day and unstuck them. I was very bummed because we were headed to a new deer camp for the weekend and never did make it. We often used horses to move cattle from one pasture to another, and after that night I always checked and adjusted the stirrups of the saddle of any horse I had to ride.

 

[springfield art]

I’m guessing the gun hanging over the hearth in the flintlock era was loaded. Most pictures today seem to show them with the cock down and frizzen open - not primed. Does anyone know if they were ever hung with a priming charge and on half cock?

Who knows? I personally believe the "hanging fireplace" rifle is a more modern image from books and early films.

 

[tom in nc]

The whole wall in our house on the west end of the living room is brick, containing the fireplace. There are folding glass doors with a screen behind the glass. The bricks above the glass doors do not get hot with a fire burning. One of my rifles, a .45 caliber full stock Dart brand and an EMPTY powder horn hangs above the glass doors. Actually we only use the fireplace on special occasions and then usually with store bought fire logs. My wife has suffered from asthma all her life, so we use the necessary caution. I take the gun down, wipe it off, and oil it occasionally. I shoot it very rarely, but it is a good shooter. I have so many guns, no single one gets a ton of use.