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View Full Version : Never know what you will find in a antique musket barrel



threepdr
08-30-2008, 05:01 PM
I found a load of squirrel shot today in a Model 1795. I bought this simi-sporterized m1795 about 10 years ago intending to restore it. It is still in original flint and barrel length, but long ago someone cut off the forarm back to the first barrel band. I really paid little attention to it till recently when I finally deceided to tackle the forearm restoration.

I took it out today and dropped a repro rammer I bought for it down the tube. I have no ideal why I had never checked this before. :oops: As I'm sure you suspected, It hit something soft and left about 2 inches sticking out of the bore! :shock:

After about an hour with a worm I took out lots of dirt, about 1 oz of #6 shot, and some caked black powder.

Some of the tiny scraps of newspaper were readable, but I could find no date. The type font and illustrations that I could see tells me it has been loaded since the mid 19th century or so.

So this is just a reminder, be sure to check those bores when you get an antique like this. I don't suspect if it would have gone off if I had flashed the pan, but you never know.

Jim Strang
08-30-2008, 07:39 PM
Amen, and amen.

Happened to me a few years ago when my next-door neighbor, a gun innocent, popped over one Saturday afternoon to show me what he had just picked up at a garage sale.

It was one of those kit percussion pistols that somebody had done a half a**ed job of building, but he was gonna use it as a wallhanger. So he handed it to me and, first thing I did, I pulled the rammer and did the check. Sure 'nuff. :shock:

We rigged it to a tire, roped the trigger and capped it, with a plastic bag of newspapers in front of the muzzle. When the smoke cleared, we retrieved a .44-cal ball about an inch deep in the newsprint. He was slightly mortified. "We were snapping that thing all morning," he said. Fortunately, they were doing it without a cap.

They're ALWAYS loaded. Always. :!:

Norm Gibson, 4901V
08-30-2008, 08:30 PM
Years ago a friend of mine was considering buying a repro musket and asked me to look at it. The first thing I did was drop the rammer down the bore which clearly indicated a problem. After worming out a wad, bird shot rolled out. After removing a second wad smokeless powder poured out. Someone had taken apart a modern shotgun shell and reloaded it in the musket. Always pays to check.

Ken Hansgen, 11094
08-30-2008, 09:40 PM
You bet -- you should ALWAYS check. Some years ago, when I was skirmishing with the CWSA in California, a young man brought his g-grandad's CW Springfield musket to shoot -- my mentor (who should have known better!) took him to the line and had him snap a couple of caps before loading. On the SECOND cap, the weapon went off into the ground and both men turned a white as a sheet.

Springing a rammer does not always tell the tale either. At the last Nationals, my team captain could not get his musket to fire. When he snapped caps nothing came out the muzzle. We springed (sprang?) the rammer, but it seemed to ring. not just go thud. He came off the line and when he pulled the breech plug at home, found that it WAS indeed loaded -- that the rain had caused him to foul out.

So there is a good reason why we snap caps to verify the musket is not loaded -- but always do it downrange!

William H. Shuey
08-31-2008, 12:28 AM
A Gentleman named Donahue who I believe used to skirmish with the 1st or 2nd MD cav. ran a gunshop over on Goucher Boulevard in Baltimore. He had a gunsmith workshop in the back. I noticed a red circle drawn on the wall with a spraycan and asked about it. There was a blackened hole in the center. The red circle was to remind him to take nothing for granted. A Gent had brought in a musket barrel complaining he couldn't get the breech plug out. So Mr. Donahue clamps it in a vice and hits it with a propane torch.
You can guess the rest!

Bill Shuey

Southron Sr.
09-01-2008, 12:08 AM
First things first-In the 18th and 19th Centuries it was a very common practice to keep a LOADED musket or shotgun propped up in a corner of a room or the corner of the kitchen for many different reasons.

Police forces did not exist and the county sheriff (especially for farm families) were many miles away. Telephones didn't exist until the 1870's and it was after the turn of the century that some farms got phones. So if a prowler showed up or whatever, a loaded gun was a very handy thing to have for whatever might arise.

I recall reading an article in a newspaper published in the 1850's about a farm wife that kept a loaded musket propped in the corner of her kitchen. She had accounted for several chicken hawks and a racoon that had tried to raid her chicken pen.

Another problem that crops up with old muskets that were left loaded for long times, is something called "Breech Burn" or excessive corrosion in the breech area of a muzzleloader. So, if you find an old muzzleloader that is loaded, be sure to carefully unload it and then check the breech area. Often times this can only be done by pulling the breech plug which can be a monumental task because of additional corrosion on the threads of the breech plug. A task such as this is best left to a competent gunsmith , especailly if you don't have breech plug pulling tools.

My personal experience with finding unknown things in the breech of a muzzleloader goes back to my first Nationals in the late 1960's. Having just joined a N-SSA unit, I had purchased a uniform but had not yet purchased a musket.

I borrowed a repro Zouave from an experienced team member because it was his "back-up" musket. Before I left Savannah for my first Nationals, I stopped by his house because he had promised to loan me a gun. He went out to his garage, pulled out the Zouave and an ammo box loaded with ammo for the gun. (He couldn't make that particular Nationals.)

I put that Zouave and ammo box in the trunk of my car and then drove directly to the Nationals.

With the confidence of youth, I was certain I would win a medal in the Indivdual Matches with that Zouave. So the next morning, I was up on the firing line bright and early, hung my 50 yard musket target and then confidently returned to the firing line, sure that a medal was as good as won.

When the tower ordered "Snap Caps," I snapped two caps on the Zouave and then loaded the gun.

When the match started, I pulled that Zouave up to my shoulder, sighted on the X Ring of the target and pulled the trigger. "KER-POW," the cap went off,but the Zouave didn't fire!

After I had fruitlessly busted a half dozen caps trying to get that Zouave to fire, a Safety Officer walked over.

To make a long story short, a Red Flag went up and then at the end of the relay we made the long walk past the 100 yard frames. Not only did the Safety Officer accompany me, but three or four other curious skirmishers.

Using a rod with a ball puller welded on the end of it, the Safety Officer pulled the Minie out of the barrel, poured the powder out and then exclaimed: "There is SOMETHING ELSE down there in the bottom of the bore!"

Back in went the ball puller and after it was rotated a few times in the breech, the Safety Officer pulled it out and then pointed the end of the barrel at the ground. Out came some dried clay!

That is when the laughter broke out from the Safety Officer and his buddies (at my expense.) I was humiliated and mortified! (Fortunately, I was already just married at the time, so was used to feeling humiliated and mortified.)

Seems that there was a dirt dobber nest in the breech of that Zouave I had borrowed! I guess that the Zouave had spent too much time in my friend's garage!

Moral of this story: Sometimes you find other things than old charges in the breeches of muzzleloaders!