Post by spence on May 25, 2020 19:50:30 GMT -7
Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, in his "Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783", describing the hunting shirt, said:
“The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold a chunk of bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for the hunter or warrior.”
I don’t carry tow in the bosom of my shirt, but I have used it rather extensively to wipe the barrel of my gun. It does a good job, is coarse enough and hard enough to scrub well even when wet. I carry some with a coiled gun worm in the patch box of my smoothbore.
I twist a hank into a rope, screw the worm on my ramrod, and screw the worm into it:
A quick twist and it makes a ball:
Dip it into a stream: and squeeze it out:
Scrub the bore:
A few strokes with another ball to dry the bore and I'm ready to load again.
After use I rinse it well and tie it on a thong to dry:
Rinsed and dried it can be reused to clean at least once more, and then can either be used as wadding in the gun or as tinder for your fire. Using tow, my smoothbore shoots very good patterns with shot and nice groups with roundball. I’ve used it successfully in my hunting quite a bit. I mostly use shredded cedar bark in my fire starting these days, but I used tow for a long time, and it works very well.
Those old boys knew stuff.
Spence
“The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold a chunk of bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for the hunter or warrior.”
I don’t carry tow in the bosom of my shirt, but I have used it rather extensively to wipe the barrel of my gun. It does a good job, is coarse enough and hard enough to scrub well even when wet. I carry some with a coiled gun worm in the patch box of my smoothbore.
I twist a hank into a rope, screw the worm on my ramrod, and screw the worm into it:
A quick twist and it makes a ball:
Dip it into a stream: and squeeze it out:
Scrub the bore:
A few strokes with another ball to dry the bore and I'm ready to load again.
After use I rinse it well and tie it on a thong to dry:
Rinsed and dried it can be reused to clean at least once more, and then can either be used as wadding in the gun or as tinder for your fire. Using tow, my smoothbore shoots very good patterns with shot and nice groups with roundball. I’ve used it successfully in my hunting quite a bit. I mostly use shredded cedar bark in my fire starting these days, but I used tow for a long time, and it works very well.
Those old boys knew stuff.
Spence
