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Post by spence on Dec 18, 2020 21:27:21 GMT -7
Several years ago I ran an experiment which was a lot of fun and taught me something useful. In the Memoir of Spencer Records, describing events in about 1784, in the valley of the Licking River in northeastern Kentucky, he wrote:
“That evening a heavy shower of rain fell, so that both our guns got wet, which rendered them useless. About sunset we came to Kiser's camp, and encamped there for the night..…. As our guns were wet and out of order, we let them remain so; which I think was providentially ordered; for if we had put them in order that night, which could only be done, by picking powder in at the touchhole, and shooting them off; the Indians would have heard them, and have come in search of us, and found us by our fire.”
That made me scratch my head and wonder if he had lost his mind. We all know wet black powder won’t burn, don’t we? Well, I learned a long time ago not to reject out of hand what the old boys describe, so I decided to test his story. Long story short, I made a very wet paste of some black powder, loaded it into my flintlock pistol, picked dry powder into the touchhole and made it fire. Not the first attempt, not every attempt, but it fired without too much trouble.
That’s the only reference to such a thing I’ve ever run across until just recently. This one is in a work of fiction, a novel written in 1796 by a woman, Elizabeth Hervey, titled The History of Ned Evans. The hero of the tale needed light in a cave, so he collected some dried weed stems and twisted them together. He then made a paste of black powder and water and smeared it heavily on the end of his stems. Using the lock of his flintlock rifle he lighted the powder, which set the stems afire into a kind of torch. This torch was referred to as a spunk.
Two 18th-century descriptions of burning wet black powder within 12 years of each other? There is no end to the surprises in the old literature.
Spence
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Post by Black Hand on Dec 19, 2020 8:02:09 GMT -7
old age and experience beats youth and good looks every time...
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Post by hawkeyes on Dec 19, 2020 8:17:02 GMT -7
Even when making powder, once its granulated and left to dry it'll go up every time. Just a slower burn, neat passage and science expiramnent!
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Post by brokennock on Dec 19, 2020 16:15:43 GMT -7
Thank you Spence. I seem to remember when you 1st wrote about this experiment. I appreciate you posting it here.
I'm currently running a test of drying damp powder with rice. I pulled a possibly damp charge a while back and have it in a sealed container with some rice. I weighed it on a powder scale before putting it in, will pick the rice grains out and reweigh it soon.
I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in?
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Post by spence on Dec 19, 2020 17:56:47 GMT -7
I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in? You are probably thinking of the journal of John Joseph Henry, a young Pennsylvania rifleman on Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec in the fall/winter of 1775. "Though we drew our loads every morning, from fear of the dampness of the atmosphere, yet the ball and powder were never lost. Our bullet-screws brought the first out with ease, and it was recast: the latter was carefully returned to the horn, where, if moist, it soon became dry." This powder would not have been wet, just slightly more damp from the atmosphere. I would guess that it just mixed with the dryer powder in the horn and averaged it all out. The horn wasn't really involved. Spence |
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Post by artificer on Dec 20, 2020 1:33:52 GMT -7
I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in? You are probably thinking of the journal of John Joseph Henry, a young Pennsylvania rifleman on Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec in the fall/winter of 1775. "Though we drew our loads every morning, from fear of the dampness of the atmosphere, yet the ball and powder were never lost. Our bullet-screws brought the first out with ease, and it was recast: the latter was carefully returned to the horn, where, if moist, it soon became dry." This powder would not have been wet, just slightly more damp from the atmosphere. I would guess that it just mixed with the dryer powder in the horn and averaged it all out. The horn wasn't really involved. Spence Spence, That reminds me of what the British military did the morning after Sentry Duty in the FIW and later the AWI. In the FIW, they still had wooden ramrods in their muskets (before they captured the French Steel Rammer Muskets from Fort Louisbourg in 1758) and did not have an individual way to "pull the load" the morning after Sentry Duty. So after being relieved of Sentry Duty, they were marched to the Regimental Artificer (Armorer) and he used an Artificer's/Armorers steel rod that was threaded to accept both screw-on worms and ball pullers. The Artificer pulled the load and saved the ball to be re-cast. The powder was saved and was "re-freshed" as they called it, by mixing equal parts of the powder from the pulled musket cartridges and clean/dry powder. They never mention what they did with the cartridge paper, but it could have been used with emory powder and oil to shine their buttons. The idea of "re-freshing" powder this way also was used for cartridges or even artillery charges, actually any powder that was damp, wet or used before, but not actually burned in one way or another. During the AWI when the British had Steel Rammer muskets, they were still marched to the Regimental Artificer the morning after Sentry Duty. They drew their own cartridges, but still turned them in for the ball to be re-cast and powder to be "re-freshed." Gus |
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Post by brokennock on Dec 20, 2020 2:00:56 GMT -7
I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in? You are probably thinking of the journal of John Joseph Henry, a young Pennsylvania rifleman on Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec in the fall/winter of 1775. "Though we drew our loads every morning, from fear of the dampness of the atmosphere, yet the ball and powder were never lost. Our bullet-screws brought the first out with ease, and it was recast: the latter was carefully returned to the horn, where, if moist, it soon became dry." This powder would not have been wet, just slightly more damp from the atmosphere. I would guess that it just mixed with the dryer powder in the horn and averaged it all out. The horn wasn't really involved. Spence Yup, that's the one. Certainly one of my favorite period 1st hand accounts, even if the title is ridiculously long (which seems common with period literature). |
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Post by Black Hand on Dec 20, 2020 17:04:13 GMT -7
Thank you Spence. I seem to remember when you 1st wrote about this experiment. I appreciate you posting it here. I'm currently running a test of drying damp powder with rice. I pulled a possibly damp charge a while back and have it in a sealed container with some rice. I weighed it on a powder scale before putting it in, will pick the rice grains out and reweigh it soon. I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in? I understand why you might use rice, however I think it is unnecessary. Left to dry under atmospheric conditions would accomplish the same... |
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Post by brokennock on Dec 20, 2020 17:45:42 GMT -7
Thank you Spence. I seem to remember when you 1st wrote about this experiment. I appreciate you posting it here. I'm currently running a test of drying damp powder with rice. I pulled a possibly damp charge a while back and have it in a sealed container with some rice. I weighed it on a powder scale before putting it in, will pick the rice grains out and reweigh it soon. I also seem to recall an 18th century description in writing of putting damp powder back in the horn to dry. Seems odd. Does horn have properties that allow moisture out but not in? I understand why you might use rice, however I think it is unnecessary. Left to dry under atmospheric conditions would accomplish the same... That might depend on the ambient humidity of where the powder is kept. At the time I started this humidity here seemed high. |
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Post by Black Hand on Dec 21, 2020 7:41:43 GMT -7
Isn't that the point - what happens where you are....?
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Post by Richard on Dec 30, 2020 23:40:36 GMT -7
I am reminded of an experience quite a lot of years ago, when I had left a charge in my flintlock after hunting season. I sprayed WD-40 thoroughly both down the bore and in the touchhole, and the rifle sat there for several months. I took it to my friend, Ed Zetler, who had introduced me to blackpowder shooting, and he used a ball puller to extract the ball, which came out with the powder charge attached, like a plug. It was still very wet. He touched a match to the charge, as it lay on his workbench, and it went off immediately.
Richard/Grumpa
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