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June is such a question mark.  No, not our concerns, hopes and realities from the recent pandemic; but instead, it is a question about how we are going to come out of the “new normal” life that we finally left behind in our cabin crazy realities imposed from March through May.  I believe that all of you are ready to recapture the good feelings of friends, places and adventure that define our lives.  And Friendship, both the act and the town, is a special place for all in the muzzleloading culture to regain your purpose.  And we at Muzzle Blasts intend to help you do just that.

Ben Quearry writes in his column of the ADA Rifle Project, “We all love accurate muzzle loaders.”  He continues that “At the heart of that accuracy is the barrel. In times past barrels were hand forged from skelps of iron and welded into a tube. Today barrels are drilled from bar stock made of high-quality alloy steel.  When I think of great barrel makers of the modern era, men who can turn a bar of steel into a barrel capable of tack driving, minute of angle accuracy, a few that come to mind include Bill Large, John Braxton, Don Getz, Howard Kelly, Wally Hart, Jason Schneider and John Kleihege.”  And this column is more than an update, it is feature that you will want to save!

So if accurate rifles are the dream of most muzzleloading shooters, Buddy Townsend asks in his feature:  “Why have a Cannon?” He states that “Participating in reenactments became an excellent way to spend quality time together as a family without modern technology. During events, the cell phones were put away upon arrival and not brought out until the end. Because we need a crew to properly operate the cannon, we have gained an entire reenactment family.

Our reenactment group raised 12 children over the years, and they all were included in every conversation around the campfire. Even the youngest ones interacted with the adults on equal ground. An important concept they learned is one cannot impose today’s values on a culture that was in place more than 150 years ago. In addition, immersing oneself in the 19th century teaches more about US history than sitting in a classroom. Shooting cannons, even with blank rounds, gave us an appreciation of the sweat, blood, and destruction of the Civil War.

Continuing along the history trail of the use of muzzleloading guns, Jim Fulmer takes us beyond,

way Beyond Friendship.  “One of the many things on my wife Linda’s bucket list was to go through the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Duane Miller, who Linda and I have known for years through Rendezvousing, went on cruises all the time for years. Duane and his wife, Carol also wanted to go through the Panama Canal. Linda and I never went on a cruise anywhere other than in my 14 foot rowboat. Duane made all the arrangements for the four of us. The trip planning began at last July’s Northeastern Rendezvous in Vermont.

All four of us love history and we immediately started planning the shore excursions around the early history of every country that we were going to visit. After the Aztecs were defeated by Hernan Cortes, the leaders of Kaqchikel sent a messenger to offer an alliance with the Spanish. Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado was supplied with native allies to help defeat rival kingdoms of the Kaqchikel. When the last of the other highland Maya kingdoms where defeated, Iximche would become the first Capitol of the Kingdom of Guatemala.  

What made the Spanish Conquistadors so effective was that they had much more advanced weapons than the natives of the Americas. The natives had tools that typically where found somewhere between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. The Conquistadors brought with them from Europe a heavy matchlock musket called an arquebus.  The name is from the German word Hakenbuchse or hook gun. It was being used by Ottoman Empire as early as 1465 and all of Europe was using it by 1475. But by 1521 it advanced into a long gun that could pierce the heaviest of armor. The noise the musket made the natives believe the Spanish could make thunder. It was the latest in muzzle loading technology. They also brought with them the cross bow because it could load faster than the arquebus. They also brought a light cannon called a falconet. It was developed in the late 15th century. The barrel was about 4 foot long with a 2inch bore. The load was ½-pound black powder shooting a 1-pound round shot or grape shot. The cannon could shoot almost a mile, maybe not hit anything at that range other than a village, but the natives never saw anything like this in their lives.

For you faithful followers of Fred Stutzenberger, in June’s monthly dose we watch as he states, “If you want to really bring out the curl, stain that stock with roofing tar.” I had known Tom Harbin to be a bit of a joker from time to time, but he always seemed straight when it came to building muzzleloading rifles.

“You mean that black sticky stuff?”

“Yep, that’s it. Ya’ mix it up with Coleman lantern fuel.”

“And do what with it?”

“After you get her sanded real smooth, paint her all over with roofing tar, only don’t get any in the lock and trigger mortises. Let her sit overnight and then wipe her off with mineral spirits.” And finally, The Bevel Brothers inject their typical tongue-in-cheek humor in their “Reload” that we can all use right now:

Bevel Up:  Back about 20 years ago we wrote an article about hunting loads for smoothbore muzzleloaders. The question had to do with the best loads for small game using shot and deer using patched round ball. One of our “recommended” loads for shot included the use of field expedients such as grass or corn shucks as over powder and over shot wads.

Bevel Down:  That brought in some hate mail from a few naysayers who contended that the use of anything other than commercial card and fiber wads in a shotgun was dangerous. The alleged danger was supposed to come from the wadded up grass or leaves or corn shucks somehow turning into a barrel obstruction and causing the whole thing to blow up in our collective faces.

Eventually, we were able to rally enough experts on the subject to say that there was and is no such danger. But even though we were eventually vindicated, there is still a persistent belief that only properly sized and perfectly cut card and fiber wads (or patched round ball) should be used in smoothbore muzzleloaders.  Back when we were interested in doing things in a “period correct” way so as to know what it was like to hunt the way the old-timers did, we used leaves and corn shucks in our shotguns out in the woods all the time. We still do it sometimes if we forget to bring the right cut wads when we leave the house.  It’s not the best wad material, but if the choice is shooting with less than perfect wads versus not shooting, we always pick the alternative that keeps us in the woods and shooting.

So get off your rocking chair, put on your finest shooting clothes, and get set to make the most of summer. The early American spirit lives on in all of us; we just need to wake it up with the report of smoking guns!

Keep yer powder dry,

Dave Ehrig