February 2020 Muzzle Blasts Editor's Message

This article and many more are published each month in Muzzle Blasts Magazine. Order your copy today!

Scoring Shed

One of the new efforts at Muzzle Blasts this year is an effort to

focus on the families at Friendship. Many families are in their

3rd and 4th generations as they travel across the continent

to visit with old friends, share stories, celebrate births,

graduations, weddings and changes in home, work and life.

But the key ingredient in all of this is the story of “friendship”

in Friendship. Lonnie Vermillion was brave enough to be the

first in sharing a vignette of a storied gentleman by the name

of Jack McDonald . . . and we at MB are looking forward to

yours.

Do you find yourself stuck in the cabin going crazy during

the shortest month of the year? Well, we have a February

magazine issue that will get you out of your blue funk. Get

out of your chair, stir the wood fire, and get ready to do

something fun. For the Friendship Stitchers in your family,

Mickie Rader is presenting a host of quilt blocks for your

creative moments to complete. Did you know that a good

quilt in the 18th Century costs as much to buy as a fine

longrifle and was equally cherished by ancestors?

For those who like to create functional reproductions, be

sure to read and take notes on Bob Woodfill’s feature on

“John Brown’s Hawken Rifle.” Bob not only gives the reader

a fascinating historical look at an 1845 J&S Full-Stocked

Hawken Rifle, he details the equipment and materials needed

to create your own. Woodfill states, “An original full-stocked

rifle stamped J&S Hawken St. Louis is displayed in the LDS

Church History Museum on Temple Square in Salt Lake City,

UT. This rifle didn’t belong to a mountain man, but rather to

John Brown, a Mormon pioneer. What is so interesting about

this rifle is that it has a documented purchase date of March

24, 1845 in St. Louis. We can therefore see an example of

what a full-stocked rifle built by the Hawken Shop in the

mid-1840s looked like!”

Fred Stutzenberger continues his “Getting the Blues . . . and

Browns Part II: The Chemical Connection” by stating “Left

to their own devices, sweaty hands, high humidity, powder

residue and salt air will all eventually work their magic in

turning the gleaming surface of bare metal to a darkened state

of oxidation . . . Bluing and browning solutions hasten this

process and allow us to control the rates of formation and the

products of these reactions.” And if you are a builder, nothing

makes a Hawken or American Longrifle more beautiful than

a blued or browned barrel, lock and hardware for such little

time invested.

If you are a Longhunter and are still on the trail of critters

with a smoothbore, than Jim Swanson can save you a bunch

of time and money shopping for shotgun wads with a DIY

approach. Swanson’s effort is an interesting approach to doing

it yourself! He writes, “I tried to make shotgun wads out of

wine bottle corks, but discovered they were the wrong size,

and beside I could not drink enough wine to create a steady

supply of shotgun wads. So I went to the local hardware store

and wandered around aimlessly looking for ideas. I decided

that with some modifications a hole saw should make a

passable wad cutter. So pay attention and

gear up for the all-too-soon spring turkey

season like Jim did.

For those who love to surf the internet looking for

muzzleloading sites to open up new worlds of information,

don’t overlook Alan Garbers’ “Web Blasts.” He does all of

the hard work on staying on top of the sites that benefit the

muzzleloading culture. I was particularly interested in his first

site that detailed how to avoid fraud in purchasing historic

firearms. Many of us personally know that this information

could have saved a lot of heartache for friends who thought

they found a huge deal on historical arms.

Finally, make sure that you check out Ethan Yazel’s new

NMLRA sites in this and future Muzzle Blasts magazines:

The "Muzzle Blasts" Podcast - NMLRA.org/podcast

The Official NMLRA youtube Channel -

http://bit.ly/NMLRAvideo

We are also now on instagram -

https://www.instagram.com/muzzleblasts/

There is a media hub on the website that links to all of these -

https://www.nmlra.org/media.

February rocks with flint and steel and so do Muzzle Blasts!

-Dave Ehrig

Muzzle Blasts Editor