doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Stupid Muzzle loading question.

Hal;
I fully understood that. BUT, that not the way Starr did it. He Said, "Pucker Up & Spit down the Barrel" . That's a totally different thing that chewing on the wad in your mouth.
I can't spit down a barrel without getting my head to close for comfort. That was the only part I was really commenting on. As for the Spit it has proved for years to work good in MLr guns be they rifle or shot. Though I have not tested it I do feel it would be rust inducive if loaded for a length of time, would only use it on a range or such.

I don't know about spitting down the barrels but my guess judging from the first photo that some disgruntled shooter must have pee'd down those barrels...

Now I can only speculate that because the nipples were plugged that the pee had no where to drain....thus causing the sewer pipe effect.

If you pee down your barrels store your gun muzzle down.

Spit is an amazing lubricant. But might he have been spitting tobacco?

Whatever, the Skychief load has a lot of fans. I was even told not to replace olive-oil with canola oil....seems that Skychief tried a lot of variants and the final recipe works best (the type of olive oil - Greek. Italian, Spanish - French keep all theirs for themselves - was not specified). Olive oil was one of the basis of Mediterranean civilization and can lubricate about anything....it's just temperature sensitive for taste reasons.

Urine was thought to increase the power of black powder.

During the War for Southern Independence, the ladies of Atlanta Georgia were asked to save their Urine in a chamber pot. This was in turned in to a collection point & was used for making the Salt Peter (Potassium Nitrate) for making gunpowder. The term Black Powder did not come into use until after the development of Smokeless, to differentiate between the two. For centuries it had simply been called Gunpowder. Much of the saltpeter was made from bat guana dug from caves. I have been in a cave in which this was done during "The War". Chicken manure was also a common source.

It is then a popular ingredient in Sugar Cured Ham, have cured some myself using it back when we used to kill our own hogs..

TMI...Geo

See there George I bet you fellers thought I was peeing on your legs....

Ergo44...I know yer mad at me beings you think I pee'd on yer O'Reilly parade.

Honestly I figure you really messed up by taking out them breech plugs and nipples and cleaning those barrels before doing a little more research.

Being your a self declared/anointed O'Reilly Historian/O'thority I figure you would have known better.

I am still alive.... Shot about 12 rounds through the barrels...starting with 55 grains, 3/4 oz, 60 grains 7/8 oz and ending with 68 grains 1 oz for several shots. No problems. I didn't hit many clays but wasn't really trying - concentrating more on the mechanism of shooting a muzzleloader. I tried a couple of different loads including the Skychief load. Without patterning the gun though, I can't tell the difference. Great fun and great experience. The gun lives again.

It looks like you had a good time with it.
Congratulations!