The Broken Rifle
Copyright© 2024 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 14
Before we could ‘Let’s’ we had an important part of shooting blackpowder to do ... clean the guns. Black is corrosive as all-get-out and neutralizing said corrosiveness is a pretty damn good idea. Black left in a bore can eat away rifling and even rust completely shut the channel between flintlock and barrel.
There are compounds today that the shooters of the 18th or 19th century had no access to. But ... even today ... some newly discovered Pennsylvania firearms have pristine bores, wood and locks. Flintlock rifles replaced with percussion rifles and... ‘This old junk goes in the attic,’ to be discovered in 1960 by the crew cleaning oiut the house so it can be demolished. The wood cleaned up nicely, a Golcher, or a Beck but 1769 by the date. The barrel? Hot water, lye soap and care...
That’s what we did ... boiled crick water and scrubbed mattress ticking patches through our barrels until clear water. A bit of grease through a still hot bore and done. I’ll tell you right now ... cleaning a fouled rifle with a woman doing the same thing can be a lot of fun. The cleaning was accomplished in fifteen minutes ... the horsing around took the rest of two hours. We were pretty grimy at the finish ... and wet.
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