Primitive cleaning

[chaffinl]

After a day of shooting on the range I usually come back home and clean my .54 flinter.  Using mostly modern methods.  How would one clean a rifle when out in the field using a pre-1840 method?

[R.M.]

Plain ol' water does a real good job of cleaning BP residue. I'd guess that they just poured some water down the barrel and scrubbed with tow till clean and dry. It's really a pretty simple process if you let it be. Sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be.

[pathfinder]

Perfect answer R.M. I recall reading somewhere that even your "own" water was used when water was a bit scarce.

[Stryker]

After a day of shooting on the range I usually come back home and clean my .54 flinter.  Using mostly modern methods.  How would one clean a rifle when out in the field using a pre-1840 method?

water and tow would have been used primarily. If the owner had a worm, tow would be wrapped around it and he could scrub the rifle that way. If no worm, some sort of string would be tied to the tow, pushed down the barrel with the wiping stick and retrieved with the string. The barrel would probably have then been greased with rendered pig lard. Other cleaning agents were probably used but tow, water and lard were easily accessable anywhere on the frontier.

[bluelake]

Perfect answer R.M. I recall reading somewhere that even your "own" water was used when water was a bit scarce.

That was mentioned many times in the Sharpe's series of books, by Bernard Cornwell.  It seemed like it was a common method.

[Loyalist Dave]

Lard, tallow, or sweet oil, were all used as lubricants and rust preventatives.  I only use that method, water, tow, and grease or oil.  Don't use bacon fat, as there is salt in it.

Lard is rendered pork fat, and tallow is rendered beef or sheep fat.  

I like to mix two parts of warm liquid fat or oil (or even shortening), with one part melted beeswax, to make a grease for mocs, and for guns.  It also works as lip balm, skin protectant against biting winter wind, and one can fashion an emergency candle out of it.  Further, it's non toxic, when your youngin or grand youngin gets into it!  Finally, it's dang cheap [Scottish heritage coming through there]

LD

[Stryker]

Don't use bacon fat, as there is salt in it.


LD

I've always found that quote interesting as I imagine our forefathers did use bacon fat.

I use bacon fat to season my cast iron skillets and have never had a rust issue. I figure they may have carried small tins of rendered fat, but it would have been just as easy to dip some tow in the skillet to wipe out their bore with.

We have to keep in mind they thought differently than we do. It was not unheard of them running ball by melting lead in the same skillet they cooked in. I also doubt they wiped their skillet out between cooking each meal. More than likely any grease  left over was allowed harden so it could used again the next meal.

The unsalted lard you can pick up in the store, does contain salt, because the hog's body contained salt, about 4-8 ounces of salt per every 100 lbs the pig weighed. But there is no added salt to the lard. Salt was originally added to help preserve lard. Now the lard is hydrogenated or has trans-fatty acids to help preserve it. Antioxidants are even added to today's lard.

I actually render my own. I get my fat from the local butcher shop and prefer the leaf lard, that is the fat surrounding the kidney. Fatback can be used as well. The lowest grad of lard is the caul lard, that's the lard surrounding the internal organs. I've often got that for free grade for free.

[sse]

because the hog's body contained salt, about 4-8 ounces of salt per every 100 lbs the pig weighed.

No wonder I love eartin' piggy so much.  They come pre-seasoned...LOL