So how did they clean MLs back in the day?

[Dphar]

I think they cleaned their guns as well as they could when they could, but they weren't as picky as we are now. A friend tested this theory by never cleaning his gun "Old Rustaway". He put about 40,000 shots through it before the accuracy started to suffer. He would only clean it if it got difficult to load but that was all the cleaning the gun got. The gun was shot every day for years that way and won a lot of matches and brought down a lot of deer. I remember when the lock bolt rusted through and the lock fell off. He tied the lock on with sinew and went out and won another match.

My personal opinion is that the guns were used and used hard, they were tools. They were cleaned occasionally and then probably reloaded. When the barrels no longer shot accurately the barrel was refreshed.

When the barrel could no longer be refreshed it was turned into knives, tools, kitchen ware. We take a lot better care of our guns now than most people did back in the day. That is why it is so rare to see a surviving original.

Many Klatch

It was to some extent the lack of care since in some situations having an unloaded gun was a bad idea. Another reason they wore out was long term use. 100 years or so of use will tell on a gun.
Look in "Rifles of Colonial America" there are rifles there at are almost surely 1750s-60s (hard to date pre-rev war American civilian arms) that have been converted to percussion, probably in the 1830s-40s then used as a percussion for who knows how long. Even with the best of care the firearm is going to start showing its age.

People did not have a lot of money so they did not let guns rust through sloth. Look in Kindig's book and read the chapter on Leonard Reedy. He had 50 cent charges for firearms repair that went unpaid for 2-4 years before being cleared. At least one was paid a couple of years after he died.
But then there is the stupidity factor like the New Yorker that shot some ranchers LLama and tagged it as an elk during the 2008 season.

About the 40000 rounds, how much powder does this guy buy? If a 50 caliber and uses 70 grains of powder this is 400 pounds of powder. Thats 16 cases.

Dan

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Here you hold the barrel still and I will. :rotf:

You trying to get him urinated? :grin: