What Horn To Use?

[musketman]

If you were making a powder horn, what would be the best choise of horn to use?

Buffalo?
Cow?
Goat?
Bull?
Oxen?
Musk Ox?
Big Horn Ram?
Texas Longhorn? (holds 10+ pounds of powder)

Cape Buffalo?

I see mostly plain old cow for sale.
I would like to get a bison's horn, or something exotic, like a pronghorn's antler.

I used a rosewood tuning key from a old violin for the stopper, it looked really nice.

 

[LRB]

Best quality bovine horn comes from the dairy breeds, if you can find such.

 

I use bison only because I can get them and I can't get bovine. Problem is, do you leave the horns with the skull, or pilfer them to make powder horns. My dad has an antelope horn as a handle on his cleaning rod and a mountain goat horn as a pan primer.

Cody

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by Cody Tetachuk:
Problem is, do you leave the horns with the skull, or pilfer them to make powder horns.If the skull had a deformed or broken horn, then I would use the other good horn to make the powder horn.

After all, buff skulls are not that common in Ohio anymore.
The woodland buffalo has long vanished from the Ohio Valley.

We do have the hybrid, beefalo.
I wonder if their horns would be better to use.

 

[Randy]

Anybody looking for horns can find a good selection of cow horns from October Country in Hayden, ID ph (208) 772-2068.

Horse Dr.

 

[musketman]

Here is a nice horn link.

http://powderhorns.tripod.com/page_powderhorns.html

 

[Darkhorse]

When I make a horn I go to the local slaughterhouse and pick out a head with horns that I like. Usually they are more than willing for somebody to haul off the waste.
Cut the horns off and boil them in water until the horn seperates from the bone.

I would like a buffalo horn but they are hard to come by down here in the south.

I would be leery of antelope horn. They may be too porous and let water through.

 

[Deadeye]

I've seen them made from about every type of horn
including Elk antler but most of the old original powder horns were cow horns. Go to a big Rondevoux
and you can find most any kind of horn. A well done and scrimmed (cow) powder horn is my choice.
Deadeye

 

Musketman,
If you go to ebay and go to advanced search type in mountain man and you will find an antelope horn that's already been turned into a powder horn. Check it out !!!!!!

 

Hey Musketman,
That is probably the neatest powder horn I have ever seen. I'm sure it will go a lot higher, just wish I could compete with the REAL Collectors.

 

Hey Thar' Musketman,
They have that antelope powder horn up for sale again on ebay. 5 days to go but at $20.00 right now. Jus' in case yourns' interested.

 

[musketman]

Thanks, I'll give it a look...

 

[Stumpkiller]

I think you'd spend the rest of your life scraping a ram's horn thin enough to get it translucent. Probably the same for a Cape Buffalo's. Are they even hollow?

I'd go with a ox horn, or a buffalo. That would be a sharp (heh, heh) horn when done. The one's I've done (five, I think) have been plain old cow. My best effort is a 15" chocolate tipped F&I style that is carved to a octagonal tip and scrimshawed.

Learned a valuable lesson in trying to soften it for carving and fitting the end plug (which is held by wedging in the heated & soft horn and then tacking it in with thorns from a thorn apple tree). Boil it, but don't try and warm it in the microwave. It developed several blisters and a bubble that I ended up cutting out and having to fit a horn patch piece in its place. The patch is carefully form fit and riveted in place with rivets cut from a penny. Added about 30 hours work for a 15 second zap. Who knew? I worked the rectangular patch into the design my etching "MADE Ye IVLY MCMXC" beside a whitetail buck (copied out of one of the Book of Buckskinning series on engraving). On the top it is etched "CHAs. PEARSALL HIS HORN". Between the microwaving (which gave it a yellow tint in some spots), the gunpowder paste rub to set the scrimshaw, and a dab of maple Minwax to the darker tip, and then a beeswax rubbing, it looks authentically old. The help of a few bugs when I had left it in a drawer that slides into our attic crawl space further "enhanced" the character of the poor thing. Luckily, it appears whatever chewing insect (or mice?) got to it they didn't like the darker inner layers of the horn, so they didn't actually hole the horn.

Holds a full pound of powder.

 

all horn is hollow, and antelope horn is not porous.