Cleaning With Urine

Frankly, anyone exposing themselves on a battlefield and producing urine in a controlled and directed fashion would have to have an admirable degree of sangfroid!

I suspect most emissions of urine on the battlefield would be involuntary...!

..good story though!

I can hear it now, "time out" during a battle, " I gotta take a whiz and clean my rifle", " okay now, the cease fire is over" please return to shooting.

Felix the Cat said:

Frankly, anyone exposing themselves on a battlefield and producing urine in a controlled and directed fashion would have to have an admirable degree of sangfroid!

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Better urine than mine!

This thread reminds me of one of my older uncle's stories about riding with his family in the old Model A. All the boys had to drink plenty of water before the trip- had to be ready to top off the radiator when needed.

Le Loup said:

I would like to see the primary documentation for this.
Keith.

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While not primary documentation, this article references buffalo hunters using urine to cool their rifle barrels. http://americansocietyofarmscollect...Griffin-and-the-Buffalo-Sharps-B052_Moore.pdf

Urine contains urea, which degrades into ammonia. An early use was to store it until it degraded enough and use in tanning hides.
I suppose it could have been used as a cleaner to try and negate the corrosive nature of early primers.

Okie Hog said:

Why would anyone whizz on a gun?

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Look at it this way. You are on a battlefield. You hot and thirsty (which you will be for certain). You only have the water that is left in your water bottle. Your musket has become difficult to load as it is increasingly fouled. What will you use to clean out the fouling? Your precious water or surplus urine? If you have no tow or a rag you can tear off some of your shirt. Your rod will use the wet rag to wipe out the wet bore. Another piece of shirt will dry it out (it is probably hot enough to dry fast anyway).

If Nit WIt does it....it’s got to be good !

"Walp, it keeps a' from blowin' down the barrel ...."


HAHAHAHAHA

LD

Nativearizonan said:

I hear jackrabbit urine is the best there is, above all else.

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BLADERDASH! Gotta be chupacabra pee if you have the time to use something other than your own...

LD

Having been involved in 17th and 18th century industrial research for nearly fifty years I can certainly believe that urine was used to clean gun barrels.
I think some of you here got lost on the idea that urine had to have been used as immediately produced.In the 18th century and into the 19th at least urine was saved and stored for purposes like washing lanolin from wool, pickling steel to remove scale after forging and cleaning flux off of soldered items.In all instances the items were later washed in water to prevent the corrosive effects of the acids involved.
So it would seem no stretch for me to believe that urine was used to remove the build up in a gun barrel and the rinsed with water but not necessarily fresh urine on the battlefield or when out hunting.

Well i figured being new to flintlocks I would give it a try.Well its 17 degrees out and let me tell you its true skin will stick to metal yep even a gun barrel. Merry Christmas

Buff hunters whizzed down the bore of the rifles to COOL THE BARREL and then they'd run a wipe rod down the bore! It wasn't a cleaning process at the time in the full sense of the term!!

I just found this thread; what a terrific idea!

The best part of this plan to use pee to clean my gun...is the fact that if I do that, there is less chance that I will accidentally take a swig from the wrong bottle while in my deer stand.

Yes, sadly...it has indeed happened...

Also solves blowing down the bore!!

I was told or read that in the very early days the long hunters may be in areas where they couldn't build a fire for hot water so urine at body temp would. a rinse with water dry and your in business again. In some ways it makes since and in others it doesn't. If they had to use the gun then they needed to clean it because of rust but if Indians were with in hearing distance then that was a problem. They could put distance between them and hostiles but to build a fire there would be smoke. I'm quite sure they did a lot of things we haven't and will never do. I do know I would have like to have been there but not stay there always.

There is a pee wee classification at Rendezvous. Me and my rifle will stay a good six feet away from them kids from now on!