Finding two to three hundred year old frontiersmen being rather a challenge & even they would likley have different ideas . But the guns are still able to 'talk' the hole or wire staples indicate quills where at least to some extent once used. I generally drill a suitable series of feather holes or wire staples under the butt on cheek stocked wheellocks . & Matchlocks sport all sorts of holes some to put out the match cord others for vent picks and the stainless steel wire brushes sold for breech loaders & threaded 8 32 UNF made a usefull item to keep in a hole that your rod will screw onto . an item I generally put into the slideing wooden tool box most call a patchbox along with A worm ' ball drawer ' flints & Maybe a vent pick .. The wire brushes being best to grip cloth on a jag . This is all new made guns that go on' open sparks '.
The caplocks I got sealed with a bit of rubber to seal the nipple the .& short of fireing off and cleaning best you can do is wipe out the foul bore on top of the load and the lightest oiling . preserved my guns on long trips .
I held it muzzle down to find the welcome ledges I remember one long 12 day descent of the Homathko River in British Collumbia Big country no tracks. Was in a swollen narrow creak and ide the old 490 percussion to probe for the rocky ledges for a foothold . Big country can get knarly quite often ( Ive concluded a gun has to stand immersion now & then or its ill suited for big trips ( this was incidently from Tatkla Lake to Butte inlett via the Mosley up into the Teidmann Glacsial run off into Cleft camp near Murderers Bar & on down the Canyon to Cumsack Creek LoggIng show. Where I Set on And got cleaned up , fattened up, and made a few quid ere the weather shut us all down & got flown out on float planes . But I digress , I mean I Was a' wanderer' after all'
Rambling Rudyard