- Messages
- 9,364
- Reactions
- 23,647
A subject that often comes up here is the necessity of checking your new 'old' purchase as soon as you can get to it, just in case it might be loaded, and often finding that it is. This is nothing new, as I discovered last evening, while looking through my copy of Charles E Hanson Jnr's epic text book from 1960 - 'The Plains rifle'. One thing that IS rare, however, at least from reading here, is the TYPE of load hidden inside that old gun.
On page 115, he notes 'One of the first steps in cleaning up the gun should be in the barrel. One old gun of 1840 vintage passed through the hands of several collectors in Nebraska before one of them took the time to unload it. The load was found to consist of a naked ball well corroded in and a potentially fatal charge of 120gr of smokeless powder!'
There is little doubt in my mind that letting that off would probably result in a trip to a local mortician, either for the shooter, or an unfortunate bystander.
He continues at some length to describe the necessity of replacing parts, it needed, with as near identically-aged components. This is something that is often stressed here, when posters asking how far they should go with either a restoration or re-activation.
In general, it remains one of THE most important and useful tomes that any keen collector should have on his shelves, although, TBH, there is little use for it here in UK. I do take it over with me when we visit with friends in OR, especially when visiting 'The Gun Works' in Springfield OR, where the late and much-missed Joe Williams and I would yack extensively about old guns.
On page 115, he notes 'One of the first steps in cleaning up the gun should be in the barrel. One old gun of 1840 vintage passed through the hands of several collectors in Nebraska before one of them took the time to unload it. The load was found to consist of a naked ball well corroded in and a potentially fatal charge of 120gr of smokeless powder!'
There is little doubt in my mind that letting that off would probably result in a trip to a local mortician, either for the shooter, or an unfortunate bystander.
He continues at some length to describe the necessity of replacing parts, it needed, with as near identically-aged components. This is something that is often stressed here, when posters asking how far they should go with either a restoration or re-activation.
In general, it remains one of THE most important and useful tomes that any keen collector should have on his shelves, although, TBH, there is little use for it here in UK. I do take it over with me when we visit with friends in OR, especially when visiting 'The Gun Works' in Springfield OR, where the late and much-missed Joe Williams and I would yack extensively about old guns.
