A pepperpox:
And an 1861 Springfield:
Sep 23, 2012
Firepower (a little retro)
A.D. 1866 really wasn't so long ago. Even a Boomer might have heard Grandpa tell stories of the old-timers he knew, guys who were in their prime when White America hadn't quite finished stealing the Redskin West. If he were poor or ludditical, that same pioneer might have lived out his life with a cap and ball rifle, maybe the Model 1861 Springfield he carried home from the War for Southern Autonomy.
But the winds of change were blowing. A few repeaters were on the market in 1866.
That was the year when Washington decided to see if its troopers could swipe the Powder River Country from Red Cloud and his Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pardners. Turns out they couldn't, though not for lack of trying -- trying in the sense of, say, the Keystone Kops trying to take down a large Mexican drug cartel.
---
Late in July Lieutenant George Templeton led his motley detachment of 29 men, three women and a child out of Fort Reno. Destination: the site the still-unbuilt Fort Phil Kearney, 60 miles northwest along the Bozeman Trail. Among his crew were a civilian named Captain Marr, lately of the Missouri Volunteers, and Army Chaplain David White.
About half way, at Crazy Woman Creek, the rightful owners rose from the their hidden positions and charged the little batch of invaders who were mostly armed with those '61 Springfield's. In the end, all was well, but just by a hair and with a little help from advanced technology. Let Dee Brown make the points:
In the first attack, "Captain Marr, who had a Henry rifle, a sixteen-shooter, used it with wholesome effect on the running Indians, and stopped two of them permanently."
The Sioux withdrew to regroup and charged again. This time they wounded Chaplain White slightly ("more angered than injured"). He mounted a little counter attack of his own and returned to the his lines shouting. "Ravine clear down as far as the creek."
"All seven charges in his pepperbox had gone off at once, killing one Indian and frightening the others into flight."
---000---
"Powder River Country" is a loose descriptor, but it's not too far wrong to think of it as most of northeast Wyoming from the Big Horns almost to the Black Hills.
---
Mostly from "The Fetterman Massacre" by Dee Brown, 1962, ISBN 0-8032-5730-9. Chapter IV.
But the winds of change were blowing. A few repeaters were on the market in 1866.
That was the year when Washington decided to see if its troopers could swipe the Powder River Country from Red Cloud and his Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pardners. Turns out they couldn't, though not for lack of trying -- trying in the sense of, say, the Keystone Kops trying to take down a large Mexican drug cartel.
---
Late in July Lieutenant George Templeton led his motley detachment of 29 men, three women and a child out of Fort Reno. Destination: the site the still-unbuilt Fort Phil Kearney, 60 miles northwest along the Bozeman Trail. Among his crew were a civilian named Captain Marr, lately of the Missouri Volunteers, and Army Chaplain David White.
About half way, at Crazy Woman Creek, the rightful owners rose from the their hidden positions and charged the little batch of invaders who were mostly armed with those '61 Springfield's. In the end, all was well, but just by a hair and with a little help from advanced technology. Let Dee Brown make the points:
In the first attack, "Captain Marr, who had a Henry rifle, a sixteen-shooter, used it with wholesome effect on the running Indians, and stopped two of them permanently."
The Sioux withdrew to regroup and charged again. This time they wounded Chaplain White slightly ("more angered than injured"). He mounted a little counter attack of his own and returned to the his lines shouting. "Ravine clear down as far as the creek."
"All seven charges in his pepperbox had gone off at once, killing one Indian and frightening the others into flight."
---000---
"Powder River Country" is a loose descriptor, but it's not too far wrong to think of it as most of northeast Wyoming from the Big Horns almost to the Black Hills.
---
Mostly from "The Fetterman Massacre" by Dee Brown, 1962, ISBN 0-8032-5730-9. Chapter IV.
Sep 19, 2012
Vintage home-made gun porn in 12 gauge
In 1913, Taft was president, the Uruguayan Air Force was founded, rapists in Washington decided they had the power to tax your income, and Riverside arms patented my gun.
Chances are it's provenance is common. A Depression farmer sold a couple of fat hogs, , went to town, paid the village hardware merchant about $15, and took her home. After an appropriate period of admiration around the deal table in the kitchen, it went on two nails over the back door with a box of 12-bores handy, probably No. 6, but maybe No. 4. That was about the only ballistics discussion that interested Zeke -- which was best for pheasants, jump-shooing mallards, and discouraging city-slicker strangers messing around the home place.
Sometime later he benefited from the Ever Normal Granary and took his subsidy check back to town for a fancier gun, probably a double, maybe even a pumpgun. The old single moved to the barn for rapid response to rats, foxes, chicken hawks, and skulking strangers.
Every once in a while he noticed the pigeon decorations and brushed them off with a gunny sack. He got along in years, slowed down, didn't get out to the barn much. His kids couldn't be bothered, and the ol' one-shot moldered away until, about Y2K, it turned up at the memorial service most cherished by too many of his survivors -- his estate sale.
It brought $30 from a fool who just likes walnut, however cracked and dinged, and blue steel, however rusted and pitted and scarred. He'll fix her up and shoot her, but mostly he just likes folk-guns and their propensity to stir his muse to perfectly plausible stories of the past.
---
This one was bad enough to demand rule breaking. The metal suffered a wire wheel. The walnut was heavily sanded and linseeded, cracks epoxied, deep dings filled with walnut sanding dust and glue. The innards were scrubbed with gasoline before cursory polishing. For no better reason than whim, the barrel was bobbed to 18 1/4 inches, turning her from full choke to straight pipe.
(Twelve or 14 would have been handier or at least cooler, but our man had a personal connection to Vicki Weaver of Coalville, Iowa, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Fear moves him to obey even pointless laws. Wimp.)
Before the final finish --yes, flat black from a rattle can -- the question of sights arose. The solution was "no."
The plausible story of the future is a 3 a.m hipshot requiring minute-of-thug accuracy down his short, dark hallway. Sights would be superfluous, maybe even dangerous, maybe snagging the flap of his union suit.
He knows the odds of any such thing happening are all but prohibitive, but just in case, nothing better at hand...
There is no such thing as a boring gun.
Chances are it's provenance is common. A Depression farmer sold a couple of fat hogs, , went to town, paid the village hardware merchant about $15, and took her home. After an appropriate period of admiration around the deal table in the kitchen, it went on two nails over the back door with a box of 12-bores handy, probably No. 6, but maybe No. 4. That was about the only ballistics discussion that interested Zeke -- which was best for pheasants, jump-shooing mallards, and discouraging city-slicker strangers messing around the home place.
Sometime later he benefited from the Ever Normal Granary and took his subsidy check back to town for a fancier gun, probably a double, maybe even a pumpgun. The old single moved to the barn for rapid response to rats, foxes, chicken hawks, and skulking strangers.
Every once in a while he noticed the pigeon decorations and brushed them off with a gunny sack. He got along in years, slowed down, didn't get out to the barn much. His kids couldn't be bothered, and the ol' one-shot moldered away until, about Y2K, it turned up at the memorial service most cherished by too many of his survivors -- his estate sale.
It brought $30 from a fool who just likes walnut, however cracked and dinged, and blue steel, however rusted and pitted and scarred. He'll fix her up and shoot her, but mostly he just likes folk-guns and their propensity to stir his muse to perfectly plausible stories of the past.
---
This one was bad enough to demand rule breaking. The metal suffered a wire wheel. The walnut was heavily sanded and linseeded, cracks epoxied, deep dings filled with walnut sanding dust and glue. The innards were scrubbed with gasoline before cursory polishing. For no better reason than whim, the barrel was bobbed to 18 1/4 inches, turning her from full choke to straight pipe.
(Twelve or 14 would have been handier or at least cooler, but our man had a personal connection to Vicki Weaver of Coalville, Iowa, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Fear moves him to obey even pointless laws. Wimp.)
Before the final finish --yes, flat black from a rattle can -- the question of sights arose. The solution was "no."
The plausible story of the future is a 3 a.m hipshot requiring minute-of-thug accuracy down his short, dark hallway. Sights would be superfluous, maybe even dangerous, maybe snagging the flap of his union suit.
He knows the odds of any such thing happening are all but prohibitive, but just in case, nothing better at hand...
There is no such thing as a boring gun.
In lieu of 911
If I were a guy bent on a little housebreaking or other mayhem, I think I'd stay away from Cindy's lair. You know, Jinglebob's Cindy, out in cow country. :)
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