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18th August 10, 07:55 AM
#1
Scots type powder horn
Hello all, me again.
Ok. Probably as has been figured by now, I am fairly deep into the whole living history scene. Being rather close to the Scots side of things, much of my immediate equippage bears close resemblence to that of the immigrant of the middle 18th century. While there were many common items that had no cultural ideitifiers, the Scots have a few items that were definately theirs-for one, pistols. Two, knives. Three, powder horns. I hunt, shoot, trek and do all sorts of stuff that requires blackpowder, so I decided to make myself a horn to carry it in the style of my former countrymen.






It took me forever to find a horn from one of the shaggy native beasties, but...I finally did. Two actually (the other one is bent in the wrong direction for my right-handiness). Cleaned it out, thinned it down (THAT took a summer of Saturdays, believe me). For the flattening, I trial and errored on several scrapper horns, and after much input from those who knew what they were talking about (but had no results to show), I pressure cooked the darn thing, 15 lbs pressure for 15 minutes. That got it soft enough to flatten. Smelled really bad in the house for a looooong time. The base plug is from a tap root chunk of a white oak, 200+ years old that was a fixture in my childhood-hard, gnarly stuff...it has history, mine and its own, and will travel with me as long as I carry the horn-and then with the next owner, when I'm gone. The spout is a reproduced 18th century english spring spout-I have seen horns explode, and didn't want it happening to me-the thing is almost idiot proof, and keeps rain out (I know this for a fact-have carried it in real downpours, no wet powder). The leather straps are deerskin, nails and buckles, plus fill plug, of brass and stitching of real sinew (I know it's real, I salvaged it from the deer myself). The repair is a piece of trimmed horn-clonked the thing on a bar on a deerstand once, and cracked it. Didn't lose any powder, but had to repair it after.
No plans to scrimshaw-yet. I'm no artist, but one day will get to it. It's not a pretty horn, so my semi-stick figures will likely look right at home. Until then, it carries powder-and I carry it.
Last edited by Mark E.; 18th August 10 at 08:10 AM.
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