Video
Firearms of the Fur Trade
Transcript
I'm Bob Kisthart and I was a ranger here at Fort Union for three seasons and I now work as a Ranger in Yellowstone Park. Within the period of Fort Union, from 1828 1867, there was quite an evolution in firearms technology. In the early days at the Fort, the flintlock ignition system like this was common and these have been around in various forms for almost 200 years. The parts of the flintlock are the battery or the frizzen. You have the pan here and this is the cock. In the jaws of the cock, there's a piece of flint. The jaws go forward holding the flint. It hits the battery, it scrapes it, flips it open at the same time while making sparks and exposes the powder in this pan that sets off the gun. On the reverse side of the weapon, on the side plate here, there's a dragon, which the Indians really liked on their weapons because it's a nice decoration. Guns that didn't have this, sometimes they'd be put on there just because Indians recognize this usually as a sign, it's a quality gun. To load this weapon, you load from the muzzle. You're going to use a measure to pour your powder in and you always want to use a measure because if you just fired this weapon and there's a spark in there, when you point your powder in, it could flash. And if your pointing from the horn, then it flashes. That flashes are going to come up into your horn where you carry your gun powder and this is going to go off like a bomb in your armpit. So you always want to use a measure. Next, you want to put the projectile in that you're going to shoot and we're going to shoot it just around lead ball. This ball is undersized. If I drop it in the barrel, it's going to drop all the way down but it's also going to roll out if I turned the gun over. So to make it fit tight, you're going to use a cloth patch or a thin buckskin patch that's greased or wet with saliva. You put that over the bore then you put the lead ball in and you force it in. Then you can use your wiping stick and you want to make sure you see that projectile all the way down on the powder or there's a good chance you could explode your barrel. Now to prime the weapon, I put a little more powder in this pan and now it's ready to fire. The next evolution in firearms technology was the invention of the percussion lock. These percussion lock weapons' loaded the same way as the flintlock from the muzzle. The difference was in the ignition system. In the percussion lock, you have a tube here and the hammer. There's no battery, there's no frizzen and there's no flash pan. To fire the lock, you put a little metal cap on this tube. This cap has a little fulminated mercury in there which is an explosive. You put that on the tube. When you pull the trigger, the hammer comes forward. It hits that cap. Creates a little explosion just like a modern cap gun. The flash goes through the tube and sets off the main charge in the gun. This protection lock, you load it the same way. You load it from the muzzle. Well you saw the process of loading. Now imagine doing that on horseback and that's what they used to do on a running horse when they were hunting buffaloes to feed the employees at the Fort. But they had some tricks they would take. You load the gun up like you're ready to go out and shoot, just like I showed you earlier, and you're on your horse, you're riding up against a running buffalo. You're going to drop your gun, you're going to shoot that buffalo in the vitals. It might not drop right away but it'll be dead soon enough. Not yet to reload this on a running horse. How you're going to do that? But they have some shortcuts they'd take. That little hole here that goes from the flash pan into the main charge, they drill that out so it's extra large. So after you fired that first shot, you can bring your gun up, close the battery, cradle using your arm, take your powder horn, pour powder into your hand. Doesn't matter how accurate you are in the amount. Just when you get powder in there. You're going to put that down the barrel. You're going to carry the extra lead balls in your mouth. You're going to take one out, put it in there, pound this on your saddle to seat that ball down there. And also while you're pounding it, because you enlarge that hole, it's going to prime itself. Make sure you guns at full cock. You have to hold the weapon up or the ball will roll out. You got to hold it up and you're doing this all in a running horse, jumping gullies and sagebrush and everything. You're going to hold it up till you get to the next buffalo. Drop, fire, go through the same process again. Betty La Fontaine, 100 years of work. I could do this 14 times in a running mile. That's quite a feat.
Description
Flint and Percussion Lock Firearms Demonstration.
Duration
5 minutes, 3 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
11/09/2008
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