Post by twomoons on Apr 4, 2008 13:25:25 GMT -5
Black Powder Terminology
Black Powder: is actually derived from black’s powder. Powder making has always been a most dangerous process and in the early days most of the powder mills forced the slave to do all the dangerous jobs. This led to it being called Black’s powder as most of the slaves were of that persuasion. This was shortened to Black Powder after the war of Northern aggression.
The Flint lock: was originaly called a Flinch Rock as to make the gun go off you placed a piece of rock in the cock and this flew forward to hit the frazzle. This shot sparks into the powder and after all that happened you usually flinched and shot something other than what you intended.
Musket: Named after Elmer Mousquet a French inventor who found a way to remove rifling from barrels. He patented this process and made a fortune selling his barrels to ardent wild fowlers who found that a barrel without those grooves and twists would drop wild fowl much better than the traditional rifles.
Rifle: the first barrel making process where the early makers were unable to keep from scratching the innards of the barrels when they hammered them from skelps of rotten iron. This was later shorten to rot iron and was misspelled into wrought later, but that’s another story. It was found that if these scratches were twisted the ball hit the target more often due to the spiral effect. When the Indians captured a rifle on the early frontier they took a man’s skelp and this led to the practice of skelping the white man. This is still the practice in many areas where the natives have casinos.
Lock, Stock and Barrel: This phrase was originated by the Native American store keepers who found that if you didn’t lock your stock up the white men would barrel off with it.
Going off half cocked: had something to do with Jewish gunsmiths???
Percussion: A corruption of Fur Cussin’ and related to the fact that the caps used to ignite these highly unreliable weapons mis-fired a lot and hence if you had one of these guns it was a Fur cussin’ gun.
Long Rifle: Named after Ezekial Long one of the first gunsmiths in America. He was an older gentleman and made his guns with very long barrels so he could find them in his shop. The style caught on and other makers, mostly elderly followed suit.
More to come...
I hope this helps???
Black Powder: is actually derived from black’s powder. Powder making has always been a most dangerous process and in the early days most of the powder mills forced the slave to do all the dangerous jobs. This led to it being called Black’s powder as most of the slaves were of that persuasion. This was shortened to Black Powder after the war of Northern aggression.
The Flint lock: was originaly called a Flinch Rock as to make the gun go off you placed a piece of rock in the cock and this flew forward to hit the frazzle. This shot sparks into the powder and after all that happened you usually flinched and shot something other than what you intended.
Musket: Named after Elmer Mousquet a French inventor who found a way to remove rifling from barrels. He patented this process and made a fortune selling his barrels to ardent wild fowlers who found that a barrel without those grooves and twists would drop wild fowl much better than the traditional rifles.
Rifle: the first barrel making process where the early makers were unable to keep from scratching the innards of the barrels when they hammered them from skelps of rotten iron. This was later shorten to rot iron and was misspelled into wrought later, but that’s another story. It was found that if these scratches were twisted the ball hit the target more often due to the spiral effect. When the Indians captured a rifle on the early frontier they took a man’s skelp and this led to the practice of skelping the white man. This is still the practice in many areas where the natives have casinos.
Lock, Stock and Barrel: This phrase was originated by the Native American store keepers who found that if you didn’t lock your stock up the white men would barrel off with it.
Going off half cocked: had something to do with Jewish gunsmiths???
Percussion: A corruption of Fur Cussin’ and related to the fact that the caps used to ignite these highly unreliable weapons mis-fired a lot and hence if you had one of these guns it was a Fur cussin’ gun.
Long Rifle: Named after Ezekial Long one of the first gunsmiths in America. He was an older gentleman and made his guns with very long barrels so he could find them in his shop. The style caught on and other makers, mostly elderly followed suit.
More to come...
I hope this helps???
;D ;D
