The Rifle
“To be sure, it was hard to check. There is not a breech to the rifle, nothing to open to see if there is a cartridge, and in fact there is no cartridge. Powder is poured down the bore and the ball set firmly on top of it. There is no way to simply look and see if the rifle is loaded, and the only way to make certain is to take the ramrod from its bracket beneath the barrel, slide it down the bore until it stops, mark the ramrod where it stops with a pencil, then pull it out and hold it alongsid...e the barrel and see if it all the way to the end. If there is a load in the rifle the rod will have stopped well short—up to two inches—of the true bottom of the bore. The method is not widely known to people who have no experience with muzzle-loading weapons and so often it is not known if they are loaded or not.
The rifle was loaded.
When muzzle-loading rifles were in wide use, safety was largely a secondary consideration and there were many accidents. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century, during the Oregon Trail period, gun accidents along the trail were a leading cause of death and injury.MoreLess
The rifle was loaded.
When muzzle-loading rifles were in wide use, safety was largely a secondary consideration and there were many accidents. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century, during the Oregon Trail period, gun accidents along the trail were a leading cause of death and injury.MoreLess
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