Buffalo, Buffalo Guns, Buffalo Hunters, etc.

[Capt. Hamp Cox]

Del came up with a series of words related to buffalo hunters in one of our recent "Old West Words and Phrases" threads.  Got me to thinkin' maybe we could get separate Buffalo related thread started.

Here's an excerpt from Wayne Gard's The Great Buffalo Hunt that I thought was worth sharing.  I'm hoping someone can tell me what a "rimmer" is.



"The hide hunters used a great variety of weapons, from old Kentucky muzzle-loaders to condemned Spencer military rifles.  The Henry, the Remington, and the Winchester had their partisans.  Other hunters agreed with Bill Cody in preferring the .50 caliber, single-shot, breech-loading Springfield, which some called the Long Tom.  But most of the professional hide men who could afford one chose the Sharps /Big Forty-five or Big Fifty, whose long range made them especially effective in killing buffaloes.
   Bill Tilghman and Billy Dixon preferred Sharps when they had a choice, and Wright Mooar used two of them for most of his killing.  With its strong action and breech, the Sharps could handle unusually heavy bullets and powder charges.  It suited those hunters who wanted to place a big piece of lead accurately at long range.
   The term needle gun, which crops up in some accounts of buffalo hunting, was used loosely.  Originally it appears to have been applied to the Dryse rifle, which a German, J.N. von Dryse, developed in 1836. This was a single-shot, breech-loading rifle, with a bolt breech closure.  It fired a conical bullet encased in a paper cartridge, together with a powder charge.  The Prussian Army used it against Austria in 1866 and against France in 1870.  But on buffalo ranges, as one of the hunters, John R. Cook, pointed out, any trap-door breechblock might be called a needle gun.
   Sometimes a hunter would have a gunsmith make a change in his rifle to adapt it to his special needs. Charlie Justin had metal sights taken off his guns and bone ones put on to avoid the reflected glare of the sun.
   Of his Sharps rifles, Mooar preferred the smaller one.  "I killed 6,500 buffaloes with my fourteen-pound gun," he estimated, "and 14,000 with the eleven-pounder.  The barrel was octagonal half way up from the breech, then it was round."  The brass shells, some of them bottlenecked, were three inches long.  Many hunters, including Mooar, preferred to load their own shells with black gunpowder.
   Wright Mooar, who bought bullets by the thousands and powder in twenty-five pound kegs, used to wrap a piece of paper around each bullet before he put in the shell.  Wrapping the bullets instead of greasing them, he explained, kept the interior of the rifle barrel from becoming coated with lead.  "The bullets were made with a concave butt.  When the barrels of our guns became so hot that they began swelling, the bullets with the concave butt would be expanded when shot by the charge of powder, thus filling the barrel and making it true."
   When he loaded the shells, Mooar said, "I would fill the shell with powder within half an inch of the top.  When I got the powder in, we set the shell down and put the rimmer in and hit it a lick with the hammer, putting a wad on top and then a little powder on top of the wad and the bullet on top of the powder.  As time went on, we went a little stronger on powder until we loaded a 90-grain cartridge with 100 to 110 grains."
   Since every type of rifle made a different boom, the hunters soon learned to tell one from another.  "I knew the sound of every one of my guns," said Mooar.  The white men on the range felt safe as long as they heard only the bug guns of the hide hunters.  But the sharp crack of a smaller rifle alerted them to a possible attack by Indians.

[Terry]

Cool, I just finished reading an article on loading paper-patched BP rounds.....

[Delmonico]

I have read this several times and I think we have an account of someone with failing memory telling someone who new little about guns.  I've never heard of the powder on the wad before either.  I think from other accounts that the rimmer was a crimper.

Ya really want ta read a good one, Maria Sandoz claims the 44 Sharps came out first, wasn't big enough, they came out with the 45, wasn't big enough so they made the Fifty, no mention at all about the 40's or case length.

[Standpat Steve]

Howdy,

I guess I'm with Delmonico. Does anybody know why, after filling the shell with blackpowder and compressing the charge, a person would add a little powder OVER the wad and UNDER the bullet? If this was done, I would love to know the reason. I posted a question about this in the BP forum, to see if anybody knew what the advantage to this practice might be. Thanks.

[Delmonico]

I have had a copy of that book since 79, with out lookin' I think it was written in the 50's.  I wonder if Mr Gard interviewed Mr Mooar or was using a second hand account.  I often get discouraged reading pieces on history and the writer talks about the guns like he or she knows what they are talking about and yet I realize on the gun subject they know little.  It always makes it hard for me to decide if what they are talking about that I don't know as much about if it is true or they are just blowing more smoke up my rectal opening.

The series on the History Channel "Tales of the Gun"  has the nice written piece at the begining including the words, "To understand the gun, is to better understand history."

[Tangle Eye]

That powder on top of the wad does sound strange.  Could it just take up space in case the bullet didn't seat on top of the powder?  Sounds like the amount of powder and the compressing force weren't exactly consistent or scientific.  Most likely, like Delmonico said, smoke up the backside.  Maybe some old timer seeing just how much somebody will believe.

[Ol Gabe]

FWIW,
On page 10 of the newest issue of THE BLACK POWDER CARTRIDGE NEWS, there is an article by Leo Remiger titled THE MOOAR BROTHERS. Wayne Gard is listed first in a long bibliography. Although the article does not give the specific loading tips they used, it does give a broad look at their methodology and some distances, numbers harvested, etc., and is a good overview of the period from their perspective. I think all who subscribe to the mag will enjoy it and the others in this recent issue, its well worth the price!

On another vein, regarding the "...powder under the bullet..." recipe comments, for the sake of discussion ONLY, perhaps it was not BP that was put under the bullet but some other type of prairie 'powder', hard-pan prairie dust or finely ground powder from dried out Buffler bones. Bone powder or dust wouldn't ignite, instead it would act as a dry lube, thusly preserving and keeping the barrel lead-free. Powder from dried hides, grasses, dessicated wood, etc., would also serve the same purpose and be readily available, making the powder would probably have been done around the campfire while digesting a meal of Buffalo 'Boudeins' (ala Kit Carson's stories) and strong coffee flavored with a bit of prairie Clover.
Again, for the sake of discussion only, and I'm looking forward to other historically-based opinions forthcoming (hint, hint!), I think this might be a more viable concept than wasting a few grains of BP when BP cost so much and was hard enough to get that you HAD to buy it and haul it around in 25 pound wood kegs! And if you've ever had to haul or schlepp 25 pound kegs of nails or anything else you'll know what I mean, its no picnic boyos!
Best regards and good reading!
'Ol Gabe

[Uncle Eph]

I was just glancing thur the "Encyclopedia of Buffalo Hunters and Skinners" By Gilbert, Remiger and Cunningham and they have a number of outfits shopping lists and I could only find a couple that even mention wads of any kind, what struck me was how few new empty cases those old boys would buy, even new outfits would seldom buy more then 100 empty cases, 25 pds of powder, 100 pds of lead, 1500 primers, and 40 sheets of patch paper was a typical order.

come to think of it if you were using a paper patched bullet; why would you need a wad anyway?

[Capt. Hamp Cox]

Stumbled across this and found parts to be interesting. 

SMITHSONIAN, INSTITUTION.
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.
THE EXTERMINATION OF THE
AMERICAN BISON.
BY
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY,
Superintendent of the National Zoological Park,
From the Report of the National Museum, 1886-'87, pages 369-548, and plates I-XXII.
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1889.

EXCERPT FROM Part II.--The Extermination 
                                            II. Methods of slaughter
                                                 1. The "still hunt" 
 
"During the winters of 1880 and 1881 Mr. McNaney had served in Maxwell's outfit as a hunter, working by the month, but his success in killing was such that he decided to work the third year on his own account. Although at that time only seventeen years of age, he took an elder brother as a partner, and purchased an outfit in Miles City, of which the following were the principal items: Two wagons, 2 four-horse teams, 2 saddle-horses, 2 wall-tents, 1 cook-stove with pipe, 1 40-90 Sharp's rifle (breech-loading), 1 45-70 Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 1 45-120 Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 50 pounds gunpowder, 550 pounds lead, 4,500 primers, 600 brass shells, 4 sheets patch-paper, 60 Wilson skinning knives, 3 butcher's steels, 1 portable grindstone, flour, bacon, baking-powder coffee, sugar, molasses, dried apples, canned vegetables, beans, etc., in quantity."

More "still hunt" at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/consrv:@field(DOCID+@lit(amrvrvr02div22))

The entire report is at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/consrv:@field(DOCID+@lit(amrvrvr02div3))

[Capt. Hamp Cox]

Ever rope a buffalo?

"E.N. Waldrup, Bob Gunn and I left Logan's Gap, Comanche County, February 1877, for Tom Green County on a big buffalo hunt, intending to make Jim Criner's ranch our headquarters.  Criner was brother-in-law of Bob Gunn.

   "After reaching Tom Green County, I saw about a mile ahead of me a bunch of buffalo, and remarked to one of the boys that I was going ro rope one of them.  I dismounted, tightened my saddle girths, and mounted again and made for the bunch of buffalo.  They were traveling east.  The morning was very cold, as the wind was blowing from the east.

   "As soon as they discovered me they started in a run for their life.  There were about one hundred and fifty in the bunch.  I ran onto a three-year old bull, threw my lariat, but failed to catch, as I was throwing against the wind, which was very high.  The second throw I put him into my loop.  The high fast bucking and pulling came off then and there.  Birch, my horse, was not thoroughly trained and didn't like the scent of buffalo at all.  I had a hard time controlling him with this raging, rearing beast tied to the horn of my saddle, as this was about the first bunch of buffalo Birch had ever seen, and the only one he had been tied to.

   "Birch and I were like the man that bought the elephant–didn't hardly know what to do with him.  I made two runs around the buffalo and got his legs tangled in my lariat.  I then made a straight run on him, "busting" him against the ground.  When he got up he discovered our horses and wagons and took the outfit for his brother-bunch of buffalo.  He then made a run for horses and wagon, and when he got to the wagon I decided to take him to Jim Criner's ranch, which was about ten or twelve miles distant, and neck him to a steer.  I tied him to the hind axle of the wagon and he led as docile as any horse for about three hundred yards, and all at once he took a notion to stop, and the horses pulling the wagon took a notion to stop also.

   "We started the horses up again, and they kept pulling until they led him over, at the same time jerking his right shoulder out of place.  I had him to kill then, and lost my buffalo.  This was a grand old hunt and proved very profitable to us.  The buffalo in that country were as thick as cattle and went from three to ten thousand in a bunch.  There were also thousands of antelope, and wild turkeys were so thick that they would hardly get out of one's way."

Excerpted from TWELVE YEARS IN THE SADDLE FOR LAW AND ORDER ON THE FRONTIERS OF TEXAS – By Sergeant W. J. L. Sullivan