Humor: Reloading in the old days

[mkl]

I wrote this several years ago and just found it while I was cleaning up some files. Since we have so many new reloaders just starting out, I decided to post it once again so they could appreciate just how easy they have it using modern equipment to reload.

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You young guys have got it so easy in these modern times…

Way back in the Pleistocene when I started reloading, we had to really work to make our guns go “bang.”

None of these fancy metals to make dies with; we had to carve our own out of flint. Took a while too – that flint is hard stuff when your drill bit is a bone and your drill press is a bow and creeper vine!

Now tumbling our cases was pretty easy. We just hollowed out a big gourd for the tumbler. Media was sometimes hard to find, because it had been sworn via many “knowledgeable reloaders” and fist fights that sun-dried mastodon poop was by far the best. Pounding it into the proper granulation wasn’t much fun, and you sure didn’t want to mix your “poop pounding” rocks with the wife’s “cooking pounding” rocks. Maybe some of you that have used the wife’s good cookie pans to dry brass in the oven can relate.

There was quite a bit of dissention over the best additive for the sun-dried mastodon poop. Ughnufin advocated giant sloth milk, while Ughflitz said that giant porcupine milk was the best. We had a head bash to decide, but when it looked like Ughflitz was winning, we handed a rock to Ughnufin and he won by five rather large head lumps. Would you want to milk a 100 pound giant porcupine? Most of us “practical reloaders” liked milking a sloth better.

Tumbling itself was easy. All you had to do was make sure your tumbling gourd was about the same size as the one they were using in the local soccer game. Volunteer to be a referee and slip in your gourd during the fight after a hotly contested point. After the fight over the point, those guys were so beat up and woozy, they would kick around most anything thinking it was “their” gourd.

After you got your tumbled brass back, the next step was to decap it. Now while this may not sound like a big thing to you moderns, let me tell you getting that decapping stem to beat with a rock was something else!

You see, the only decapping tool that the experts recommended was the “Cajun toothpick.” Back in those days, coons weighed 150 pounds each, and cajoling one out of his “toothpick” was not an easy task. If it only took you a couple of weeks to recover from the bites, lacerations, broken ribs, etc. from obtaining that decapping tool, the old timers said you “Had it easy.” Needless to say it was a “bashing offense” to purloin someone else’s (other than the coon’s) tool.

Primer pocket cleaning was no big deal. Almost any saber tooth tiger fang would work.

Next step was to lube the cases so you wouldn’t get one stuck in your flint dies. Well let me tell you, there were more fights and head bashing over the “best” lube than you would believe. Or perhaps maybe you will…

The biggest guys won the best lube contest and their descendents are around to this day shouting “Imperial Sizing Wax.” Back then (remember we are talking Pleistocene period) these same guys insisted on only one case lube – Cave Bear semen!

Try ordering that 20,000 years ago from Midway via UPS! No, we old timers had to get it the hard way (pun intended).

You had to put on a 100 pound bear skin overcoat and slink into a bear cave making the most seductive she-bear sounds you could come up with. Make it past the female bears wanting to either eat you or bash you for “cutting in” on their action, and then get to the old boar snoozing in the back of the cave. Slap him upside the muzzle to get his attention, and then “flash” him by opening your overcoat.

I won’t go into the details of collecting “gold standard” case lube, but needless to say one had to be cloying and quick at the same time. Getting your gourd of case lube back out past the now really ticked off females took significant agility. [No problem getting away from the lube donor; he was laid back, smiling, and smoking a cigarette.]

Okay, now we lube the cases (yuck), pound into our dies with a rock, pound out of our dies with a stick, and trim them to length by rubbing the neck across a rock. Pounding rocks are very useful tools. As a matter of fact, rocks were about the only tools. Come to think about it, pounding was almost as much fun as shooting.

Now we have to get the case prep trimmings – brass shavings, rock dust, mastodon poop in the flash hole, etc. – out of the sized cases. You new reloading guys think you have something on us old folks because you use compressed air. Wrong – we used compressed air (well at least gas) also!

As we hunted and gathered, we always tried to find a nice cozy cave in which to spend the night. Invariably, there would be a cave ferret lurking around somewhere which would mooch food and end up being a pet to our tribe. Women and kids liked them, but us macho reloaders found only one use for them – cleaning case prep debris out of our cases.

Give the kids a handful of beans, and tell them it was “ferret food.” They (the kids) would feed beans to those ferrets all day and into the night. Next morning, we had our compressed “air.”

Just had to grab one of those bloated cave ferrets around the midsection, insert the case mouth into the appropriate orifice, and squeeze. Instant compressed air to blow out the brass. [Obligatory Caution per board rules – perform this operation in a well ventilated area, and do not smoke.]

Only problem was that you had to do all your brass cleaning at one time, cause after you let the little sucker go, you’d never see it around again for at least two weeks.

Actual loading was not much different from then and today. Pound in the primer with a rock, add powder, and pound in the bullet with a rock. Think Classic Lee Loader.

We did have some bashings over whether or not the OAL of the flint bullet should be measured from the chip at the tip or the chip at the ogive. The ogive guys were bigger, hence they won.

So I hope you “newbie’s” of the last thousand years or so can begin to appreciate how easy you have it. This “metal” stuff you use today beats the dickens out of our flint and bone tools. Also, the components (especially the case lube) are much easier to obtain.



Hope you enjoy reloading as much as I do (and have for a very long time...).

mkl

[ShootistPRS]

That is great! funny with just a bit of history "probables" thrown in.
I am interested in what the gun barrels were made from. The first barrel I made was from lead pipe, followed later with copper tube. Both worked well the first shot but the copper was still working after the second shot. I never did find the tennis ball I fired from that lead pipe but I found most of the pieces of the pipe.

Note: Warning! do not use lead pipe for any kind of barrel

Warning! Do not use the heads off matches as a black powder substitute - it will blow your barrel up!

[Mike38]

I don't care who you are....that's funny right there!

[Shimpy]

ShootistPRS

Warning! Do not use the heads off matches as a black powder substitute - it will blow your barrel up!

Yep, been there, done that.