Far fetched or not?

[jmorris]

I don’t have a gristmill but I do have a couple punch presses at home that, with the right tooling could punch, draw and form cases even machines that could anneal them between steps but have never used them for the job.

BP I have made, it takes this.


A heat source, suitable container and a screen.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

Tall tales aside, just be sure the old feller wasn't yankin' yer chain just to get a reaction. I knew an old bomber crew Captain who'd hoist a flag up the Yarn Arm whenever he felt like some of the young Bucks were feeling too almighty about theirselves. Some old guys just have a weird sense of humor.

 

[bullseye308]

I don’t have a gristmill but I do have a couple punch presses at home that, with the right tooling could punch, draw and form cases even machines that could anneal them between steps but have never used them for the job.

BP I have made, it takes this.
View attachment 1010453

A heat source, suitable container and a screen.

I have the stuff to make black powder and videos saved as well as written instructions, I just haven’t done it yet. I just found my muzzle loader and can’t find my pyrodex, so I may give it a go.

 

[Blackrock]

Back in those crazy wild fun days of 1969 I hadn't a care in the world. Got out of the Army in Sept, had a good talk with my folks who both served in War2. They could see the crazy in me and my Dad recommended I get a job out away from people and said a feller he knew was looking for a good hand up on the F lazy Y which is on the Crow reservation up past Ft. Smith in the Big Horn mountains. I put my cowboy gear together and took my Hawken muzzle loader and a 30-30. I met another young cowboy there who was born 100 years to late. We hooked up and he showed me how to cast boolits and handload with the Lee loader. I had let my hair grow and started dressing in what we called the "Mountain Cowboy" look. Like a mountain man but with boots and spurs.\
David and I went to a Mountain Man Jamboree also known by the Natives as a Whoopup. There were vendors with every genre imagineable relating to mountain man, cowboy and native culture. There was a whole row of vendors selling period firearms One guy was hawking Black Powder making kits and we each bough one. I also bought a beautiful beaded Elk hide vest for more than I had. I got my buddy to loan me the rest.
BTW If you are ever traveling through Hardin Montana be sure to stop in to Lammers Trading Post. You will find everything the including a TeePee complete with poles.

 

[mdi]

There's a type of conversation usually done around a campfire, pot bellied stove, or in a beer bar where everyone knows 99% of what is said it pure baloney, and everyone has a good time trying to "out lie" the guy that just spoke. No harm, no foul, jes a bunch of guys entertaining each other (no need to call the old feller any names, especially from internet experts, young, city slickers...). My uncles in Mesquite and Waxahachie would sit in the back yard, sipping beer and swapping lies on a Saturday afternoon, everyone had a good time...

 

[NMexJim]

"Darwin never rests"

 

[webrx]

My Grandfather, god rest his soul, had a ton of real life stories he would tell, picking up potatoes next to the railroad tracks that the folks would toss to them during the depression, working in a shovel factory swinging a 5lb sledge all day, etc, etc. Sometimes he would go off on a tangent and you just had to ask Grandpa if that story is really true. His answer was always the same.

Boy, one thing I learned a long time ago is you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

d

 

[Tirod]

I was raised by Ozarkers and a good story is treasured - my mom declared to the very end she saw it raining frogs in her front yard one day, and the newpaper reported a tornado the next day. There was no radar then, and the phenomenon has been documented in other places since.

I've never seen it rain frogs, but I did see it snow sand in Galveston this summer in June. Just as a wall cloud came over the city, the wind came up and churned up the dust, it was apparently raining higher up and as it passed thru collected the grains which then fell onto our condo. My wife and I had noticed the wall cloud - they are taken seriously in MO - and started getting off the beach when the Beach Patrol began getting out the alert. Flags in the area were pushing the 45+ signs as the wind came up, with lightning (and you WILL get off the beach no matter what.)

We swept the balcony and in the process the larger grains broke down to smaller ones, something we had confirmed by rubbing them in our hands while it was coming down. SImple dust clusters which had become heavy enough to fall.

Of course, that's nothing compared to the story of a gun dealer loading a primered case into an auto pistol then throwing it down over 500 times to make it go off, puttting up the youtube video claiming it was defective. The tag line is that it wasn't the model under contract with DOD and they had already accepted the no charge upgrade. It gets better when you read posts on forums to this day of owners negligently dropping their guns and claiming they went off, so they sold them, and bought a different brand. Same brand every time.

Same as the gun dealer who started the story years ago. The same brand who lost the contract.

Unbelievable? Read the replies, one old circus guy said there was a sucker born every minute. Astute observation of human character. Then there's the tale of a non lethal upper respiratory illness with a 99.8% survival rate . . .