Thread: Shaving Demonstration

I received an email notice that I've been gone for long enough to get a notice...sorry I haven't been around much lately, but the new job has me quite busy.

I have an engagement coming up at a primitive rendezvous (pre-1860's) where I will be demonstrating how to load a muzzleloader. I've done this demonstration for several years, and this year, I decided to give a straight razor shave demonstration each day in the early afternoon.

I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'm thinking of using one of my Sheffield steel wedges and Tony Miller strops. The only dig...heating water over a campfire to get it hot enough to shave with.

I shot a muzzle-loader once. I was around eleven or twelve and I was at a BBQ a lot of my Dad's hunting buddies were attending. It was my uncle's gun and he brought it out as kind of a novelty, and the guys were shooting it at a paper target on a piece of plywood about twenty yards away. The target was one of those printed circular ones around the size of a dart board's playing surface, with those many tree trunk-like rings leading into the centre, which was around the size of nickel.

Anyway, they were firing away at the target (one slowly loaded shot at a time, as you can imagine) and they were landing shots all over the board. Maybe a beer or two was to blame, I don't know. I was offered the opportunity to shoot at one point and was handed the gun. It was very heavy for me at the time, and I think my uncle offered to steady it for me, but I told him I could manage. I raised it to my shoulder, took aim and pulled the trigger. The kick from the gun knocked me back a bit, of course, but I ignored it and squinted my eyes to try and see the target through the cloud of smoke drifting away in front of me.

"Did he hit it?" my one uncle asking incredulously (meaning the entire target).

"I...think he just knocked the center out of the goddamn thing!"

I ran up to examine it, and sure enough, that huge ball of lead hole-punched a direct bull's eye. I remember running my fingers across the Bart Simpson hair splinters on the back of the target.

Everyone was kind of gawking back at the firing line for a few seconds, staring at the target. I remember the silence was broken when someone said, "Well! I'm going to get another beer!"

"Getting the water hot enough to shave with over a camp fire"

What you might try is using is a scuttle,one of the old ones that holds a small puck of soap in the top and has the chamber below to put your brush in. You pour some hot water from a kettle or pan into the scuttle then soak your brush to get it warm. Load your brush on the small puck of soap on the top of the scuttle then face lather and shave. Repeat as needed. Those old scuttles are great for camp shaving.

So do you use a straight razor to trim your patches at the muzzle? I was at a museum this Summer and it was mentioned there, that a straight razor was a popular tool for doing that. I can't remember all the particulars.

A straight razor a popular tool for trimming patches? That's interesting. Were they used well in advance of having to fire the rounds? Because I know that Civil War-era muskets were fired using pre-packaged loads and whatnot, and that soldiers would also carry a satchel full of firing caps with them shoot as quickly as possible. Or are we talking about earlier muzzle loaders, with the burning fuses and whatnot, where that kind of on-the-go ingenuity like busting out your straight razor might make things easier or something?