Discussion Did soldiers cover muzzles of loaded muskets to keep their charges dry?

Could you elaborate on that second process, how it was done? I've got no experience shooting muzzle-loaders and I've always wondered how guys unloaded their weapons, other than just firing them.
They inserted a tool on the end of the ram rod called a “worm” that could be screwed in the led to extract the ball. Attached are two photos of an extracted and a dropped.58 Union Minnie

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A close fitting wood tampion plugged securely into the end of the muzzle would be a bad accident waiting to happen, wouldn't it? If soldiers did this, I bet it was against orders.
looking down the legenth of a barrel with a TAMPON in it would not be seen and a catastrophic failure would result!!
 
waiting with an unloosed weapon to go into battle in the pouring rain, must have been a bugger to load because of the hydroscopic, moisture that would acclimate in the barrels? even carried upside / barrel / muzzle down? if TAMPON'S were not allowed, so why were TAMPON's listed in company records as an issued item and many are in museum's, ?
 
Another issue thus far not addressed in this thread is the carriage of ammunition in driving rain or snow or inclement weather. To keep it waterproof would be mighty important. A lot of early cartridge boxes used in the ARW and by militia in the very early Republic had wooden boxes with holes bored in them for each individual paper cartridge, covered by a simple leather flap. This was found to be less than satisfactory, and so an additional inner flap was often added made of oil cloth. Later still, particularly after the War of 1812 and its ancillary conflicts like the Red Stick War/ Creek Civil War and so on, a side panel of leather was stitched on either side of the outer lid. By the time of the Civil War, the cartridge box ideally was of heavy leather construction, with a side panel on either side of the lid, plus a thicker inner lid of leather. Inside the main pouch there was now a pair of tin boxes. A package of ten cartridges with 12 caps was loaded into the inner cells, while two additional packets of cartridges would be stuffed into the upper cells where they'd be accessible to the firer's searching hand when given the order to "handle cartridge." This system in the Civil War was reasonably waterproof, and certainly superior to the earlier cartridge boxes. Additional ammunition could be carried in one or another tarred or oil cloth receptacle like the knapsack or similar.
 
waiting with an unloosed weapon to go into battle in the pouring rain, must have been a bugger to load because of the hydroscopic, moisture that would acclimate in the barrels? even carried upside / barrel / muzzle down? if TAMPON'S were not allowed, so why were TAMPON's listed in company records as an issued item and many are in museum's, ?

In those great old Saturday Night Live skits, Gilda Radner as the elderly and hard of hearing Miss Emily Litella would delivery a guest editorial reply on the newscast, and she would confuse one word for another, and go off on a rant. She could not understand why there was complaints about too much "violins" on television - she thought the violin was a fine instrument, etc., etc. and when the news anchor told her the complaints were about "violence" on television. "Oh, that's very different - never mind."
So it is with tampions and tampons.
Emily also could not understand why people were talking about "Presidential erections," "Flea elections in China," "the Eagle Rights Amendment," "making Puerto Rico a steak" and at least a dozen others.
 
Most of the Federal War Department contracts for Austrian weapons required that the contractor provide tompions among the required accessories. From that, I would infer that the Ordnance Office intended that they be used in the field.

Captain A. B. Dyer at Springfield Armory suspected that most of the weapons that were reported as having burst at the muzzle had failed because the soldiers had fired them with their tompions in place, which was clearly a soldier training failure. In April 1862 he reported that to test this theory he had loaded eight Springfield rifle musket barrels which were ready for proof with standard service cartridges and inserted tight fitting tompions into the barrels. Five of the eight barrels burst at the muzzle when they were fired. To check his findings, he loaded two barrels with 120 grains of gunpowder and one bullet, and two barrels with 192 grains of gunpowder and a bullet. One of the barrels loaded with 120 grains of powder failed, while the other three did not.

Regards,
Don Dixon

Since the beginning of time soldier's improvise. I know condoms and even a K ration box were used for muzzle protection in WW II. Condoms and tape were also used in more modern conflicts starting with Vietnam. Unlike a stone wrapped in cloth or a tompion, you could shoot through them and they didn't create barrel blockage. Tape was commonly used by LRRP/Recon teams in Vietnam.

As history has shown sometimes soldier's don't make the smartest decisions.

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"As soon as the column starts upon the road, guns are slung across the shoulder and carried in various positions, some muzzle down, some at right shoulder shift, others across the left shoulder, and some loosen the strap and throw it across their bodies diagonally to the roll." (Reminiscences of War, 13th New Jersey, by Samuel Toombs)
 
"As soon as the column starts upon the road, guns are slung across the shoulder and carried in various positions, some muzzle down, some at right shoulder shift, others across the left shoulder, and some loosen the strap and throw it across their bodies diagonally to the roll." (Reminiscences of War, 13th New Jersey, by Samuel Toombs)
That's a nice original source quote - it makes sense that when the men were traveling route step, they had freedom to carry their arms as worked best for the individual soldier.
Here is a definition of route step from Oxford's Lexico:

US Military
  • A way of marching in which troops remain in formation but are not required to keep time, carry weapons in a prescribed way, or (usually) maintain silence; also as interjection, as an order to march in this way.
 
Another issue thus far not addressed in this thread is the carriage of ammunition in driving rain or snow or inclement weather. To keep it waterproof would be mighty important. A lot of early cartridge boxes used in the ARW and by militia in the very early Republic had wooden boxes with holes bored in them for each individual paper cartridge, covered by a simple leather flap. This was found to be less than satisfactory, and so an additional inner flap was often added made of oil cloth. Later still, particularly after the War of 1812 and its ancillary conflicts like the Red Stick War/ Creek Civil War and so on, a side panel of leather was stitched on either side of the outer lid. By the time of the Civil War, the cartridge box ideally was of heavy leather construction, with a side panel on either side of the lid, plus a thicker inner lid of leather. Inside the main pouch there was now a pair of tin boxes. A package of ten cartridges with 12 caps was loaded into the inner cells, while two additional packets of cartridges would be stuffed into the upper cells where they'd be accessible to the firer's searching hand when given the order to "handle cartridge." This system in the Civil War was reasonably waterproof, and certainly superior to the earlier cartridge boxes. Additional ammunition could be carried in one or another tarred or oil cloth receptacle like the knapsack or similar.
The standard Federal cartridge box will keep rounds dry adequately, even in a rainstorm. Ammunition was generally issued fairly close to the suspected time when it was going to be used: the famous 40 rounds in the cartridge box and another 20 in the haversack being a standard place to start. I don´t think men carried rounds around for weeks and weeks, subject to the vagaries of humidity and weather.
Rain and moisture are very hard on a musket, though. I hate rain - rust everywhere even after brief exposure. Inspection of arms was a command function, naturally, and weapons fell out of functionality quickly in bad weather.
 
That's a nice original source quote - it makes sense that when the men were traveling route step, they had freedom to carry their arms as worked best for the individual soldier.
Here is a definition of route step from Oxford's Lexico:

US Military
  • A way of marching in which troops remain in formation but are not required to keep time, carry weapons in a prescribed way, or (usually) maintain silence; also as interjection, as an order to march in this way.
is that the same as trail arms? just curious. toot.
 
is that the same as trail arms? just curious. toot.
No. Trail arms is when you are carrying a musket or rifle musket through trees and brush, so if it was carried at the shoulder it would bang into overhead tree limbs or stuff like that. The right hand reaches over across the body, grasps the weapon close to the first barrel band, and then holds it there at the right side with the musket held at an angle, with the muzzle up, canted forward at about eye-level, and the buttstock trailing behind a bit.
 
I don´t think ¨trail arms¨ was ever meant to be as precise as we modern reenactors make it. The important part is that the muzzle is elevated so that it´s not pointing at the back or head of the file in front of you. If you grab the musket near the swell - the bottom barrel band - and bring it down to your side, keeping the muzzle up and away, it pretty much does itself.
 
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