Percussion tubes and grizzlies

[Leifer]

"...the next day Allen shot a Grizzly Bear and bursted the percussion tube of his rifle which obliged us to return to our comrades on the 13th and make another tube..." -- Journal of Trapper, Osborne Russel

You'd sure hate to have that happen WHILE shooting at something like a grizzly and still need to fire again to drop the charging beast. Do you think they were actually going to fabricate one back at the camp or that was the location of more percussion nipples? I'm assuming that percussion tube = nipple.

Leifer

[whitebear]

Could be ether one. I remember in an old issue of "The Buckskin Report" there being an article about making a nipple in camp,

somewhat labor intensive IIRC but still much better than a trip back to St Louis. Maybe someone with old issues of BR can find it and post here.

[Rod]

I've always wondered if they actually burst the nipple or drum--that would seem pretty unusual to me---or if the threads stripped and blew the nipple out of the drum, which still happens today. Either way, to be able to fix this in the wilderness is something else. But then, Wyeth mentions converting flintlocks to percussion, too. I'd really like to run across a listing of tools carried by the average trapping brigade. Such conversions and repair would be fairly easy at a fort, where there was a full set of gunsmith's tools, but out on the trail? Some talented people, that's for sure.

Rod