Miller Type bags, redux

[teakmtn]

I've just acquired a real nice thick brain tan mule deer hide. I've been wanting to make a "Milleresque" type bag for quite awhile. My favorite shooting pouch for the last 30+ years is a "Double D" type of bag I made of commercial oil tan elk hide. I really appreciate the organization this configuration gives me. But I'm agonizing over trying to be HC/PC. What's the collective thinking about this. Would someone take their deteriorating, Harness Maker made shooting pouch to a local NDN leather worker and have them make a local variation? Or if that person had the skills, make whatever type pouch worked for them? Has anyone seen evidence of our specific period/location possibility of a Miller type, Brain Tan double pouch? I'm reluctant to go to the effort and use of this awesome piece of leather on a fantasy project. What say you?

AAAAnd, It's been too quite around here for too long.
Talk to me my Brothers.
Doug

[Dan'l Hickham]

Sounds like a great bag - not sure on the historical context - but if I liked a certain type of bag that was available in the east and I used it effectively and was comfortable with the use of the bag - I might try my hand at re creating it from brain tan or buffalo hide

[luke]

well, ya know, they did kinda replicate back east items, just with local materials, and with a local flair. Thinking coats and pants.

If it were me, I would make a native bag like a native bag, and look at the changes in loading routine as just a typical hardship that someone had to endure.

[isaac]

Jul 10, 2014 5:36:01 GMT -7 luke said:

well, ya know, they did kinda replicate back east items, just with local materials, and with a local flair. Thinking coats and pants.

If it were me, I would make a native bag like a native bag, and look at the changes in loading routine as just a typical hardship that someone had to endure.

I agree with Luke. Something else to consider with loading is that if it is too complicated, that it need a lot of organization, you are probably overdoing things. I really believe that loading historically was a simple affair and pouches typically had JUST the basics. All the other, non-shooting foofaraw should be somewhere other than your pouch.

[Duane]

I have seen people with all kinds of things on the strap of there bullet pouch, as well as inside,every thing from molds to small ladles etc.I think that a lot of tools molds etc.would have been on their horse or in their possibles.I know that I like a smaller pouch,and keep it simple,less is more..Duane

[isaac]

Again, I will agree, this time with Duane.  This said, if you like the configuration of having two pouches in one,  a less "fantasy" option could be to make a simple native style pouch but in adding a liner, could add in a separator of stout linen inside the pouch, making two sides/compartments in the bag.  This said, I love a simple small bag.  My current pouch is a little bigger than I really prefer but it meets historical sizes for such a bag.  My last bag (gifted to a friend) was very small and ideal in my opinion.  It is the pouch in this image...



and here is my buddy Jeremy, spending a smokey, subzero night in the tipi right after being given the bag (he likes to wear it hanging in the front like a buffalo runner)...

[teakmtn]

Gentlemen, I really appreciate all the comments. Isaac, man, that is a little pouch. Nah, I'm not the guy that has every thing but the kitchen sink in my pouch. I just like the look and organization of the double D pouch i've used in the past. Not married to the idea though.
For what it's worth my current double D pouch is actually kinda small, 7x8, by comparison to most I see. But, it makes up for it by being a double pouch.
FWIW, what I carry in my double D shooting bag; a hand full of balls, a tin of patches, a small flint wallet, a very small pouch of tools (main spring vise, small turn screw, spare main spring and frizzen, worm and ball puller), a pair of hand forged pliers, a small pouch of tow plus a few commercial cleaning patches, and sometimes a small pouch with flint and steel and char and sometimes a handful of jerky and.
Balls and patches in forward/outermost pouch and tools etc in back pouch.
However, reading back on this post it seems like a lot, but having had a lock fail on a hike in hunt (broken frizzen) I feel like I want to carry some, minimum spares and tools. And to have them all together in the one shooting pouch vs in another bag. Trying to not be the guy to have 4 or 5 or 6 straps dangling off every shoulder, neck or waist.
But, with all that said, I have been knocking myself out trying to be "documentable". Quandary, quandary.

[luke]

I pretty much keep balls, patches, flints and a screwdriver in my shot bag.

The spare lock parts, hand vice, ect are in my saddlebags.

I do need to figure out something, as my western guns dont have patchboxes, so my tow worm has to go sompeplace

[Mark]

Luke, I know how this thread started about 'stuff' hanging from the bullet pouch strap, but---. There is both literature and visual evidence this was common. I am drawing on memory now and that is scary. I believe in one of the journal Bill Williams was mentioned as having his worm, awl, etc. hanging from his strap in the back. Tom Tobin's pouch at the Jim Gordon collection in New Mexico shows a variety of items that he hung from the back of his pouch strap. It would be easy enough to carry your worm there in a like manner.

I am not one to carry bullet mould or bar lead in my pouch. I prefer to carry the same weight equivalent in cast round balls ready to shoot. Also I like my cows knee and flint and steel in there.

This site seems to have run into the summer doldrums. Everyone must be doing instead of reading.

Mark

[Chuck Burrows]

Here's some primary docs that back up what Mark noted - RMFT era mountaineers seemed to carry some extras on their person, either in the shot pouch or on the bag or horn strap. I have done the latter since 1972 and have never had a problem with the tied on gear - I had to make a few adjustments but once set up right it worked fine and the additional weight is negligible.

His dress and appearance are equally singular. His skin, from constant exposure, assumes a hue almost as dark as that of the Aborigine, and his features and phyiscial structure attain a rough and hardy cast. His hair, through inattention, becomes long, coarse and bushy, and loosely dangles upon his shoulders. His head is surmounted by a low crowned wool-hat, or a rude substitute of his own manufacture. His clothes are of buckskin, gaily fringed at the seams with strings of the same material, cut and made in a fashion peculiar to himself and associates. The deer and buffulo furnish him the required covering for his feet, which he fabricates at the impulse of want. His waist is incircled with a belt of leather, holding encased his butcher- knife and pistols- while from his neck is suspended a bullet pouch securely fastened to the belt in front, and beneath the right arm hangs a powder horn transversely from his shoulder, beneath which, upon the strap attached to it, are affixed his bullet-mould, ball screw, wiper, awl & c. With a gun stick made of some hard wood, and a good rifle placed in his hands, carrying from thirty to thirty five balls to the pound, the reader will have before him a correct likeness of a genuine mountaineer, when fully equipped. The costume prevails not only in the mountains proper, but also in the less settled portions of Oregon and California. The mountaineer is his own manufacturer, tailor. shoemaker and butcher; and fully accoutred and supplied with ammunition in a good game country, he can always feed and clothe himself, and enjoy all the comfort the situation affords. No wonder, then, his proud spirit, expanding with the intuitive knowledge of noble independence, becomes devotedly attached to those regions and habits that permit him to stalk forth, a sovereign amid nature's loveliest works." "Rocky Mountain Life" Rufus Sage, Pages 38 and 39.

Williams always rode ahead, his body bent over his saddle-horn, across which rested a long heavy rifle, his keen grey eyes peering from under the slouched brim of a flexible felt-hat, black and shining with grease. His buckskin hunting-shirt, bedaubed until it had the appearance of polished leather, hung in folds over his bony carcass ; his nether extremities being clothed in pantaloons of the same material (with scattered fringes down the outside of the leg which ornaments, however, had been pretty well thinned to supply "whangs" for mending mocassins or pack-saddles), which, shrunk with wet, clung tightly to his long, spare, sinewy legs. His feet were thrust into a pair of Mexican stirrups made of wood, and as big as coal-scuttles ; and iron spurs of incredible proportions, with tinkling drops attached to the rowels, were fastened to his heel a bead-worked strap, four inches broad, securing them over the instep. In the shoulder-belt, which sustained his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, were fastened the various instruments of one pursuing his mode of life. An awl, with deer-horn handle, and the point defended by a case of cherry-wood carved by his own hand, hung at the back of the belt, side by side with a worm for cleaning the rifle ; and under this was a squat and quaint-looking bulletmould, the handles guarded by strips of buckskin to save his fingers from burning when running balls, having for its companion a little bottle made from the point of an antelope's horn, scraped transparent, which contained the "medicine" used in baiting the traps. G. F. Ruxton late 1840's describing Old Bill Williams

Note the worm is attached to the back strap

Although I had lost my rifle and all my plunder, I felt quite rich when I found my knife, flint and steel in my shot pouch,' he said later. 'These little fixins make a man feel right peart when he is three or four hundred miles from anybody or any place.

Hugh Glass - early spring 1824 while traveling east to St Louis for Ashley - he and his companions had a run with Indians they thought were Pawnee, but which were actually Hugh's memesis the Arikara - I don't have source noted, but is most likely from one of his two biographies. Also noted the use of the term plunder - back in the 1970's this was a common buckskinner term for their gear.

Mariano Medinas pouch with the accoutrements normally attached to the backstrap of pouch:

This pouch measures about 8" wide by 9" long the straps are 3 3/4" wide. This size is in the same size range as the Indian made buckskin pouches drawn by Miller - when scaled they all appear to be about 7-8" wide by 8-9" high, so most mountaineer pouches appear to be fairly large to carry a few extras in or on it, but not suit case size with lots of extras either .

tenngun - As Isaac noted build it with an inside divider and it doesn't have to be fully lined. I have used a piece of the same leather as a divider. I make the piece about 3/4" wider at the top than the back piece tapering down to the bottom which is just as wide as need be. It is then sewn to the back just inside of where the back to front seam will be. Here's a couple of pics of such a divider in a pouch I made:
The backside showing the seam where the liner is attached - you will have to gather the seam a bit as you sew, but the extra width keeps the back "pocket" from being too small



A view of the liner on the inside

Hope that helps..

[isaac]

Interesting that most are on the back strap. Also, note that in the image, they are not dangly but attached securely. Anyway, I carry a powder measure from my strp (which tucks then in the bag) and have taken to often hanging my knife from the bag strap (usually off the back) aka John Tanner.

[Mark]

What is that still attached to Tobin's back strap? I have never figured that out. Mark

[Chuck Burrows]

IIRc it's a dog whistle.....

[teakmtn]

Chuck, thanks for your comments and the photos. I may go that route with the insert on a single bag. Does you bag have a gusset? It's hard to tell by looking at the photos. But bringing up the idea of a gusset may be a similar tangent as the idea of a double bag. LOL.
Doug T.

[Chuck Burrows]

Doug that bag does not have a gusset - it was made from tawed sheepskin and I stretched the front and back after turning it - dampened it well and then filled with shot.

I did use a bottom gusset on the Miller bag I made for myself (I sold it shortly thereafter - the bane of a "starving" artist - somebody asks if it's for sale and there are bills, so.... ) I like the bottom guseet a lot since it gives me more room but keeps the top snugger to prevent stuff sliding out. Anyway here are a couple of pics - it was made from some fairly thick mule deer hide and I added an internal pocket but not as large as the divider - the pocket is for balls and the rest for accoutrement - although not shown I precut /prelubed patches and put a stack of them on a heavy thread with a knot on the end - while shooting the patches hang outside the bag along the front - when not shooting they get flipped inside to the front.

Bottom gusset - the bag is 7" x 8" and the gusset is 1 1/2" at the wide part - it's melon shaped


The inside pocket - I lined with pillow ticking just 'cause...


Front of the bag - the horn is an original that I did some repair work on it has two dates scratched into it 1791 and 1825