Oh, I believe you, and you and I both know somewhere it might have happened, maybe as a practical joke...I just don't believe it was a common practice...
They cooked, they made fires, they had pots, seems to me they could have melted some snow, heated it and cleaned their guns with water...
There are many stories out there, like the one of putting a ball in your hand and covering it with powder to determine the charge...They had powder measurers and when you bought a gun the gunsmith knew what charge to recommend...Typical charges were about half the weight of a ball for that caliber, why pour powder in your hand to try to measure???
