I just got off the phone with the owner of Jack’s Powder Keg, making arrangements to pick up my annual case of GOEX in Baton Rouge next Saturday (12 cans FFG, 12 cans FFFG, 1 can FFFFG, $11 a pound ).

After I hung up I got to thinking about how much powder I burn over the course of a year. In addition to GOEX, I shoot probably six or eight pounds of Pyrodex and Triple 7 that I pick up in WalMart’s post Christmas sale. Then I got to wondering “how much powder did the early frontiersmen burn over the course of a year?” Have you ever wondered about things like that? Did Daniel Boon shoot more than two or three pounds of powder a year? I suspect not.

Consider this. The 31 men, 1 woman, and one dog of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery who made the two-year, four-month round trip to the Pacific packed a little over 400 pounds of gunpowder (52 eight pound lead canisters holding four pounds of powder each). I’m sure they each had a small personal supply when they departed in addition to what was packed as expedition supplies. But the records say they had powder left over when they returned that was auctioned off to the public along with their guns. That’s an average use of less than a half pound of powder a day for the entire crew (about 100 grains per man, per day). They sure didn’t do a lot of plinking.

They also used lower powder charges than we do today...
Madison Grant wrote a book years ago about hunting bags/horns, etc...Most chargers were 50 grains or less...

Well I am sure that plinking was frowned on back then. Also they did not shoot large powder charges as one might think. 60-70 grains was an average charge.

Now when you consider us, we have numerous days a week on the range and shoot an average of 15-30 shots per session. Like you I burn a lot of different powders off in a years time.

Semi

Ah! history one of my favorite subjects.... One thing that most people do not know or understand.... mm really did not do that much hunting with a rifle.... It made noise to shoot a gun and if you shot everybody in the area including the un-friendly would know where you were...

Traps were the name of the game....

Long live jerimiah johnson.... and others

Ok...In the decade prior to the Revolution the #1 export out of Salisbury, NC was deer hides, over 200,000 a year...The #1 import was cloth...In addition there were 3 hatters in Salisbury in 1760...These hatters made felt hats from beavers that were trapped on this side of the Appalachians...There weren't enough people in this area to warrent 3 hatters, these were also sent to England...

This is why Squire Boone moved down here in 1750 with his family which of course included his 17 year old son Daniel...
Daniel did his trading of skins in Salisbury and Salem, NC...

I've always thought that he probably carried a North Carolina rifle into Kentucky on his first trip there in 1769...

Or maybe "Tick-Licker" was a Pennsylvania German long rifle. He was born and raised in PA, so was I, so I might be a little biased.

http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/boonegift.html

Well...He moved to NC in 1769 and settled in Kentucky in 1775...

In between was his 1769-1771 trip into Kentucky where the Indians took his rifle and furs...

I always get a chuckle reading propaganda from various historical societies...You would think that these people would get their facts right...

Glancing through that article there are several mistakes...Daniel Boone was not held captive by Indians for several years...Plus, it was not Lord Dinsmore's War but Lord Dunmore's War which ended when 1,200 riflemen fought 1,000 Indians at the Battle of Point Pleasant...

there was a history channel program on boone and he had been held by indians for some time. He escaped when he learned that they were going to attack boonesboro. I think thats the name.

The Lewis and Clark expedition made use of air guns. Probably to save powder, but also to avoid making noise while hunting to feed themselves.