Now don't go off half-cocked...
Since this thread on priming a flinter has gotten milked out pretty fair (wow, really!), I thought I'd go out to the workbench and grind me a little batch of 2fg using my little porcelain mortar and pestle. I haven't had to do the M&P grind for a few years now, as all my priming horns still have plenty in them
And for the sake of all these thread sharings here, I thought I'd just tell of my procedure, and BTW, I've never had any kind of flashing surprises, nor do I ever expect to have one. I did use the two spoons method a long time ago, but the M&P deal is far and away a better way to go. The mortar is 2" across, and 1 and 1/4" deep. The pestle is about 3" long, and looks like a little baseball bat.
Just for the sake of this post, I weighed what I usually dump in the mortar and found it comes out to right at 20 grns. of powder (average for three throws using the powder can cap for a measure, partially full). Using the pestle with just enough downward pressure to feel the grains crush, it takes no time, really, to make good priming powder. I then used a large Siler lock and weighed what I normally use to prime my rifle. I did this 3 times to get an average of two grains for the priming. All this works very well for me, and I know I'm not the only one who does this method. I've never heard of any kind of mishap in doing this procedure.
Our Old Continental soldier and his contemporaries have been mentioned a couple of times, so I thought I'd bring up an old adage that's been around for a long, long time; "don't go off half-cocked." This is how I understand that to really mean, when it was coined back in the day.
Just a scenario:
Holding the musket in the crook of his arm, our soldier grabs for a cartridge from his box just after firing his "Bess" in the volley against the Crown. Standing shoulder to shoulder with his compatriots, he's facing the totally professional British infantry just a mere 40 yards away. They're leveling their muskets, getting ready to fire their own volley against the American line, of which he's part.
The soldier's musket has needed some lock repair for a while now, but the armorer hasn't been able to work on his gun yet. His musket, from time to time, will slip off the half-cock notch and fall on the closed frizzen, which really could give any soldier "the willies," since the proper procedure in loading the musket calls for priming the pan first, with powder from the pre-made paper cartridge. Once primed, and the frizzen closed on the pan with the lock on half-cock, the rest of the powder along with paper and ball is rammed home down the bore. As our soldier rams his load, he hears the British Sgt. Major yell, "Fire," and the crash of musketry fills our soldier's ears as he pulls the rod from the bore. The whole time he's shakily thinking, or maybe even saying out loud to his musket, "NOW DON'T GO OFF HALF-COCKED!"
If anyone has another angle on the meaning of the adage, I'm primed to hear/read it. This has been an interesting thread (IMO), certain sure.