Don't Let This Happen to You -- I'm a Trained Professional *cough*

Let me share with you a stupid thing I did to myself last night.

I believe I mentioned to some of you that I have a hunt coming up later this week and next weekend, in the "primitive weapons only" area of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. Well... so there I was, last night, down in the arms room, cleaning my flintlock after spending a day with it at the range. Actually, I was putting it back together after cleaning the lock. See, with a flintlock, you remove the lockwork (one piece) and wash it with hot water, brushing it as needed, to remove the residue from the black powder. Using very hot water is good; it cleans the metal nicely and dries, because of the heat, very quickly without rusting. Then, you just oil it up and reinstall it into the wood (stock).

So... I had the hammer all the way back at the time, to facilitate cleaning and brushing... well, without the lock being connected to the trigger (on the rifle and separate from the lock), there was no way to lower the hammer. It also made reinstalling the lock a tad difficult, but not impossible. Anyway, there I was, fiddling with the lock, trying to fit it back into the stock... when, "WHAP!" Somehow in all this, the hammer released. Now, to refresh your memory, on flintlocks, the way they work is the hammer contains a piece of SHARP flint, with a REALLY NICE EDGE, to strike the frizzen on the way down, creating sparks which then ignites the powder in the pan, which goes through a small hole in the side of the barrel to ignite the charge of powder inside the bore. Anyway... back to the "WHAP!" part. Just as pretty as you please, the hammer came down on the back of my left forefinger -- as if I was pointing it at you, just perfectly left-to-right, right between the two "finger joints" (the midway joint and the joint up by the fingernail). Now then... so, at the "WHAP!" moment, I'm looking at what I've done and figuring "Boy, this is going to hurt once the pain reaches my brain." Which it did... but that wasn't the interesting part. No, the interesting part -- say, did I mention that, to work properly, you need a flint with a SHARP EDGE??? -- is that my finger, once pulling the hammer back to release same, started to bleed. A lot. A whole lot. Like, "A" followed by "LOT." As in "Boy, I don't know, maybe I'm going to need a stitch or two on this sucker. Hmmmm" So, I went upstairs, trying to contain the bleeding in whatever papertowels I had on hand in the arms room, and started fiddling with bandaids... which, well, have you ever tried to attach a bandaid to completely-bloody flesh? It's sort of wet. Doesn't work real well. Plus, with blood everywhere... which, by now, included all over the bathroom sink... I couldn't find the cut. See, my finger now looked like some kind of movie prop from a "Freddie vs. Jason" movie.

Well, after three or four bandaids and figuring "This here is a losing game," I abandoned the bandaid idea. I was also, at this point, wondering if anyone had ever bled to death from a cut finger. I rummaged through the medicine cabinet and found some gauze, and started wrapping it around my finger TIGHT, followed by three bandaids to hold things together (I didn't have any duct tape in the bathroom, so I used bandaids). Well, Lord howdy, it worked!!! The bleeding stopped... and, as I discovered about 15 or 20 minutes later, so had my circulation to the tip of my finger, which was turning a shade of reddish black. Well, I whipped out my tiny Swiss army knife, opened up the scissors, and cut open my "wrap" to let the blood flow again. Fortunately, the blood didn't start flowing through the cut, though, for which I was glad. I secured the sliced-open wrap with... another bandaid... and it's still holding nicely.

Just another story from the "Don't let this happen to you" department.

Take care.

Russ

I don't have a flintlock, but I'll probably figure something else out.

Is it sore?

Yep, been there, done that. Those black German flints are nasty sharp. Been shooting flinters in competition and hunting for 30 years. Had the hammer fall, like in lightning fast FALL on the top, and side of my thumb many times cleaning the pan before priming and cleaning the bottom of the frizzen. Sure bleeds and when you get some Black Powder in it, sure feels GOOOOOOOD.
I've seen guys on the firing line get cut just like that and have blood running down their arm all day while shooting. NOT PRETTY. On my Cochran and L&R locks I can cock the hammer out of the stock, clean and put pressure on the sear lever and let the hammer down. On my flinters I can't work on them with the lock in them due to the VERY light trigger pull.
Hope your cut heals quickly so you won't have trouble during hunting season.

Clearly, you've been there and done that! It's nice that my pain is shared... well, sort of nice.



Yup, the finger seems to be coming along nicely, thanks.



The lock on this particular flintlock is a Chambers -- real, real, REAL fast! I'm pretty sure I'm going to be incredibly careful from now on when I'm cleaning the locks on these guns... especially on my Southern Mountain with the Chambers lock!!! (Did I mention it's a FAST lock???) Man, I tell ya, it was like being caught in a bear trap or something... on a smaller scale, of course, but just about as bloody.



Thanks for sharing. Misery, as they say, loves company.



Russ

Now you know why the Indians made knves and arrowheads out of FLINT!!

Hope your finger won't interfere with the hunt!!