the Seven Years’ War, and a distinct improvement as far as an infantryman was concerned. Though its fire was quite as accurate, it weighed a half-pound lighter and was less unwieldy.
When Richard sat down at his bench on a high stool, everything he needed was distributed about him. The polished stocks with their long, half-moon barrel supports were turned in one piece, and stood in a frame to his left. To his right were the tanged barrels, each with pierced tenons on its under side. In receptacles on the bench were the various parts of the flintlock itself—springs, cocks, sears, frizzens, triggers, tumblers, screws, flints—and the brass bands, tubes, flanges and supports which bound the gun together. Between all these receptacles he spread out his tools, which were his own property and carried to and fro each day inside a hefty mahogany box bearing his name on a brass plate. There were dozens of files and screwdrivers; pincers, metal snips, tweezers, small hammers, a drill brace and assorted bits; and a collection of woodworking tools. Having been properly taught, he made his own emery papers out of canvas, sprinkling the abrasive black particles onto a base of very strong fish-glue, and used the same technique to fashion different sizes of emery sticks, some pointed, some rounded, some blunt and stubby. Filing parts down was at least fifty per cent of gunsmithing art, and so expert was Richard that his sawyer brother, William, would let no one else sharpen the teeth of his saws when it came time to set them anew.
What Richard had not realized until he picked up the first barrel to polish off the rust and then brown it with butter of antimony was how much he had missed practicing his craft. Six years! A long time. Yet his hands were sure, his mind enchanted at the prospect of assembling the pieces of a puzzle designed to kill men. A gunsmith’s reasoning processes, however, did not progress far enough to come to this ultimate conclusion; a gunsmith simply loved what he did and thought not at all about its destructive outcome.
The largest part of the work concerned the flintlock itself. The stock had to be carved delicately to fit it, then each spring and moving component had to be filed, adjusted, filed, adjusted, filed, adjusted, until finally mechanical harmony was achieved and it came time to put the flint in. Those in Norfolk and Suffolk who knapped the flints were craftsmen too, chipping away until the blocky chunk was faceted at its business end to precise specifications. Richard’s job was to line up the angle at which the flint struck the frizzen, a leafy-looking, inch-wide, L-shaped piece of steel whose base covered the powder pan. As the cock snapped forward and the flint struck, they forced the frizzen up and off the powder pan, at the same moment producing a shower of sparks. When the flint was properly positioned in the jaws of the cock, this shower of sparks was great enough to set off the powder in the pan; it flashed through a small touch hole into the breech of the barrel, and here in turn ignited the powder packed beneath the missile. In the case of Brown Bess, the missile was a lead ball .753 inches in diameter.
There was nothing Richard did not know about Brown Bess. He knew that she was useless at any range exceeding 100 yards, and of best use when the range was 40 yards or less. Which meant that opposing sides were very close before Brown Bess was fired, and that a good soldier would get in two shots at most before either engaging with bayonets or retreating. He knew that it was a very rare battle in which a man fired his Brown Bess more than ten times. He knew that her powder charge was a mere 70 grains—less than a fifth of an ounce—and he understood every aspect of gunpowder manufacture, for as a part of his apprenticeship he had spent time in the gunpowder works at Tower Harratz on the Avon in Temple Meads. He knew that there was a strong likelihood that only one in four of the Brown
When Richard sat down at his bench on a high stool, everything he needed was distributed about him. The polished stocks with their long, half-moon barrel supports were turned in one piece, and stood in a frame to his left. To his right were the tanged barrels, each with pierced tenons on its under side. In receptacles on the bench were the various parts of the flintlock itself—springs, cocks, sears, frizzens, triggers, tumblers, screws, flints—and the brass bands, tubes, flanges and supports which bound the gun together. Between all these receptacles he spread out his tools, which were his own property and carried to and fro each day inside a hefty mahogany box bearing his name on a brass plate. There were dozens of files and screwdrivers; pincers, metal snips, tweezers, small hammers, a drill brace and assorted bits; and a collection of woodworking tools. Having been properly taught, he made his own emery papers out of canvas, sprinkling the abrasive black particles onto a base of very strong fish-glue, and used the same technique to fashion different sizes of emery sticks, some pointed, some rounded, some blunt and stubby. Filing parts down was at least fifty per cent of gunsmithing art, and so expert was Richard that his sawyer brother, William, would let no one else sharpen the teeth of his saws when it came time to set them anew.
What Richard had not realized until he picked up the first barrel to polish off the rust and then brown it with butter of antimony was how much he had missed practicing his craft. Six years! A long time. Yet his hands were sure, his mind enchanted at the prospect of assembling the pieces of a puzzle designed to kill men. A gunsmith’s reasoning processes, however, did not progress far enough to come to this ultimate conclusion; a gunsmith simply loved what he did and thought not at all about its destructive outcome.
The largest part of the work concerned the flintlock itself. The stock had to be carved delicately to fit it, then each spring and moving component had to be filed, adjusted, filed, adjusted, filed, adjusted, until finally mechanical harmony was achieved and it came time to put the flint in. Those in Norfolk and Suffolk who knapped the flints were craftsmen too, chipping away until the blocky chunk was faceted at its business end to precise specifications. Richard’s job was to line up the angle at which the flint struck the frizzen, a leafy-looking, inch-wide, L-shaped piece of steel whose base covered the powder pan. As the cock snapped forward and the flint struck, they forced the frizzen up and off the powder pan, at the same moment producing a shower of sparks. When the flint was properly positioned in the jaws of the cock, this shower of sparks was great enough to set off the powder in the pan; it flashed through a small touch hole into the breech of the barrel, and here in turn ignited the powder packed beneath the missile. In the case of Brown Bess, the missile was a lead ball .753 inches in diameter.
There was nothing Richard did not know about Brown Bess. He knew that she was useless at any range exceeding 100 yards, and of best use when the range was 40 yards or less. Which meant that opposing sides were very close before Brown Bess was fired, and that a good soldier would get in two shots at most before either engaging with bayonets or retreating. He knew that it was a very rare battle in which a man fired his Brown Bess more than ten times. He knew that her powder charge was a mere 70 grains—less than a fifth of an ounce—and he understood every aspect of gunpowder manufacture, for as a part of his apprenticeship he had spent time in the gunpowder works at Tower Harratz on the Avon in Temple Meads. He knew that there was a strong likelihood that only one in four of the Brown
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