This story probably belongs in the General catagory but it is about gunpowder so here it is. Reading all of the different questions people have about what's a good powder, or what should I use, makes me appreciate the vast choices we have compared to some (most) people in this world.
In the summer of 1970 my family's sailboat was put ashore on the southeast shore of Jamacia to have some work done on a leaky stuffing box. While my father and me roamed around the waterfront, we met and befriended a Jamacian police officer whose job it was to protect the various American and European yachts that pulled in all the time. He was a friendly man with tobacco stained teeth almost as dark as his skin. On his official gun belt he carried what my dad recognized as some variant of the Browning 1911. Turns out it was an Argentine copy (no grip safety - this is what caught my dad's eye) in .38 Super. It was nickel-plated and had beautiful alabaster grips. They shown like good-quality opals with lots of rainbow color swimming in a creamy white matrix. They were something to behold. Dad, being a gun-guy and fair amatuer gunsmith asked this policeman (now properly lubricated with gin - dad got him on our boat for a social moment) where he had gotten such grips and the policeman told us that his father-in-law lived well back in the Blue Mountains and kept a workshop back there where he repaired all of the local's firearms as well as many of the area police officers. It was all very illegal at the time because of the strict gun laws on Jamacia in the 70s, but he was allowed to operate with impunity for the simple cost of building grips for the officers and making repairs to the departments guns that might otherwise put the service weapons out of comission. It was a quiet deal and everyone benefited. In time this shore cop agreed to take me, my sister, and my dad up the mountain trail to meet his father-in-law. My dad simply had to see how a man could work mother-of-pearl to such a degree without breaking it. Half a day later, we arrived at a tin shed with plywood sides and thatching where the tin roof wasn't enough. Two sides were open to the elements and you could hear a small generator rumbling around back somewhere. The owner came out into view and saw his son-in-law and then eyeballed the three white folk he'd dragged up the pass. Pleasantries were exchanged and my father and this old backwoods gunsmith talked for hours. I said very little because I was just a kid. My sister and I spent our time looking at all his cool equipment. He had a Civil War era lathe (dated 1857 on it, Richmond VA) a heavy drill press with an x and y axis moveable bed for simple machine work, and all kinds of handmade metal tools like you expect to find in a jeweler's shop. And all of this open to the humid tropical environment.
My father got to talking about reloading with this guy and learned that in times of conventional powder shortages (often- stuff not allowed incountry) he would use the scrapings of hundreds of household matches. The harvesting was done when the matches were wet so as not to spark a problem. Then the paste was ground finer (still wet) and a small amount of simple talcum powder was added to slow down the burn rate. Apparently it's easy to get into trouble using straight match head material. This stuff was dried and used in regular brass shells with cast lead bullets. (yes, he cast them himself) I remember this old man saying the hardest thing to get was primers. They were not something he could effectively fabricate and real ones were as gold.
So the next time you feel like bitching about some powder not doing just what you want it to, remember the Jamacian up in the Blue Mountains making due. You won't feel so bad then. I know I don't.
In the following years my father and me carried with extreme care (smuggling is such an ugly word) several pounds of Bullseye and Unique, along with several thousand small and large pistol primers up to this old guy after secreting it in our sailboat and enlisting the help of our pearl-handled cop friend at the customs stop required on entering Jamacia.
I learned about 15 years ago that the old mountain man had died of some hideous lung ailment. His son-in-law is now retired and no longer carries the silver Super with the cool grips. My parents are gone now too, as is our family's wooden ketch. For the simple love of shooting, and the related arts, I had a grand adventure in reloading. (and breaking half the international laws known to seafarers at the time, among others.)
SA John
In the summer of 1970 my family's sailboat was put ashore on the southeast shore of Jamacia to have some work done on a leaky stuffing box. While my father and me roamed around the waterfront, we met and befriended a Jamacian police officer whose job it was to protect the various American and European yachts that pulled in all the time. He was a friendly man with tobacco stained teeth almost as dark as his skin. On his official gun belt he carried what my dad recognized as some variant of the Browning 1911. Turns out it was an Argentine copy (no grip safety - this is what caught my dad's eye) in .38 Super. It was nickel-plated and had beautiful alabaster grips. They shown like good-quality opals with lots of rainbow color swimming in a creamy white matrix. They were something to behold. Dad, being a gun-guy and fair amatuer gunsmith asked this policeman (now properly lubricated with gin - dad got him on our boat for a social moment) where he had gotten such grips and the policeman told us that his father-in-law lived well back in the Blue Mountains and kept a workshop back there where he repaired all of the local's firearms as well as many of the area police officers. It was all very illegal at the time because of the strict gun laws on Jamacia in the 70s, but he was allowed to operate with impunity for the simple cost of building grips for the officers and making repairs to the departments guns that might otherwise put the service weapons out of comission. It was a quiet deal and everyone benefited. In time this shore cop agreed to take me, my sister, and my dad up the mountain trail to meet his father-in-law. My dad simply had to see how a man could work mother-of-pearl to such a degree without breaking it. Half a day later, we arrived at a tin shed with plywood sides and thatching where the tin roof wasn't enough. Two sides were open to the elements and you could hear a small generator rumbling around back somewhere. The owner came out into view and saw his son-in-law and then eyeballed the three white folk he'd dragged up the pass. Pleasantries were exchanged and my father and this old backwoods gunsmith talked for hours. I said very little because I was just a kid. My sister and I spent our time looking at all his cool equipment. He had a Civil War era lathe (dated 1857 on it, Richmond VA) a heavy drill press with an x and y axis moveable bed for simple machine work, and all kinds of handmade metal tools like you expect to find in a jeweler's shop. And all of this open to the humid tropical environment.
My father got to talking about reloading with this guy and learned that in times of conventional powder shortages (often- stuff not allowed incountry) he would use the scrapings of hundreds of household matches. The harvesting was done when the matches were wet so as not to spark a problem. Then the paste was ground finer (still wet) and a small amount of simple talcum powder was added to slow down the burn rate. Apparently it's easy to get into trouble using straight match head material. This stuff was dried and used in regular brass shells with cast lead bullets. (yes, he cast them himself) I remember this old man saying the hardest thing to get was primers. They were not something he could effectively fabricate and real ones were as gold.
So the next time you feel like bitching about some powder not doing just what you want it to, remember the Jamacian up in the Blue Mountains making due. You won't feel so bad then. I know I don't.
In the following years my father and me carried with extreme care (smuggling is such an ugly word) several pounds of Bullseye and Unique, along with several thousand small and large pistol primers up to this old guy after secreting it in our sailboat and enlisting the help of our pearl-handled cop friend at the customs stop required on entering Jamacia.
I learned about 15 years ago that the old mountain man had died of some hideous lung ailment. His son-in-law is now retired and no longer carries the silver Super with the cool grips. My parents are gone now too, as is our family's wooden ketch. For the simple love of shooting, and the related arts, I had a grand adventure in reloading. (and breaking half the international laws known to seafarers at the time, among others.)
SA John
