Pets with Benefits

This past weekend, Hilary and I went to my family’s cabin in Northern WI.  It is a simple log shack without running water or electricity that my G-grandfather built in the 1940s as a hunting cabin.  Anyway, it is a nice quiet retreat that we love to visit in winter when you can only access it by snowshoe.  This year, lack of heavy snows and some plowing early  on made snowshoes unnecessary to get to the cabin (although...

French Pistol

I recently received a reproduction French pistol on a trade.  It was made by Marvis Chance of Louisianna and has a 9″ .62 caliber barrel, and is made of dark walnut with iron furniture.  It weighs about 2 3/4 pounds and has a nice fit to the hand.  I took it out twice this past weekend and found that it shoots quite well with about 45 grains of 3Fg powder, wadded with tow, and shooting the same .595 round ball (chewed...

Fur Caps

Fur caps are an interesting subject that I have wondered about a long time. When I first got serious about reenacting, I saw that most people really regarded fur caps as incorrect and bad history. I always found this odd as fur caps can be so warm and useful, especially in the northern winters. As I have researched, I have found that fur caps were around although not always like the ones we see at “historic”...