Meet the Flint Stone

I’ve managed to make my way through forty two years of life without ever visiting a hospital emergency ward. As you have probably guessed, my record has been broken. The cause? The British Infantry of the 18th Century. To be fair, I’m exaggerating, it was but one of their muskets.

Let me back up a little. I have friends with the hobby or business, depending on your point of view, of reinacting the Seven Years War period, known quaintly in the North American theater as the French and Indian War. This group of friends attend various events in proper attire and kit for the period, particular to the cavalry unit they represent and demonstrate various bits of day to day life in the army of the King’s command. I’ve been handling the group’s IT needs for some time now, so attending an actual event, even as tiny as this one was, looked to be a fun way to see the reinacting portion in real life, as a participant no less. Well, not so much a participant, as a jackass in black BDU pants and matching polo shirt, rolling cartridges, inflating target balloons and loading black powder handguns and muskets for demonstrations. This was not your typical reinactment event, it was just a small demo for a town fair in north central Indiana, but it was a chance nonetheless to mix things up in a small and friendly environment and have a nice change of pace to take during my vacation.

One of the duties I took to, was to work on muskets and pistols which did not fire properly and at the least, discharge the load. Mind you, we were not using bullets, just black powder and the cartridge paper wadding, but you don’t want to keep a charge loaded, even if it is just a blank. I was working on one particularly stubborn carbine when the record breaking event occurred. The hammer was giving me a bit of trouble, resisting being cocked like a horse pulling tight on the reigns. I was attempting to pull back the hammer with the two smaller fingers of my right hand, when I decided to rotate my hand and push back with the palm of my hand instead, to work with extra leverage. For those of you who don’t know the moral of this story already, this is where our good soldier, yours truly, really screwed up. This is not the proper thing to do, and my palm promptly slipped.

On a modern firearm, slipping on a hammer like this may hurt you a bit, if you managed to catch the webbing between your thumb and hand in the hammer’s arch of movement. It might sting a little, but you’d be intact. On a flintlock musket, beneath the hammer’s top, is a piece of flint. The flint is used to strike against a metal plate called the frisson, which produces a spark that ignites the powder in a small pan under the hammer, proceeding through a small touch hole into the breach, setting off the final charge in the barrel and launching the bullet. Worst case scenario with a hammer slip would be an accidental discharge, but I hadn’t even opened the frisson to put powder in the pan yet. No, my problem was not with the base issues of fire, but with a rock. You see, flint works in part due to its shape. In a process called napping, which breaks off the rock in sheets, the flint is shaped into a fine edge. A very sharp edge. A razor sharp edge, which primitive man used to make arrow heads, axes and knives. An edge of which a corner thereof cut a beautiful arch across the meat at the base of my thumb, like a surgeon had cut me with a scalpel.

It took but a split second to notice that the tissue was cut well through the skin and into the muscle itself, but had not hit an artery or vein, as the blood loss was minimal. We cleaned it, put gauze on it and taped it up. Nevertheless, it was deep enough to cause concern, so my closest friend in the group and I drove off to the local hospital to get it examined by someone smarter in medicine than us.

There’s not a lot to tell about the event from that point on. I was lectured about my blood pressure, given a tetanus shot, prescribed an anti-biotic and had a sterile version of super glue used on the cut instead of old fashioned stitches. Though from a medical point of view I prefer the glue method, part of me is a little disappointed that the wound won’t show the typical marks of stitches, making it more in line with the period piece which caused the wound. Still, a wound is a wound and like every other wound, will be a faintly discolored reminder of why stupidity hurts.

However, in many ways it can be said that the worst casualty out of this weekend’s adventure was not the cut, but the mental damage. I’ve caught another disease, you see; like motorcycling or sailing. I’ve come to really like black powder muskets and can see one in my near future. Reinacting? I’m not so sure about that, but the smell of burnt powder, the challenge of all the physics involved in every shot and the simple fun of shooting: I’m sure about that. I’m also sure that I’m going to be giving flint a lot more respect than I have up until now.

Note to self: be smarter than the rock.