“I’ll take care of them,” Skeeter promised with a gulp and a hasty retreat from Sven Bailey’s armory.
Skeeter’s final lesson of the day, after another intensive round of firing practice, involved properly cleaning a black-powder firearm in the field, using 1885 techniques and equipment. “Clean your firearms after every use,” Ann explained as Skeeter learned how to disassemble each of his borrowed weapons, “or you’ll end up with a rusted, corroded piece of junk. That can happen fast, in a matter of days.”
“What do you use?” Skeeter asked dubiously, eyeing the stack of filthy firearms.
“Soap. Not detergent, mind, but soap and water. Modern shooters usually use one of the liquid-formula soaps or even chemical cleaners that don’t require water, but you won’t have that luxury down the Wild West gate. You’ll carry soap flakes or shave thin strips from an ordinary soap bar, dissolve them in hot water, and scrub the disassembled pieces with gun brushes. Then you oil every piece thoroughly to prevent rust. You’ll carry a small flask of a modern substitute that looks and feels like sperm-whale oil and works even better, without killing an endangered species.” She nodded to the heavy little flask Skeeter held.
Kit grunted softly, scrubbing hard at his disassembled Frontier Double Action with a stiff, soapy brush. “Beats what I’ve used, on occasion. A lot of shooters in the Old West carried strips of leather wrapped around lumps of lard. It works, but man, oh, man, does it smell.”
Skeeter chuckled. “Hot iron, burnt powder, and rancid pig fat? Yeah, I’ll bet it does. Of course,” he added wryly, “I did grow up with people whose idea of haute cuisine was tsampa and kvess. Anything rancid smells bad, take my word for it. Okay, show me how to shave soap flakes and disassemble these babies.”