Time Scout by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

The discouragement in her eyes needed dispelling, though.

”You’re doing well,” Kit said when she glanced his way.

Margo flushed again, but from pleasure this time. “I’m working hard on it.”

Kit nodded. “You keep practicing, you’ll get much better. Maybe Malcolm will even win that bet.”

Margo’s whole face went scarlet. “You heard about that.”

Kit laughed. “Margo, everyone in La-La Land heard about it.”

”That’ll teach me to make bets,” she said ruefully.

”All right,” Ann said, coming back with another case, “back to work. Now we take a step backwards in time. Muzzle-loading black-powder firearms were more common far longer than metallic-cartridge, breechloading guns. Metallic cartridges didn’t become common until the 1870’s. The little, low-powered rimfire and pin-fire cartridges date from the decade before the American Civil War, but they were nowhere nearly as common as percussion-fired, muzzle-loading blackpowder guns. Flintlock and matchlock guns in particular had a longer period of use than cartridge guns. You’ll need to know how to handle these firearms and they’re a bit more complicated to use.”

Margo gave Ann a brave smile. “All right. Show me.”

”We start with a little demonstration.”

Ann shook out a thin line of various types of powders: smokeless rifle powders, smokeless pistol powders, then black powder. “Modern, smokeless powders are not explosive. They burn. They don’t explode. The priming compound in the base of the cartridge case is a chemical explosive, but it’s a tiny, tiny amount of it. All the primer does is create the spark of flame needed to start the powder burning. This is modern pistol powder and this is modern rifle powder. Now this,” Ann pointed, “is black powder. Unlike modern powders, it is explosive. It burns far, far faster and is much more dangerous, particularly under compression. Watch.”