[Craig Shira]

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Hello!

I do 16th century Landsknecht reenactment and, on occasion, I fire a match-lock harquebus/musket. For the past two years I have used a donut priming flask to carry my priming powder that used a spring-loaded nozzle to drop powder into my flash pan. Alas, my donut flask has lost its usefulnes and I am looking to replace it.

One of the frustrations I had with the donut flask was the spring nozzle. It would occasionally kick out the powder from my flash pan as I pressed the tip to get the poweder out, though that partially may be clumsiness on my part.

My question goes out to the musketeers out there: what powder flask works best for you? Are there any you would recommend for someone recreating the year 1536?

(Craig)

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[Lin Robinson]

Craig...

Are you referring to the flask itself, or the dispensing mechanism, or both? Could we see a photo of what you have now?

[Gordon Frye]

Craig;

I've found that the sort of priming flask that has a simple cut-off to it, either the sort as used in the small pistol flasks of the American Civil War era that are available (with brass flasks: the small ones actually make a decent priming flask for a musket), or the sort with a simple spring-loaded dog-leg cover over the spout. Press the end of the cover, up-end the flask, and powder in copious amounts flows forth.

Personally I've never liked the sort that you have to push into the pan to pour the powder into the pan with... too much work, too little powder, and too much likelihood of not enough powder getting into the pan.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Craig Shira]

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Gordon,

Thank you for your response. I was wondering if the small pistol flasks from the American Civil War would work for priming, but was unsure if they would dispense too little or too much powder. I have seen other pistol flasks from earlier periods available that are roughly the same size and release the same amount of powder as their later-period American brethren. The common powder amount appears to be either 12 and 24 grains. I would assume that the 12 grain variety would work best for a priming flask, since flash pans aren't very big.

Lin,

I was looking to replace the entire flask. The dispensing nozzle was a hassle even when it worked and the donut body made powder coming out of the top difficult even if the nozzle was completely removed. Below are pictures of my "annoying donut. " I tossed them on another server as to not bog down the myArmoury website with two poor-quality photographs.

http://www.bildbalger.com/livinghistory/donut1.jpg
http://www.bildbalger.com/livinghistory/donut2.jpg

I've seen donut flasks in one or two woodcuts of the Landsknechte soldiers, in addition to an instance of what looks like a powder horn. While I would like something to work easily and efficiently to fill my flash pan, accurately portraying the period of the 1530's is important too.

(Craig)

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[Nathan Robinson]

I'm attaching a bunch of photos of 16th century (mostly?) powder flasks found at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München.

[Lin Robinson]

[Craig Shira]

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Lin, this has been helpful. I have always put the nozzle straight into the pan like you described, but the nozzle only let a finite amount of powder out. So it perhaps might simply be a nozzle issue and not entirely the flask's fault.

The photographs provided by Nathan are also quite useful. Extant examples are always a boon. I especially like the two turtle shell flasks. A lot of them looked like they might have been carved antler.

Based on these comments, I'm going to see if I can fix my donut powder flask and get it dispensing happily before the San Francisco Renaissance Fair this coming weekend in Golden Gate park. Last year I was the only Landsknecht firing a gun because the rest of my Fähnlein was carrying pike. As the lone Landsknecht musketeer, I would hate to disappoint and not have my kit ready in time. If I don't, then I'll be in the pike line and the Italian musketeers I shoot with won't have to worry about being upstaged by a Viennese Landsknecht whose gun is twice as loud as theirs.

(Craig)

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[Nathan Robinson]

[Lin Robinson]