Lucky's Trekking Tips - Muzzle Blasts December 2025

The Wiping Stick: Recently I was going over my flintlocks cleaning and oiling them and saw something I have used for years, and thought it would be a good topic for my trekking tips. The wiping stick, or in the past may have also been called a “scouring stick”. This is a second “ramrod” that I carry in the woods that is longer than the one in the thimbles and is a bit sturdier.

When I am moving, and not preparing to shoot, it is in the hand carrying the gun. This may seem awkward, but you get used to it. The advantage is you have a ready-to-go cleaning rod and a spare ramrod. Many of us have broken a ramrod in the woods and the hunt is over, back to the house for the spare. Why not carry one? 

One end can be left empty, but mine has a brass, threaded tip with a patch jag and I keep a ball puller in my patch box. The other end has a “tow worm” on it, with either tow or pillow ticking in it all the time. If I need to swab the barrel after several shots it is ready to go. I use it in the woods as my full-time working ramrod with the one in the gun is kept as a spare.

I keep it well-oiled and flexible and is a half inch diameter. It has taken quite a bit of abuse and held on for over 15 years. In the pictures you can see that the pillow ticking is a little longer than you might expect. I keep it that way, as it is just more patching material that can easily be cut off with a knife or patch knife when loading in a hurry. In fact, to most people’s disbelief, when the pillow ticking gets too dirty to clean, guess what? I use it for patches when shooting. No sense wasting it.

I have seen paintings showing “scouring sticks” in guns and that is what led me to researching it years ago and carrying one. It just seems to make good common sense. The picture here is a scene from James Fenimore Cooper’s, The Prairie”, 1885 by James William Glass, Jr., that shows a scouring stick extending out of the barrel. This is the photo that started my investigation and use of one.

For those interested, I will be at the Washingtons Crossing, PA Rev War event as a member and First Sergeant of the 4th Light Dragoons, Continental, on Dec 6 and 7. I hope to see some of you there. 

Written by Gerry "Lucky" Messmer. Reprinted with permission from the author.

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Lucky's Trekking Tips - Muzzle Blasts October 2025

Fire Facts: When trekking in many areas, we take firewood for granted. Most of us have all kinds of hardwood and rarely burn pine. But if you are on the plains of Wyoming, the high desert or high up in the Rocky Mountains making and maintaining a fire takes on a whole new meaning.

The number one consideration in these two areas is fire sustainability. What I am talking about is keeping it going all night versus having coals in the morning to start a fire for coffee, heat and cooking. The difference is what wood is available, deciduous or conifer and if you want to keep it going or let it burn out and start over in the morning.

When riding in areas like Wyoming that have nothing but sage, sage and more sage, you are really in good shape, because where there is sage there is dead sage. Dead sage is everywhere and burns extremely well. When gathering sage always take care to be aware of rattle snakes! Gathering dead sage is a snap, pulls right out of the ground due to shallow roots and can just be piled up and burned. It breaks into pieces if needed, very easily. This is great when you need to build a place for a cooking pot and to push small pieces under your pot to build coals.

Sage does burn hot, but the wood is very reminiscent of hardwood in how it burns and at the end of the night if you bank the coals, you will always have an ember in the morning to start a fresh fire. If you stack your raw meat on a tripod over the fire to smoke it as in a previous article, the sage gives it some flavor.

The Rocky Mountains are just the opposite. Because you are encountering mostly coniferous trees you will have to keep your fire going all night or resign to the fact that you will have to start over in the morning from scratch, so carry plenty of char cloth. Coniferous trees, in general, will burn hot and fast and leave nothing behind in the morning except cold piles of ashes. When collecting firewood, wherever located, I never waste time chopping it and risking an injury. I simply place the ends in the fire and push it in as it burns or burn them in half and keep feeding it in.

Everyone has plenty of experience in their own regions with fire making and certainly don’t need me to teach you that, but this information is for folks venturing out to areas they have never been before to give them a heads up to prepare for the environment they are heading toward. No sense figuring it out the hard way!

I sure hope to see some of you on the ground soon. I saw a few of you at the Rocky Mountain National Rendezvous in Wyoming and at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, WY. It was my wife’s first time to Wyoming, and I think she would have considered living there until she saw the winter temperatures!

Written by Gerry "Lucky" Messmer. Reprinted with permission from the author.

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