My first powder horn attempt

[exMember]

Still in progress, tomorrow I will look at fitting the horn stopper into place. I got tired of spilling that black gold, So i used a 3006 case, cut it down, drilled and epoxied it into the horn for a handy funnel to put the powder where I want it. The horn tip will slide over the case and be the stopper. Found this antelope horn many many years ago out on the plains. Never seen one before and found out they are harder to find because they are made of hair and fall apart after a while. I plan on rubbing in some boiled linseed oil. Most likely going to use it for rendezvous as it is a big large and bulky, but still pretty hard cool. I've never seen someone use a speed goat horn before!

End cap is oak. That crap is worse than shaping steel!

 

[Smokin' Joe]

It is pretty cool!  Good conversation piece. Everyone will want to look at it at the rendezvous.

 

[patocazador]

Can't you polish the horn so it's not so rough? I have several pronghorn mounts and their horns aren't as rough and dried out as yours. They're still black and relatively smooth.

 

[exMember]

highly doubt it since it is hair. I plan on adding some tung oil.

 

[Two Feathers]

Frontier Gander

Way cool!!! Never saw anything quite like that. If you decide to, I think there would be a market for those.
Oh, being in the horn hobby...I get that "Hair" reference. Most folks don't know that horn is actually hair? I believe that deer are the exception, since that's solidified calcium NOT horn!?
Stoney

 

[Buck Conner1]

highly doubt it since it is hair. I plan on adding some tung oil.

Adding a good water repelling oil would be a good idea Jonathan. Several friends have used antelope horn for a number of different uses. Powder horns, priming horns, salt horns, used to hold beads, and small items for a period look in their trade tents. 


As a joke someone put water in one of the empty horns for sale, it took 3-4 days before the hair started coming undone (not to funny to the trader when it was found). I know the jerk that did it (he got drunk and bragged a little to much). He was always doing stupid stuff like this - he died (let someone else deal with him now).  :thumb down:

Antlers, on members of the deer family, are grown as an extension of the animal's skull. They are true bone and are a single structure. Antlers are shed and regrown each year.

Horns, found on pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bison, and many other bovine, are two-part structures. An interior of bone (also an extension of the skull) is covered by an exterior sheath grown by specialized hair follicles, like your fingernails. Your fingernails and the exterior sheath of horns are made of very similar materials. Horns are never shed and continue to grow throughout the animals life. The exception to this rule is the pronghorn which sheds and regrows its horn sheath each year.

It has been suggested that the shape of a natural horn was also the model for the rhyton, a horn-shaped drinking vessel. Powder horns were originally bovid horns fitted with lids and carrying straps, used to carry gunpowder. ... 

Antelope horns are used in traditional Chinese medicine.