Loading the Buffalo Gun on the Range

[Don McDowell]

I think they were about as varied in loading technique etc as we are today. But for the most part we can probably guess that they used what ever reloading tools the rifle manufacturer sold. Those were pretty basic things, not unlike our modern day Lee hand loaders. The bigger outfits that had a camptender, mostly left the reloading chores to him/her.
My suspicions about alloy is they bought what ever they could get. Be it pure lead or something else. We do see in many of the store journal entries they did sell "patching" paper.
We can probably be pretty sure the loading and casting took place during the daylight hours as about the only light would be from the campfire, and depending on where they were and what they had for fuel for the fire... buffler chips don't put out much flame and light.. Candles, lamps etc would of only been used sporadically,due to their cost and inavailability, and the smart camper most likely kept things pretty low key at night so as to not tip off their location to folks that may not have the best interest of those in the camp at heart...