Tompion

[davec2]

I had to make up a decorative brass tompion (muzzle plug), like the ones we used aboard ship in the Navy for the big guns, for a 3 inch bore cannon last week.  It got me thinking. 

Not long ago Ron Scott was kind enough to send me several small scrap pieces of exotic woods to make up some of the whisk and vent pick sets I have made.  I had one piece of burl locust that was long enough to make the handle for a vent pick and there was enough material left to do something else with.  So I made this tompion (sometimes spelled as "tompkin") for a .50 cal English rifle I am working on.  This is a simple one with a split wood shank.  I am making several others out of horn, bone, antler, etc., with more elaborate muzzle retention features like an expandable leather washer.  Fun to make and keeps the rain, snow, dirt out of the bore. 

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Dave you just have too much fun with that lathe!!!

[davec2]

Tim,

When I'm not making rocket parts, I have to do something to keep from being bored.  I don't post most of the gun work I do these days - just the little odds and ends.  The board isn't quite the same as when I first found it a few years ago.  Things change. Che sara sara.

Dave C

[trentOH]

Just 31 more and you'll have a chess set, to boot! Looks like a pawn or a bishop.

[roundball]

If they were used with loaded weapons, I wonder if many of them were lost when a soldier forgot and took a shot without removing it...or maybe they wetre all removed "on command" prior to a battle...even if not I assume the compressed air ahead of the projectile would bloop it out of the way like compressed air bursts tape over a muzzle...

[Artificer]

Military weapons were to be kept unloaded unless ordered to do so or on Sentry/Guard duty.   Tompions were to be removed when retrieving a musket from "stacked arms," unless it was raining or snowing.  A little carving, notches or some kind of whittling helped identify whose musket was whoose.  (Even in reenactnig, that is still very useful.)

It is possible someone may not have properly unloaded their musket after a battle or guard duty, though.

One thing you learn to do with tompions is sand them down so they fit loosely in the barrel or just snug enough so they don't fall out when you point the barrel down.  Otherwise, in the heat or after a rain, you may not be able to get them out unless you use a pair of pliers or a chisel. 

I would DEFINITELY not want to fire a musket or fowler with a tompion in place as there is a very good possibiility the barrel would peel out like a peeled banana.  Snow in the last foot of a barrel usually has far less friction than a tompion and snow will peel a modern shotgun barrel like a banana.

Gus

[Levy]

I would be concerned placing a tompion in a fired barrel (uncleaned) for any length of time or placing a fouled tompion in a clean barrel.  Often times, where things contact is where you get corrosion and you don't need it at the muzzzle.  I've never had any experience with one, so I'm just guessing.

James  Levy

[davec2]

Artificer,

If a tompion is made such that it sticks in wet weather, it isn't made properly.  I have fired about 40 of them out of different, fully loaded, long arms...fouled, clean, humid weather, dry weather...you name it.... just to see how how far they go and what, if any, ill effects there were caused to the barrels.  To put the testing in a nut shell, they go really far (too far to find, in most cases) and nothing bad happens to the barrels.

Levy,

The tompions are finished with wax.  Powder fouling wipes off easily.  You don't use one when storing a gun in a closet.  It's just to keep the bore clear in the field.  The Britts were big on supplying these with high end cased guns.  Most were adjustable for tension in the bore, made out of brass, and had felt or leather (later rubber) expansion washers to engage the bore wall.

[bdixon]

A very nice piece to add to the visual and functional aspect of a firearm.

[Artificer]

Dave,

I'll take your word for it about shooting tompions off the barrel, though I'll never try it as the only tompions I usually use are for muskets AND we get such varying degrees of humidity in Virginia, I have found even a properly fitted and sealed (using period materials including wax) can and do still swell in the bore - at least outside and especially if it is humid.  I personally had to take pliers and a strong grip by another person holding the gun to get a loose fitting and sealed tompion out of a musket barrel on two occasions when they swelled up in only four or five hours.  One was a Pedersoli Bess and the other was an 1861 rifled musket.   Oh, and I also recommend taking them out overnight for the same reason - at least if you are outside or camping.

Levy,

Dave is absolutely correct you don't keep a tompion in a stored gun.  Depending on the humidity where you store it, this can also lead to rusting a barrel on long term storage. (That happens a LOT in Virginia.)  Heck, we tell folks not to use the WWII canvas muzzle covers on Garands or Carbines as even that will rust a bore - unless you have grease or a really thick coat of oil in the barrel. 

Dave is also absolutely correct about the English making tompions for at least the better guns.  Many of them are a thing of beauty by themselves.

Gus

[Artificer]

Dave,

Sorry, I just realized I had forgotten to say how much I like your tompion design.

Gus

[davec2]

Gus,

I think your right if a split shank tompion isn't split all the way to the shoulder where it sits on the muzzle.  The solid part, if cut to bore diameter, could swell and get stuck.  I didn't think about it when I did it the first time, but I always cut a deep relief (about .030" on a radius) all around the part that fits in the bore at the muzzle end.  (You can just make it out in the photo I posted).  The part that contacts the bore wall is full diameter but is down farther on the shank.  In addition, I cut the split all the way to the top.  I guess that's why none of mine have ever stuck when wet.  Even if they swell, the the split (i.e. springy) part can give inboard when you pull it.  The horn and ivory tompions don't seem to have this issue either, not do the ones with leather or waxed felt washers.

The Brits made military ones with a oil bottle built into the tompion.  I will need to try that next, although I don't think I will test shooting one of those out just for fun.

[TPH]

British military tampions (at least the ones for the .577 Enfield generation of rifle muskets, rifles and carbines) had cork bodies and were adjustable by the unit armorer for the gun with which they were issued. The cork body has always worried me as far as causing rust where in contact with the bore but they don't seem to jam when adjusted properly as you can do with the properly made reproductions.

US military tampions are relieved near the muzzle end as davec2 describes along with having two saw cuts forming an "X" running from the end up almost to the head where it meets the muzzle. Only about 1/4 of an inch of the US tampion actually contacts the bore and that only lightly - enough to hold it in the muzzle. I used to turn them out of walnut for myself and other reenactors. And yes, walnut was used at both Harpers Ferry and Springfield to use scrap wood from pieces cut off of stock blanks. While I don't doubt Gus's claims of rust and jamming in his cases, I personally have never had a problem with either when using a properly made tampion, even at rainy and/or damp events in Virginia, Maryland or Pennsylvania. That includes 9 days spent working on the film "Gettysburg" near and on the original battlefield when our muskets received less than kind treatment - cleaned every day but in constant use with several heavy downpours and damp evenings in August. 

[Artificer]

Dave,

I noticed the relief cut you made around the area that fits right at the muzzle and the way you cut the grooves so the tompion would properly compress.  That's why I added I really liked your design.  Probably should have been less succinct because I did notice that. 

When I began reenacting Rev War and War of 1812 in the mid 70's, there were no original Brown Bess Tompions to be had, but there were still plenty of original Civil War Era .69 caliber tompions and many folks used them for their "Charlevilles."  I still have 5 or 6 of those original New Old Stock tompions as many folks do not "do" the other period reenacting and there are a lot of repro's out there now. Now, I knew and know just because an original piece was made for ".69" caliber, that doesn't mean it is going to fit and you may/will have to fit it to the musket. 

When I began reenacting the Civil War in 1981, we still had plenty of original .58 caliber Tompions that many of us used for our reproduction muskets after adjusting them to the bore size.  I have also seen the original British adjustable tompions for Enfield Rifle Muskets that you and TPH mentioned in excellent to mint condition, though I have personally never used an original in a repro musket.  BTW, a very good friend and mentor at one time owned 7 original Whitworth Rifles and three of them were in the original cased sets.   Two of the cased sets still had the adjustable tompion in it and in the Mint Cased set, it was beautiful.

At the World Championship I worked at in Quantico and the two I attended in Wedgnock, UK as the USIMLT Armourer, I was privileged to see many really nice 19th and some 18th century tompions for British and a couple for French guns. 

I did not mean to imply Dave's tompions were not good and I hope no one took it that way. 

I have seen plenty of stuck Tompions over the years in Virginia from Reenactors doing Rev War through Civil War and at the North South Skirmish Association Spring and Fall Championships I attended as a gunsmith for over 20 years between 1974 and 2005.  Whenever I attended a reenactment or a shoot, I always carried these pliers with me and I often had to use them to get the stuck Tompions out after we had to ruin one tompion to get it out in the early 80's.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=13787/Product/MAGAZINE_TUBE_CAP_PLIERS

Now, most all of the stuck tompions I took out probably were repro's and not made properly and/or were not fitted to the gun's muzzle they were stuck in.  If someone does not have much experience with tompions, I'm sure they will get something out of this thread because of the problems that will occur when tompions are not made or fitted properly. 

TPH, you don't know how much I envy you working those nine days on the movie "Gettysburg."  I had to give up command of the 47th VA Inf Regiment about 9 months before the movie shoot was shot because I was getting transferred to Camp Pendleton, CA.  I was also second in command and the "Tactical" Officer of Longstreet's Corps in those days.  Chuck Hillsman offered me command of a Confederate Regiment for the movie, but I could not get 45 days leave to do it as that was the original plan before production.  It was only later they pared that down to the nine days you mentioned and had I known that, I would have come back for it.  When the camera "pans" across the troops before Pickett's Charge, I used to be able to name almost every person there.  My old unit the 47th VA was in the movie, but I've never been able to pick them out as they were much further down the Battle Line.