I have a horn on a thong. I can put in on the left side if I want.
Following the wisdom of those who swear there were no priming horns (
) I gave it a try its !@*%&@ clumsy to prime a RH rifle with LH hung horn. Yeah I have not done it enough to get practiced up but why would I.
NOTE: I really don't care how someone hangs his horn.
Everyone now, like everyone then has their own ideas. So before reading below and getting all wadded up remember, that like Sam Hawken said ... no matter the sights he put on a rifle it seemed the owner changed them in one way or another.
So this is a your mileage my vary thing. Left handed shooters can ignore this completely if they like since they are, after all left handed.
The problem arises when new people with no experience start reading stuff written by people who have looked at a lot of old stuff it seems but NEVER PUT THINGS INTO PRACTICE.
I know, for example, that the reason pouches have buckles is that a pouch needs to be hung short for horseback use and a little longer for on foot.
I see no sense what so ever in a separate horn pouch, its a good way, under stress, to end up with one and not the other. Never mind the extra hangy thingy moving around. But folks can do what they like and always have.
Hunting from a deer blind is different that belly crawling for 100 yards trying to get a shot.
I do not remember a right handed shooter wearing his pouch on the left. Everyone one I know and can remember hangs it on the right. If right handed.
A fairly long knife, for the right hander, is easier drawn from the left side as well and the knife, if you were in a situation where getting the knife out might save your life having it handy to get out would be complicated by having the pouch and/or horn in the way. But of course most folks never have this cross their mind.
Try riding a horse with a long knife on the right for right hand draw.
Its why swords and such were worn for cross draw.
See
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Alonzo-Chappel/Portrait-Of-Daniel-Morgan-%281736-1802%29.htmlI suspect that this outfit is "typical" and the person depicted likely owned his own pouch and horn. Of course its just a portrait not a photo but its "right" from my experience.
Horn on the pouch strap right hand carry.
Then we have the survivor thing.
Some will tell us that the surviving rifles are ones the got little or no use. Would this not apply to surviving pouches? Most of which have rotted away or were pitched in the garbage at least 100 years ago. Every man in the Militia, for example, would have had a horn and likely a pouch, how many were there from say 1750 to 1850 and where did they all go? Were there, not counting the people who were not in the militia, a million such horns and how many shot pouches? We could have entire areas of the country where there is not viable representative pieces of horns or pouches.
Heck most of what we see from the the later periods may be something made up for some 10 year old kid who inherited some old ML and used it for a few years.
Here is a little snippet from the not so distant past. People used to by Colt SAs belt holster and all then separating the gun and the leather, tossing the leather in a box perhaps for sale at the next gun show. But a few people saw these as valuable and they are. See the book "Packing Iron". Many of the holsters shown are in a collection of a man I know who got them for basically nothing since the Colt collectors considered them to be so much refuse.
BTW if the horn is not attached to the pouch how does one determine if it were left or right handed pouch? Are they marked R or L?
I am not saying that EVERYONE right handed wore right handed pouch/horn.
But its a pretty good bet.
From MY perspective, horn sellers, for example, telling people that they should use horns left handed since 1/2 the horns are "left handed" at best are COMPLETELY CLUELESS in my opinion. How the horn is attached determines how the curve fits the body.
Dan
