patching material

[ken]

What did the mountain men and frontiersmen use for patching material when they ran out of cloth? I don't believe they cut up their clothing because it was of high value and could not be easily replaced. Has anything ever been found in the old bags? My guess is that they used leather.

[Daryl]

Possible - leather would demand a very small ball and thus, accuracy would suffer, compared to what a good cloth would provide.  I suspect the forts had a good supply of cloth 'bolts' for patching.  Unless one was involved in a protracted shooting spree, it wouldn't take much cloth to last  quite a long time. I have used a piece of my longjohns when I ran out of paper in the bush.

[The other DWS]

for patching

seriously some hides can be real thin, squirrel, rabbit and other small game as well as some areas of deer skin.  stretched thin and well greased they might work.   but I'm guessing that other than Buffalo and market hunters they shot a whole lot less than we'd like to think, powder and lead cost, in both money and labor to transport to waste in recreational shooting and even practice was minimal--even in the military.