I believe patchboxes were designed for patches.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

Now Lewis Wetzel may have loaded on the run without a patch and with a self priming gun, but it just seems to me that a longhunter, pathfinder, early pioneer would have had precuts in the box in view of the circumstances of those times.

Has anyone ever seen  good factual information supporting this thought. I have seen the assertions that short starters, ball blocks, and priming horns were not in use in those times.

[hanshi]

I certainly can't answer that question but I always use precut patches.  They are faster than muzzle cut and make sense when on the run.  I would imagine as much variety existed then as now.  IMHO patch boxes were/are for patches but weren't necessarily for carrying patches for immediate use; the bag was for that.

[Ezra]

I use my patchbox for a variety of things, including a worm and ball puller.

Ez

[Clark Badgett]

Come on now! We all know those patch boxes were made to carry a small Snickers bar.

[Scout]

I always thought they were just for "looks". 

[frogwalking]

I generally put a waxy patch lube in mine.....along with a cleaning jag and ball puller.

[JTR]

On old original rifles, most of the time there's nothing in the box. Just empty.
But, sometimes, what I've found, seen or been shown are some rolled up patch material and some balls, some pre-cut patches and some balls, a couple times a jag or worm, and more than anything, some sort of grease obviously used as a lube.
I've never found a bullet mold, ball block, flints or tools in there.

Of course after all this time, it's impossible to say what was there originally, or put there recently. Except the grease, I think most of the grease I've seen is original to time of use. Maybe....

The picture below is a friends rifle;



John

[Luke MacGillie]

http://www.erickettenburg.com/Site_2/Part_9,_contd._files/grafly42%20copy_1.jpg

[Daryl]

That was Ned Robert's idea as well.  In Ned Robert's 'The Muzzleloading Cap Lock Rifle", Ned makes note that he was taught by Uncle Alvaro (who spanned from early Percussion to Ctg. eta), to carefully load his loading block with his lubed cut patches and his cast .30 cal. balls. Whether or not he used a sort starter, I do not remember - it's been 35 years since I read the book.

Over time, is it possible that accouterments go missing - I'm sure it is. Is this why so few rifle boxes with tools remain with even the VERY valuable double rifles of English make of even the late 1800's - let along contents of a hunting bag from the 1760's.  I can see that 2 centuries of 'play' would make many 'parts' go missing from kid's toys.  Some things do go missing, it seems.

[Mike R]

They were originally called just 'boxes' and could contain any number of things--typically small tools like wires,  worms or ball pullers, patches, lube, etc.  I saw one original rifle box that contained two paper cartridges--two quick follow-up shots I think.  Pre-cut patches are documented.  There is one account at least in Kentucky in the 1770s of the womenfolk precutting patches with scissors in anticipation of an Indian attack.  Personally, I have found using a box to carry just patches to be more inconvenient for loading than carrying them elsewhere [like in the pouch or on the bag strap]. But I often carry unlubed  "extras" there for later swabbing/cleaning in the field.  Some boxes have been found with just lube in them.

[Ezra]

I like the snickers bar idea. 

Ez

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The Snickers bar isn't actually carried in the cavity.  It's simply a ruler to obtain the correct sized cavity.  And it may be a contemporary thing, without historical provenance.

[hanshi]

And IIRC 18th century Snickers bars were larger than todays Snickers .

Mine usually carry extra patches, extra flint and maybe a worm and an extra ball or two.  I try not to consume sweets.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

AH HA! the reference to precuts in the patchbox is just what I was after. Lon

[JTR]

Photographic Proof! 



John   

[northmn]

The Metis and other natives loaded bareball for rapid laoding on horseback when hunting buffalo.  That was a very common method of fast reloading in the early days.  Some rifle barrels or musket barrels "burst" because of it as the ball did not get seated all the way.  Some claimed to hold ball in their mouth and spit the ball into the bore.   
In the days of no pockets a patchbox carried whatever the shooter wanted to carry in them.  The old Snikkers bar may have been one thing   Best use I can think of today.  Patchboxes can also accidently pop open.

DP

[T*O*F]

I think the question one should ask is when is the earliest reference to them being called "patchboxes" and were they ever called something else before that date.  And if patches weren't commonly carried in them, why are they called patchboxes in the first place.  With the advent of the percussion era, a different kind of box originated and was called a capbox.  Were they for carrying caps (being conveniently sized for a tin of caps) or were patches carried in a capbox and if so, why didn't they still call them patchboxes?  I believe a timeline of documentation is required for the nomenclature.

[Don Getz]

Over the years I made a lot of guns with patch boxes, and finally came to this conclusion......"they are put there for other
people to open".  If you finished a gun with a patch box and you let someone look at it, one of the things he will do is open
the patchbox..........Don

[JTR]

......"they are put there for other people to open". 
Don

Actually it's pretty cool to open one and find some old patches or balls,,,,, but what I'd really like to find would be a bunch of Money! 

John

[Jerry V Lape]

To determine what they were originally intended to carry we would probably need to investigate when they first appeared on Jaeger rifles or their predecessors.  The patch boxes on American Longrifles were not an American innovation but a copy of European features. 

[draken]

Weren't patchboxes originally referred to as "Butt Traps?"

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

It does appear that storage of a SNICKERS bar in a  patchbox is a Contemporary Logistics Arrangement. I hardly think L. Wetzel would have......... Lon

[Karl Kunkel]

I recall an old thread on this board that contained German translations of long rifle terms, I'd saved the list but lost in in a previous computer meltdown. I think it listed "Kolben Kasten" as "Butt Box" (don't hold me to the spelling).

[Daryl]

Makes sence, Karl - I would expect flints, small spanner or peg for a holed top jaw screw for changing flints - maybe some tow to keep everything from rattling.

[JTR]

In some of the early American writings I've read, they were simply called a 'box'.

EK has posted a few things on this site before, news paper ads, etc., where they were called a box.

Dillon in 1922 called them a Patch Box in his book.

That narrows the unknown span down to only about a 140/160 years!

John