Powder flask

A powder flask is a small container for gunpowder, which was an essential part of shooting equipment with muzzle-loading guns, before pre-made paper cartridges became standard in the 19th century.

Powder flasks were made in a great variety of materials and shapes, though ferrous metals that were prone to give off sparks when hit were usually avoided.

[4] Although forms of pre-packed paper cartridges go back to the Middle Ages,[5] these were for several centuries made up by the shooter or a servant, rather than being mass-produced,[6] requiring a container for the gunpowder, which came loose.

Loading the gun involved tearing open the package, emptying the powder into the muzzle and pan, inserting the ball with the paper doubling as wadding, and then ramming home the charge.

So long as no part of the loader faced the end of the barrel this was not likely to lead to serious injury, but if a spark reached the main supply in the powder flask a dangerous, even fatal, explosion was likely.

General Sir James Pulteney, 7th Baronet, was one such victim; he died in 1811 from complications after losing an eye when a powder flask accidentally exploded in his face in Norfolk.

[8] Various precautions were taken in the design and use of powder flasks to prevent this from happening, and expensive examples from as early as the 16th century usually have springs to automatically close the dispensing spout (this is much less common with the cheaper horn type).

[9] Modern manuals on muzzle-loading guns all say the flask should never be used to pour powder directly down the muzzle, to avoid dangerous overcharging and possible burst barrels,[10] but from the English sporting press of the 18th and early 19th centuries, it is all too clear that this was then common practice, resulting in many accidents.

[citation needed] Most of the vast numbers of flasks made in the gun-using parts of the world during the Early Modern period were probably relatively plain and functional, and have not been preserved.

[23] The flasks, from the 17th to early 19th centuries, have echoes of much older works in the Animal style especially associated with ancient Scythia, and an intermediate tradition of objects, now lost, in perishable materials such as (in India) wood has been proposed.