230 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 



made of leather. This covers the breech and prevents wet 

 reaching the chamber of the gun to a great extent. The 

 cap should be made. to fasten underneath with a couple of 

 straps and buckles. Keep the leather breech-cap well greased 

 with the same preservative as recommended for dressing 

 leather boots. 



To clean a punt-gun inside after being in use, knock 

 through two or three tight-fitting plugs of oakum. Next 

 send through a wire brush, to stir up caked and burnt powder, 

 and follow with another couple of plugs of oakum. Then, if 

 the barrel is clean and bright (few are perfectly so), grease 

 inside with vaseline or Stauffer's grease and sperm oil mixed. 

 To remove any jrusty spots inside the barrel, apply paraffin 

 and a wire scratch brush. Rub the paraffin off carefully before 

 greasing. Wire brushes are used for sweeping locomotive 

 boiler tubes. Some makes of these (either brass or steel) 

 form capital punt-gun brushes. To clean a punt-gun properly, 

 place it on a firm bench or a couple of trestles. Sometimes 

 wooden forks stuck in the ground, are used instead. As 

 a rule, however, they cannot be fixed steady, and trouble 

 is experienced in keeping the gun firm. Before placing 

 the big gun in her case, plug both ends (of course, only 

 one end if a muzzle-loading gun) of the barrel with taper 

 wooden plugs, around which has been wrapped linen pre- 

 viously soaked in tallow. These plugs fit tight and exclude 

 the air. 



We have up to the present been speaking only of breech-load- 

 ing punt-guns. To clean inside a muzzle-loading punt-gun, 

 first wash out the tube with two or three lots of cold soft water. 

 The gun-breech may be placed in a bucket of water and the 

 cleaner, standing on a bench, can, with a cleaning-rod wrapped 

 with oakum at the end, and used as a plunger, pump the water 

 through the nipple in and out of the barrel, and thus 

 thoroughly wash out all burnt powder. To dry the barrel, 



