That's quite the history lesson Moe! Very interesting, looking to hearing the details on Trumbull. As for the horns that is crazy you use thorns to lock in the plug. What's total time in a powder horn when it's done? It's kind of one of those things that would be fun to do at some point in life, like making a knife.
How much time it's takes to make a powder horn depends on how much time you want to put into it, starting with a raw dried horn with the meaty plug removed, the very first thing you should do is locate the center of the inside of the horn at the spout end, they are all different, you do this with a wire (like a metal coat hanger) bent to the shape of the inside curve of the horn, then you mark it on the outside, now you're ready to drill out the spout hole, if you are very, very, lucky and don't drill through the side of the horn, you can move on to trimming the butt end of the horn on an angle that matches the shape of the horn.
You do this first because if you drill through the side making the hole you'll have to find something else to make with it, it won't ever make a powder horn, locating and successfully drilling out the spout will take about two hours on average, to get a raw horn to look good you have to scrape it with a scraping tool, if you sand it it'll never be smooth, you'll end up with tiny slivers of horn sticking up through the whole process, like the grain on wood when sanding it, it can be done, but there's a process to it, scraping is the best and fastest way, depending on how rough the horn is that can take you 6~8 hours.
Next you need to carve the butt plug, but first you'll need to make a cone shaped piece of hardwood with which to shape the butt end of the horn, after you boil it to soften it up so that you get a perfectly round butt on the horn, between carving the cone mold, boiling the horn until it's soft, and carving the finished plug you'll have at least another 8 hours invested.
You need to take your time carving the plug because it needs to fit perfectly, you can't glue it in place, if you do and the powder should ever catch a spark you'll be holding on to a pipe bomb, the plug should be sealed with bee's wax to make it water tight and leak proof, but able to be pushed out under pressure to avoid exploding, it's just smart safety sense, you can use brads, tacks, or match sticks to pin the plug to the horn, I use thorns because it period correct.
Well, now you have about 20 hours into it and it's time to carve the outside of the horn starting with the spout, how much time will depend on the amount of work it takes to complete, a plain horn with just a staple at each end to hold a strap will only take about an hour, but a banded horn with a carved spout, and a bit of engrailing could run another 8 hours, and add another 10 hours if you want it engraved with a map, or period correct figures, so a decent horn with a little carving and outlining can average out to almost a weeks worth of work.
But if you like to craft thing, cars, furniture, what ever, when you get into it time seems to be not very important, and sometimes a project will run away with you and you can't stop improving on it, other time it tells you when enough is enough, when less is more.
There are allot of videos on working with horns on u-tube if you think you'd like to try it, if you decide I may have a raw horn laying around I could send you.
