Hi! Just a note on cannon muzzle "soot". In my own personal experience in the 'Nam, after firing many rounds through the 105 howitzer, The muzzle is most definitely blackened! First off, the paint literally burns to a nice blackened state before eventually peeling off. Also this "soot" has a greasy or oily feel to the touch and will rub off on you much the same way as charcoal would. On the '05 this blackening would extend quite a ways back on the tube depending on how hot the thing got! I also observed this on M-48s that we were with a good deal of the time. Can't speak for WW ll stuff, as I wasn't there. In the case of our '05's, our crew eventually said to heck with it and stopped repainting the muzzle and left it polished steel. Gave it a nice custom touch! That is all!