Barely any sparks

Hi, I'm new to flintlocks. I bought a traditions trapper pistol to try it out. I installed the flint and can't seem to get enough sparks. 9/10 of the time the pistol won't fire.
I do see a few sparks sometimes but nothing like "a spark shower" I read about.
I tried using sandpaper to polish the frizzen and changing the orientation of the flint but no luck.

Any tips or advice on what I might be doing wrong would be greatly appreciated!

Below are some pics and videos I took to illustrate the problem:

I harden my traditions lock with Brownell surface hardening compound. You will need a propane torch

Can you measure the poundage of pulling the hammer back to half-cock and full-cock. If you have a trigger pull gauge or a fish pound measuring gauge that would work.

If you have a strong spring, then it's likely the frizzen. See if you can find a replacement frizzen for it.

It does look like the flint is gouging in an awful lot. However, it is also hitting pretty high with the way it's oriented and may be knocking the frizzen out of the way rather than raking down it. Try flipping the flint over so it strikes at a less aggressive angle and see if that helps. Also, did you knap a fresh edge on the flint when installed?

Looks like the frizzen is very soft based on the severe gouging.

Try a different flint, wipe drizzle. And Flint off with alcohol.

I agree with @Indy Durtdigger. The flint is bashing into the frizzen and knocking it out of the path of the scrape needed to generate sparks. I see the bash (gouge) line but no scraping marks. One can't get sparks unless the flint is scraping along the frizzen. I can't tell if the frizzen is too soft, but I can tell that flint isn't positioned to scrape tiny pieces of steel than ignite into sparks. That humped flint is not a lot of help to get a good scrape. It does look like it could use a bit of sharpening.

Get a piece of leather lacing that is as wide as the jaws of the lock. Turn the flint over and install it in the jaws of the lock with the leather lacing under the rear of the flint next to the jaw screw. This will angle the leading edge of the flint for a more glancing/scraping strike of the frizzen.

@dw218192, you have a new flint lock. These are notorious for having a minimum of work on the final fitting of parts in the lock. Since you are new to flintlocks, I hope you have access to someone who can help with the tuning of the lock and the knapping of the flint to get a sharp edge and the flint positioned in the jaws to best advantage.

Thanks for all the helpful advice! I'll troubleshoot and provide an update later.

Indy Durtdigger said:

It does look like the flint is gouging in an awful lot. However, it is also hitting pretty high with the way it's oriented and may be knocking the frizzen out of the way rather than raking down it. Try flipping the flint over so it strikes at a less aggressive angle and see if that helps. Also, did you knap a fresh edge on the flint when installed?

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Exactly what I noticed and was going to say, so, just .... ditto!!

Just one question on the "hitting it high and knocking it out of the way" theory. If it were hitting it high and knocking it out of the way, then why are their scrap marks all the way down the frizzen?

ChuckJonesWagon said:

Just one question on the "hitting it high and knocking it out of the way" theory. If it were hitting it high and knocking it out of the way, then why are their scrap marks all the way down the frizzen?

Click to expand...

Because it doesn't happen every time? There aren't that many scrape marks down the frizzen. Not enough to account for the huge gouge at the top.

Regardless of theories, and whether they make any sense to you or not, I'd suggest just trying some of the suggestions posted here and first see whether they make any difference to your sparking problem.

Looking forward to your promised update ....

A good pic always helps. Here's a pic of my Traditions Trapper to correspond with your OP pic, with my flint flipped "upside down" --- and you can see how much lower on the frizzen it's hitting, and at an angle. Makes good sparks!!

This may sound picky but by the pictures is your flint edge really close to the Frizzen ? I keep mine 1/8". That hump backed flint maybe giving you an angle that doesn't hit right on the Frizzen.

@Wiscoasters photo is worth a 1000 words, a couple of points to see.
-flint oriented with the “hump” up.
-flint is striking the frizzen in a good spot, somewhere between half way up and no more than 2/3rds of the way up on the frizzen face.
-on half cock the flint should not be touching the frizzen, just off from it to an 1/8 inch maximum.

One more thing from a screen shot from your video.
You want your flint to be lined up close to the center of the pan where it comes to rest, notice how far forward it is in the photo. It is also ending to high, probably because it is starting to high. Check that the flint clears the side of the barrel before test fire.

dw218192 said:

Hi, I'm new to flintlocks. I bought a traditions trapper pistol to try it out. I installed the flint and can't seem to get enough sparks. 9/10 of the time the pistol won't fire.
I do see a few sparks sometimes but nothing like "a spark shower" I read about.
I tried using sandpaper to polish the frizzen and changing the orientation of the flint but no luck.

Any tips or advice on what I might be doing wrong would be greatly appreciated!

Below are some pics and videos I took to illustrate the problem:
View attachment 335515View attachment 335516

Click to expand...

I've head some of those same experiences, but I would turn that flint back over so that the flat is on the bottom and I think I would get a shorter flint. After much experimenting, I had to take and put my Flint upside down to make it work right in my particular gun. I finally just keep all of my flints flat because they fit that way better and I made a little spacer that sits on top of the jaw to hold the Flint just a tad higher and it works on the gun I have. I would only change one thing at a time and then experiment with that before I would try something else. Good luck to you brother, if we could all afford $2000 rifles, i would want one they would probably work better but I do enjoy the tinkering and have done so my whole life.

A note about my pic: the cock was manually lowered to the point where the flint first touches the closed frizzen and then it was "rested" there for purposes of taking the picture. Sorry if it was misunderstood that it was on half-cock. It was not. The Traditions Trapper doesn't have a particularly strong mainspring, so this can be done. YMMV.

Tom A Hawk said:

Looks like the frizzen is very soft based on the severe gouging.

Click to expand...

Exactly my thought also. Those import rifles often have poorly designed locks, especially in flint.

wiscoaster said:

Because it doesn't happen every time? There aren't that many scrape marks down the frizzen. Not enough to account for the huge gouge at the top.

Regardless of theories, and whether they make any sense to you or not, I'd suggest just trying some of the suggestions posted here and first see whether they make any difference to your sparking problem.

Looking forward to your promised update ....

Click to expand...

Valid observation.

I set up my Traditions like Wincoaster. I can rest the flint on the frizzen and with a little thumb pressure on the cock the cock will drop as the flint slides down the frizzen. About 60* angle is optimal, the flint should point in the center of the pan. I get a nice shower of sparks and flints last about 30 shots on average without knapping.

If changing flint position doesn't help, then look about rehardening the frizzen. There are several videos and posts on how to do it. If not your thing, a good gunsmith can.