.62 Cal.

[Old Charlie]

I got my trade gun out yesterday. At 50 yards I was keeping them on the target. This gun has a horrible trigger pull. Would like to lighten it ,but don't know how.
I tried a 100 yard shot and it hit two foot and maybe a little more low. That .600 ball was buried very deep in that hickory tree.
This gun don't have a vent liner, just a hole drilled in the barrel. The hole is quite large. I close the frizzen and it self primes. It fills the large pan completely full.
I am wondering if the loss of so much pressure through the vent was the reason for it dropping so much a 100 yards, and if putting a liner in it might up the pressure and range? I AM shooting 80 grains of goex 3f. It looks as though it is putting 5 grains in the pan. What do you guys think?
Ilearned one thing about this gun yesterday. I was havinh a lot of hang fires. I found that if I took a little spit and cleaned the flint after every shot , no hang fire!
Old Charlie

 

[roundball]

This gun has a horrible trigger pull. Would like to lighten it ,but don't know how.

IMO, if it was my ML:
1) I'd put a vent liner in it just to fix the auto prime problem, and get the benefit of increased and more consistent pressure at the same time.
The ones TC introduced back in the 90's are outstanding, 1/4"x28...however, they are an allen wrench design, not a screwdriver slot design...the allen wrench serves as a large cone on the outside which helps ignition speed, but you may prefer a screwdriver slot design on your ML, your call.

2) If the triggers and lock are like most others, the resistence is probably in the lock, not the triggers themselves...so barring the possibility that the triggers themselves may have problems, I'd look to ensure the sear arm bar is not dragging against wood as it's trying to be moved by the trigger...had that on a couple of TC Hawkens...relieved a little wood and the front trigger went from 12 pounds to 3.

Also, polish up the sear tip like a mirror with buffing compound and a soft dremel wheel buffer tip to ensure the tip withdrawal from the tumbler notch is as smooth as glass.

 

[Old Charlie]

Thanks Roundball, I like allen liners just fine, I have put them on all my other guns. Made a world of differance on some of them.
Old Charlie

 

[Black Hand]

This gun has a horrible trigger pull. Would like to lighten it ,but don't know how.

2) If the triggers and lock are like most others, the resistence is probably in the lock, not the triggers themselves...so barring the possibility that the triggers themselves may have problems, I'd look to ensure the sear arm bar is not dragging against wood as it's trying to be moved by the trigger...

I disagree. If the single trigger is not pinned in the proper place, it can cause a harder trigger pull. It should be pinned as far up and over as is possible on the trigger.

 

[roundball]

How can you possibly disagree with a statement like this????

"...so barring the possibility that the triggers themselves may have problems, I'd look to ensure the sear arm bar is not dragging against wood as it's trying to be moved by the trigger..."

 

[rabjr]

Think he's disagreeing with the first part.

If the triggers and lock are like most others, the resistence is probably in the lock, not the triggers themselves.

Most single triggers, not all but most, in kits or custom guns are pinned and if they are not pinned right they give hard trigger pulls. These are different than those used by T/C.

 

[roundball]

:grin: Same thing still applies...how can anyone "disagree" with this statement:

"...if the triggers and lock are like most others, the resistence is probably in the lock, not the triggers themselves..."


If his trigger is different then all bets are off... :wink:

 

[Birddog6]

Well, the first thing I would change is the powder. I would not shoot 3F in a 62 cal gun, I would shoot 2F Goex. Too much chamber pressure for me with the 3F.
Depending on the rifle or shotgun, I may put a vent liner in it to make the ignition faster. What type I would use would depend on the barrel design & etc.
Charlie, you can possibly get some 2F at that lil pawn shop on 78 highway close to the river. That guy used to have a powder magazine. Don't know the name of it but it is close to the river & on the west side of 78 & has a bunch of old boats in front of it & years ago was a gas station..
Also, there is a Gander Mtn. now in Huntsville, they may carry real BP there & you may be able to get some 2F there.

 

[Birddog6]

As far as the hang fire.......... IMHO, If it is hang firing it is most likely not the lock. The pan lights off or it doesn't, simple at that....

If the lock fires & you have a delayed ignition, that is a hangfire.

If the pan Fails to light, that is not a hangfire, and then you have a lock issue to deal with.

Hang fires usually are a fouling issue or a clogged vent or vent design or vent placement, could be a combination of several things.

I find it best after every shot to first wipe the frizzen face & under it, then the pan, then the flint on top & bottom to remove the fouling that can accumulate & absorb some of the sparks from the next lock firing.

:thumbsup:

 

[Birddog6]

Trigger pull too much, that is a bag of worms. Could be the lock, could be how the trigger bar to the sear is set up. Hard to say without actually seeing it.

 

[Many Klatch]

Fixing a hard trigger pull isn't rocket science but is one of those fiddly things that can take hours or days before you are satisfied. It involves a lot of dismantling the lock trying something new and then putting it back together and putting it in the gun and trying it again and again.

I have seen locks where the trigger pull was awful and all I had to do was to back off the screw holding the sear a quarter turn and voila it was better. A lot of people think that you have to tighten all the screws in a lock until the threads squeak, I have found that most locks need just a little play at the sear to work smoothly. I have also had guns where I had to reshape the sear and everything else with a Dremel before it would work.

The only really scary part of working on a lock is making sure that the full cock stays at full cock, so you have to be very careful if you decide to polish the nose of the sear and the full cock notch.

Just go slow, be patient and fiddle with it for a while. It would help if someone who knew flintlocks was with you, but if they aren't, look at it as an opportunity to pick up a new life skill.

Many Klatch

 

[Swampman]

3F is the only powder you need. It's all I use. It's a shame you probably need a touch hole liner. I'd get one that looks historically correct (not the allen type)

The hole in it will be too small. Off the top of my head I can't remember the correct size drill bit to enlarge it.

It should be non-removeable anyway.

100 yards is a long way to shoot.

Is the lock well lubricated? Are any of the lock parts binding?

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Just use the search feature at the top of the page and put in the term 'tuning' without the quotes and you'll be reading for a while :thumbsup: ! As written above from Roundball, it is amazing how much inherent drag there can be in a stock lock. My Caywood was > 12-pounds when I got it and it is now at 3-pounds pull, safely and reliably. I personally think the previous owner 'buggered' up this lock, as I've seen other work by Mike Rowe of Caywood and it's above reproach.

Also check out Brownell's ''Action Magic II'', it is a moly-based 2-part dry powder (Part 1 is binder liquid, Part 2 is the moly powder) action lubricant that is INCREDIBLE! FWIW I do gunsmithing on all firearm types and just by applying AM2 itself I have reduced double-action trigger pulls from 3 to 6 pounds alone.

 

[Swampman]

I've use a tiny amount of GUNSLICK GRAPHITE LUBE (which is a similar product) on the sear and other lock parts with great results.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

If the trigger is just pinned to the wood, as many fowlers and trade guns are, just relocating the trigger more to the rear is often all that is needed. That gives the trigger more leverage in lifting the sear bar. Often too, the sear spring is excessively strong and can be reduced to about half its width quite easily on a belt sander, taking care to not overheat. Holding the spring in the fingers while grinding it will insure against getting the metal so hot as to draw the temper. I certainly would never use a Dremel tool on the sear tip which needs to be sharp and at the proper angle, it would be nearly impossible to avoid rounding the tip with a Dremel.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

This gun don't have a vent liner, just a hole drilled in the barrel. The hole is quite large. I close the frizzen and it self primes. It fills the large pan completely full. ... It looks as though it is putting 5 grains in the pan. ... I was havinh a lot of hang fires. I found that if I took a little spit and cleaned the flint after every shot , no hang fire!

As has already been noted, cleaning the flint should only make a difference in whether or not you got enough sparks to ignite the priming. If the pan flashed and there was a delay before the shot went off before you started cleaning the flint, then your flint cleaning was coincidental with your changing something else in your loading and shooting sequence. Most likely the touch-hole is straight through and not inside-coned. When it self-primes, you could easily have a powder train left in the touch-hole giving the delay. My guess would be that whatever you changed in your routine in cleaning the flint, you were tilting the powder out of the touch hole and either back into the main charge or out into the pan. Either way, the flash can ignite the charge directly.

It might be worth trying some 2F in the firelock before you do anything with the touch-hole. If it does not self prime with 2F and the intermittent hang-fires go away, then that supports a powder-train in the touch hole as the cause.

Another thing to try would be the traditional procedure of putting your vent pick or the quill of a small feather in the touch-hole while you load to keep the powder out of the touch-hole.

One hypothesis, anyway. Good luck troubleshooting it.

Joel

 

[Black Hand]

How can you possibly disagree with a statement like this????

"...so barring the possibility that the triggers themselves may have problems, I'd look to ensure the sear arm bar is not dragging against wood as it's trying to be moved by the trigger..."

I am not disagreeing with the possibility that the sear bar is touching wood but with the statement that the trigger is the problem. Since we are talking about a single trigger, the chance that the trigger itself has a problem is minimal, short of the wrong angle on the trigger bar or too much metal removed. The problem lies in the geometry of the trigger pivot point in relation to the sear and not the trigger itself. The wrong pivot point make for a horrible trigger pull.

 

[squirejohn]

The hard trigger p[ull may be due to a stiff sear spring. To find out take the lock out and remove the sear spring. Cock the lock, replace in the stock and try it. If it still has a hard trigger pull it's probably not the spring.