A most frustrating day........

[Macon Due]

This was the second outing for my new flintlock rife. It is a TVM with a large Siler left handed lock. First time out I checked a half doz. flints and selected a new Tom Fuller black and adjusted the postion in the jaws at home till it seemed to work fine. When I got to the range I fired 45-50 shots before I had a missfire. Then i knapped it and continued. I had already discoved that this lock seems to demand a perfect flint ,perfectly postioned to function correctly.
Well today was a different story...[I had already used my one perfect flint it seems] Anytime the pan flashed it fired but the problem was getting the pan to fire and the problem with that was getting to frizzon to open all the way! Time after time it would fail to fire and the flint would be jammed against the frizzon with it barely open a small amount.I switched flints [several times]...Rich Pierce whites and Fuller blacks.Switched leathers, turned em bevel up/down.....moved em forward ,backward and side ways. It might fire fine then...missfire with flint jammed into barely opened frizzon then do same thing again or perhaps open all the way and fire next time only to be followed by another jam/missfire. A few times I had a hangfire with frizzon barely open a small amount.The frizzon takes a lot of pressure to open it. Compared to my .36 cal. with Manton lock I would say at least 5 times more strength required to open it. I did seem to have the best luck with the bevel up and hitting at the very top of the frizzon, I figured maybe because it had more of a mechanical advantage up high on the frizzon? Can I stone the contact area of the frizzon where it rubs on the spring to reduce the effort required to open it? I have no way right now to measure it but feels like 10-20 lbs. required to open it.I really feel like the main problem is the high effort required to open the frizzon. Can someone help.......? :surrender:
Macon

 

[BrownBear]

Assuming your flint is in a good spot, I'm wondering if you lubed the pivot and contact point of the frizzen on the frizzen spring after you cleaned it.

 

[smokeum54]

you might want to check the frizzen pivot screw. it might have gotten a little rusty or fouled up since your last outing.

 

[majg1234]

agree with BB a S54 the frizzen (hammer) should open much easier than that,if all else fails give matt a call but if you'll look at the pivot area of the hammer I'll bet you'll find the issue GOOD LUCK :thumbsup:

 

[Macon Due]

BrownBear
Yep lubed it. When I clean the lock I remove the flint and leather then brush the loose stuff off and drop it in a bucket of cool to barely warm water. After it soaks a while i take it out, wipe it off, brush it off, use the aircompressor blower on it.Then spray with Remington Wonder Lube oil.I then grease [with white lithium grease] the cam and spring where it rides. From day one I noticed the frizzon required much more efort to open than the Manton lock.As to the flint in a good spot.....I have tried em all it seems like..?

S-54
I will check that area,should I just use my spring vice to clamp the spring and then remove the pivot screw? [never done this before]

M-1234
So you think I should not remove any contact area from the Frizzon [hammer] cam point till I call TVM? This is assuming the pivot area is clean and lubed [but like I said ,it was this heavy from the start]

Thanks.....Macon

 

[MSW]

i concur with the consensus: try (more or less in order) cleaning the pivot spring (and put some lube there), polishing the little cam on the bottom of the frizzen (and put some lube there, too), and then try to lighten the spring tension. The frizzen spring should only be strong enough to keep it closed.

If that doesn't work, try contacting Jim Chambers and see what he recommends.

I understand your frustration, but the time you spend on getting this problem fixed will be rewarded when your rifle speaks with the authority of its ancestors.

 

[floyd1350]

check to make sure the lock isn't too tight to the gun and the frizzen scraping the barrel.

 

[smokeum54]

a spring vise will work as long as if gets a good hold on the spring. (honestly ive been using vise grips for years and have never broke a spring)

also before you take any metal off try to check how many lbs. it takes to open the frizzen. a small spring loaded fish scale works great. i just checked my siler and it took 2.5 lbs. to open, but by hand it feels like 5 or 6.

 

[DEWB]

If it is a Jim Chambers lock he should take care of it if there is a problem. But not all silers are built by him. Alot of them are built from kits by someone else. If you buy one from Jim it has a lifetime warranty. Awhile back I had the same trouble out of an M&G lock that I put on a squirrel rifle I built. Got the lock from Tip Curtis and he told me the frizzen spring needed to be bent down alittle at the tip because it was to tight. I tried this and it helped but didn't fix it totally. I sent it back to Tip and when I got it back it worked real good. Who ever built your lock should fix it for you if there is a problem. I'd call them. Dew

 

[Ray-Vigo]

I agree with the others here-- if it worked before but suddenly stopped this time around, it sounds like a maintenance issue more than a bad part issue. Frizzen parts do eventually need replacing, but not after only one outing. I'd take apart the frizzen assembly completely, clean it, re-lube and check.

 

[Macon Due]

Ray
It did work last time but.........was very heavy to open and only used the one flint, after trying several.

MSW
How would you lighten the spring tension? If all fails I will get with Mr. Chambers.

Floyd 1350
Very hard to open even off the rifle.... not hard like rough/dry but like SUPER strong spring tension.

S-54
I will check spring tension with trigger gauge.

Dew
It is a Siler lock but came from TVM when they built my rifle.

Ok just checked it with my Lyman electric digital trigger gauge average of 6-lbs.5oz. to open frizzon.
Macon

 

[DEWB]

Had to bend the spring on the lock I was telling you about because it had to much tension and was doing the same thing yours is. I just didn't bend if far enough when I did it but Tip got it working fine.

 

[rr11]

I would give TVM a call. They are very good to work with and fixed the minor problen I had with my rifle.

 

[smokeum54]

with the spring pressure that high, even tho it worked the first time, id call TVM and see what they could do.

 

[Macon Due]

r-11 and everyone.Thank you all for your advice, comments and suggestions. I used my spring vice and took out the frizzon pivot screw and removed the frizzon.Everything was clean and well lubed.I very lightly polished the screw shaft and lightly stoned the sides of the pivot point on the frizzon as well as lightly [with a very hard stone] stoned the cam portion of the frizzon. Put it all back together and found no difference. i then put my vice back on and actually compressed the spring a little [terrified it would break] checked it and the gauge read about 4.5 lbs. It felt better but still a bit hard.I put the vice back on and turned it down more and let it set for a minute or so. rechecked with gauge...average is 1 lb.14oz. now. I can flick it open with my thumb now but it is still securly closed when shut. Hopefully I have screwed nothing up and it will now function as it should.
Macon

 

[ericb]

Where there's a will there's a way...

 

[Macon Due]

Still seems to be really critical of flint postion though. Even with it adjusted to a much lighter pressure to open...if the flint is just a tiny bit too far back it fails to open all the way...Will have to try it at range again but may yet have to send the lock off...
Macon

 

[Ray-Vigo]

Yes, you should be able to flick it open, but it should have enough stay in it not to open up on its own randomly. It sounds as though you've gotten it down quite a bit, which is good. The initial reading you gave was quite high, but you seem to have solved that portion. One of the tests I do with stuff like this was to remove the frizzen spring and then test the lock. The spring is mostly there to hold the frizzen shut while carrying the gun. My large Silers function fine in spark tests without frizzen springs. Did you notice if it failed to open without the spring too? That would tell you it's a potential flint position or frizzen hardness issue.

I have two guns using lefty large Silers and I like both. I do notice one is better than the other (Chambers Haines rifle has an excellent one, a home repair build I did awhile back is just OK). They are both picky about flint position and sharpness. They both function very well with a fresh flint at 2/3 up the frizzen and just off the face at half cocked. I move the position up as needed and tighten the screw back down to keep that position as best I can.

 

[Macon Due]

Ray
No,I did not remove the spring and try it. The spring does keep the frizzon closed,it will not open on it's own.This lock seems to like a very sharp flint and 'seems' to prefer it to be even higher than 2/3 of the way up...more like nearly all the way up? I am wondering about the frizzon hardness myself as it is pretty skinned up already and I have had to use emory cloth to remove a couple of really sharp burrs that the flint had raised in it.
Thanks.......Macon

 

[paulvallandigham]

Flint position and angle ARE Important. The flint should be set in the jaws, Bevel up, so that the edge of the flint strikes 2/3 of the way up from the base of the frizzen( L-shaped, so we talk in terms of it resembling a foot.)

If the flint is set so that the Angle of Impact of the edge to the face of the flint is 60 degrees, the edge should Scrape steel off the face in the Middle one third of the frizzen, and the frizzen should pop open when the flint is 1/3 Up from the bottom, leaving no scrape marks on that bottom 1/3 of the face. You want that frizzen to pop open and get out of the way of your sparks that are thrown down into the pan.

With a new flint, you want the sparks hitting in the forward part of the pan. As the flint is worn backwards, the sparks will hit the pan moving from front to back, until the sparks are hitting the fence behind the pan. That is when you get misfires, or hang fires, and its time to move the flint forward in the jaws. You want a new flint to be set in the jaws, so that when the hammer is on half cock, the gap between the edge and the face of the frizzen is about 1/64". I move my flint forward, in my Siler lock, when the gap becomes 1/8". Otherwise, I get a lower POI on the face, and the frizzen fails to pop open.

If I get 25=30 strikes from a flint before I have to move it forward, I consider the flint a good one, and my lock well-tuned. Yes, occasionally you will get a flint that will give you those 50 strikes, but that is the exception, IME.

Check that face for gouges. Gouges eat up flints, and keep the flint from scraping steel from the face cleanly. If you have gouges, the flint is Not hitting the face at the correct Angle of Impact. Using a common plastic protractor, the baseline runs along the bottom flat of the flint, the center point of the angle is the Point of Impact on the face of the frizzen, and the other line rises from the center point, up to the back, inside highest point on your frizzen. If the angle is more than 60 degrees, your flint is striking the frizzen too square, and its gouging out steel. That works fine with new frizzens, but once you gouge a groove or more ( washboard effect) in the frizzen, that frizzen eats flints, and doesn't allow them to make as many sparks, much less throw them down into your pan.