i agree with the consensus. a Lyman Great Plains Rifle (or a Thompson Center) will serve you well for the rest of your lifetime and that of your children and posibly grandchildren if given proper care. i personally prefer the Thompson Center for their unbeatable lifetime warranty (the life of the rifle, not the user) and this is routinely a no- questions- asked- just- send- it- in matter. had a computer printer go bad and they wanted me to return it in the original packaging (like i keep that junk in my basement??) i'd buy another T/C in a trice, but another Dell?! surely you jest... well, enough on that tirade...
whichever rifle you pick, see if you can get a spare frizzen or two, and a boatload of flints (after, of course, trying a small batch to see if your particular rifle likes them) i've had good luck with the black english type from Mr. Fuller. the french amber ones work well, too, but they're really expensive and although they do look pretty cool, i don't think they spark any better than the english ones.
as regards powder, if you shoot flint, you're pretty much stuck with shooting real black powder, as opposed to the substitute stuff such as pyrodex. that's not such a bad thig, since the subs aren't as stable, don't work as well, and cost more in the first place.
they work OK in percussion actions, where the cap gets them hot enough to ignite, but they don't work reliably in flint.
why would anyone buy them? 'cause they're "NEW AND IMPROVED" and you'll always be able to find someone will to plonk their hard earned, overtaxed money if you shout 'new and improved' loud enough. since you contemplate becomming a rockbanger, it is evident that you are smarter than the average fellow and thus less likely to fall for the 'new and improved' trick. Real BP keeps forever, is (if kept dry) stable forever, and is more easily ignited than the subs. Try to get as much as you can in order to avoid politically motivated restrictions on anything that they can get the general populace to believe is "bad" in order to remain in power.
as regards the ball/patch combination, i would recommend that you get a copy of Dutch Schoultz' treatise on accuracy, and try his system. unlike a bunch of people with a bunch of letters after their names who propound a bunch of cool sounding theories, Mr. Schoultz has no letters after his name and his method works better than just about anything else out there. another point for the empiricist crowd! hooray for us: don't tell me how great it's going to be, just show me how to do it right in the first place!
the practice tip is well made: shooting a flintlock is a whole different deal than shooting even a very accurate centire- fire rifle. hold through is (by comparison) nearly eternal, and just as essential. by the way, i don't think you need to prime the pan with 4F... most of the folks who've been shooting flint for a while will tell you that they get pretty much the same result using the same powder for main charge and prime. and that leads to the final bit of advice:
try out a bit and see what works in your particular rifle. most of the advice you get will suffuce for a fair starting point, but flintlocks (even more so than other rifles) have very strong likes and dislikes, and a good bit of the fun is finding out what makes your particular rifle shoot straightest.
good luck, and make good smoke!
