Austin & Halleck

I just read in the December issue of The American Rifleman that Autin & Halleck has suspended operations. Maybe this is old news to this forum but it is new to me. The suspension of operations of this company means what to muzzle loading - other than the fact that another firearms manufacturer has gone out of business? Did they make quality products? Is this a major loss to the shooting, and BP, community?

 

[Dave K]

Do a search and there have been some pretty long threads on this.

 

[renovato]

They did make a quality product, but they had poor quality assurance and let a lot of lemons slip out too. It got to the point that it wasn't wise to mail order one sight unseen. Though if you could inspect it and handle it before hand, and make sure you got a good one, they were a great gun for the money. Quality wise, I put them a little above Traditions and below Lyman and Thompson. They have very good barrels and accuracy wise, I don't know of a production gun that is in their class.

As for it being a major loss, it's really not. They were always pretty much small time when it comes to traditional guns. They made guns that were pretty close to historically accurate, though not a direct copy of any particular maker. The problem was sales related. They had a lot of competition from preexisting companies like T/C and Lyman who have a reputation for good quality guns.

They were pretty innovative. They had created a rather nice, albeit typically modern, muzzleloading shotgun, and had just invented the first "lever action" inline that was supposed to duplicate the look and feel of the turn of the century style. I'm not sure whether they invested too much into their inlines and that killed them in a market already flooded with cheaper models, or whether they just lemoned themselves out of existance. I'd like to have seen some of their creativity spent coming up with different traditional guns. I have always just loved the Austin & Halleck sidelocks.

 

[MikeFromON]

My A&H flintlock looks and feels great but it fails to fire after the first shot on most occasions. At first I thought the problem was the location of the touch-hole, centered on the flat, so that it's bottom is flush with the bottom of the pan and it's top about 1/16th of an inch below the top of the pan.

I finally pulled the breechplug yesterday and saw that the threaded part of the touch-hole liner actually protruded into the barrel by about 1/8th of an inch, so I ground off a couple of threads and now it sits flush on the inside. I also drilled out the actual touch-hole from 1/16th to 5/64ths, so when I get out to the range next time I am hoping I will see a big difference.

Aside from this ignition problem, I love shooting this gun. It handles way better than my Pedersoli, which is quite a bit longer and heavier and doesn't really fit me.

 

[paulvallandigham]

That touch hole shouwl be above the top of the pan, not at the bottom of the pan, for good ignition. The heat of a fire is at the top, not the bottom. Even with the bigger hole, you are going to have slow ignition. You need to have a gunsmith put a black in that touch hole, and then redrill a hole higher on the barrel, or at the top of the liner. Then take the liner out and cone it from the insider with a rounded ball cutter, so it is oval in shape, like the Jim Chambers liners. Then you will get good igntion. I had a gun with a badly placed touch hole, and we made a plug which was welded in to place, permanently. We filed the plug flush, and re drilled the liner whole in the correct position, and installed a normal liner. I have since opened the vent hole to .078" but other than that, it has worked well. If you really look close at the barrel under the current liner, you can see the " Patch repair job that we did ".

 

[Smoke_Ring]

I have a A&H flinter that has the hole towards the front of the pan. At first it would not work well but after going to Swiss powder it is working fine. The rifle handles great and I have had no problems other than it not liking Elephant powder.
Smoke Ring

 

[Rebel]

No gun likes Elephant powder. I almost gave up on flinters when i first started shooting them because of Elephant's so called black powder. Try some Goex and see if it doesn't work well for you.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Smoke ring: Where is the touch hole in relation to the top edge of the pan? That is, if you were to place a straight edge on top of the flash pan, is the hole below, even with, or above the line? Forward or rearward is not so important as being high enough for the heat of the flame from the burning prime to get into the hole quickly. If its at the bottom of the pan, that cannot happen until the prime is about completely burned up. That is going to delay ignition.

 

[MikeFromON]

The touch-hole on my Mortimer is tiny yet perfectly positioned, dead center side-to-side with the top of the hole in line with the top of the pan and it fires quickly and reliably with almost no cleaning even when the barrel is too fouled to actually load.

I will get to test the A&H tomorrow. Right now, I don't mind slow ignition. At this point, being able to shoot two times in a row would be a blessing! If worst came to worst, I was going to build up material in the old hole in the barrel with a welder and then drill a plain old 1/16th hole in the proper place once I had it filled and filed flush. Another idea I had was to drill out the current hole to an enormous size and then make a fitted, threaded plug with the new hole drilled in the right place.

 

[Smoke_Ring]

The hole is at the top of the pan just towards the front.

 

[MikeFromON]

Did some shooting just now and my modifications worked like a charm! I fired 13 shots in a row with only two misfires (which were solved right away with a triple charge in the pan). I didn't clean my gun once during my range session, not even a wipe of the flint. It shot fairly consistently with 50 grains of FFFg Goex and Hornady PA conicals. I have to double-charge the pan for every shot, but I have full confidence in my Austin & Halleck now. I think I am going to fall in love with this gun pretty soon.

I would say to anybody who is having trouble getting their flintlock to fire, the problem is most likely with the touch-hole or the breech area. Even a tiny bit of swarf in the touch-hole or breech area will screw up your ignition. That has been the case with both my rifles, anyway.

 

[paulvallandigham]

MIke: WADR, CLEAN the lock, frizzen, and flint, as well as the barrel between shots. I don't really know what you are referring to about using a " double charge" in the priming pan, unless you are using one of the mechnical priming tools that dispenses 2-3 grain of 4f powder when you push it into the pan. If you have been reading this forum at all, you should understand that you are better off priming with the same powder you put down the barrel, and you can- and should- leave that priming horn at home! Its just something else to lose in the field! In pistol locks, one push of that lever and the 2-3 grains of 4f powder it dispenses if often enough. Not so with most rifles. Humor yourself, and use 3 or for charges of that prime. Do use a pick to clear the vent before priming the pan. Every time you load.

If you don't clean your pan, with a cleaning patch, so its shiny again, and you don't wipe the flint, frizzen, and cock, and the barrel around the vent, that residue of powder will attract moisture, and it will ruin your priming powder very quickly. I was hunting in the rain in Eastern Tennessee on Labor Day back in the 80s, and failed to wipe the underside of my flint. I dried everything else every 15 minutes, but I forgot that moisure can collect on the underside, too. Well, when I fired my first shot at a wild boar, the frizzen sparked, and the water from the bottom of the flint put the sparks out before they made it to the pan. Left a wet line on the face of the frizzen to brazenly tell me how I had screwed the pooch! I have not made the same mistake again.

 

[MikeFromON]

Yes, I use one of those mechanical chargers that puts out 3-5 grains per "push". I usually use FFFFg but I loaded it with FFFg just to try it out. It seems it shoots out a little more powder when using the finer grade, but both work as priming powders. My Pedersoli fires very reliably with just one "push" of the tip so I was surprised that I needed to use double or triple charges to get some good ignition in the A&H. The ignition is great on my Mountain Rifle by the way. No klack-fffff-boom, just klack-boom. Generally, I do wipe out the pan and flint between shots, but I wanted to push the limits today to see how much crud my new rifle would tolerate, and it performed admirably.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If your gun is performing up to speed, it should sound like " kBOOM!", rather than " Klatch-Boom!"

YOu should not hear a separate hitting of the frizzen and the ignition of the priming powder. If the vent is cleared, and the hole poked into the main cuarge to expose many granules to the heat of the burning prime, It should be as close to one sound as I have tried to illustrate in words above. If you are not getting my " sound ", there is something wrong with the lock, or your loading procedure. I have met men who have fired flintlocks for years always believing that they should fire and sound like what they heard when they watched the " Daniel Boone " Series on TV as kids. When they hear a fast flintlock go off, they are dumbfounded. They just never knew that could happen, and not expecting it could be done, never tried to make it happen with their own guns. They taught themselves to hold their gunsights on target for long follow-throughs. I have even seen and heard older shooters shooting flintlocks with blocked vents, who shoot well simply because they learned to hold their sights for an unconscionably long time for the follow through of Klatch!ffft-t-t-BOOM ! With as much as second passing between the time the trigger releases the sear, and the gun fires. You would think they learned their shooting techniques as part of a cannon crew on a pirate ship!