Fast Flintlock

[waksupi]

You can watch these videos from our club. Most of us shoot flinters, and you will see they get fast ignition. Click on the other links to Denny's videos, there are a half dozen or so from our local shoots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_H4bz6v8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KvHeGA8-HM

 

[Bon Sauvage]

That was an enjoyable post Ric, Thank you.

 

[Danny Ross]

What I find when target shooting with a flintlock I can hear the pling when the flint hits the fizzen and pushes it forward, making it seem slower. I can tell you when I hunt with it and take the shot, there is no pling, just boom, like shooting one of my caplocks. The concentration on the shot is the same for either target or hunting. Don't know why just the way it is for me. DANNY

 

[Stumpkiller]

Can somebody show me a video of someone shooting what you would call a fast flintlock?
Thanks

Here's mine. Neither fast nor slow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBZsbLUF4Wg

Link

 

[Wes/Tex]

Love the pretty green coat! :shocked2: :rotf: :thumbsup:

 

[Spikebuck]

Recently Midway USA's Gun Stories program was all about "Kentucky" flintlock rifles. The guy on the show that does a lot of the shooting had one that was almost imperceptible between the flint striking the frizzen and the gun firing. I looked to try to find a link to the episode, but no luck.

Also Brian Beckum's videos show him shooting his rifles and again those are pretty fast. Sometimes you hear a tiny bit of delay, sometimes virtually none. I did find a trailer for one of his videos and when you pull this one up, you can choose more of his trailers. This one has him doing a bunch of shots right at the beginning before he gets into hunting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsywaLhoBKA

 

[Spikebuck]

Here's mine. Neither fast nor slow.

:applause: Matthew Quigley would be proud! :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Spike, I'm sure you, and the other experienced flint shooters here, know that with a good lock properly set up the ignition 'delay' is imperceptible. At least it was for me (and, hopefully, will be again). Admittedly, part of this is from discipline and concentration. Our eyes and brains are focused on the target. The rest of the world doesn't exist for those few seconds. Still, it can be very fast. I was fortunate to have a rifle like that. Still have it but cannot hold up anymore. Sorry is if that is ff

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

”˜Picking’ the touch hole to ensure it is clear is one thing .... but I observe that too many inadvertently “push the powdah” away from the hole.

I use the smallest diameter spring wire I can for my touch hole wire pricks.

 

[Spikebuck]

Spike, I'm sure you, and the other experienced flint shooters here, know that with a good lock properly set up the ignition 'delay' is imperceptible.

The other day I didn't have a lot to do, so spent about an hour on Youtube watching flintlock hunting videos people had posted. Most all were from the Pennsylvania flintlock season and with more "modern" flintlocks or the most common production flinters.

OMG! The number of misfires...no flash or just a flash in the pan...was incredible. I saw one guy literally take three attempts at a buck out in a field with no pan ignition at all. Zooming up on his lock I could see the flint was just a blunt nubbin sticking out. Others had significant hang fires that caused them to miss.

The sad thing was that most of these were really young guys that may just throw in the towel on flintlock hunting just because they do not know any better, thinking that flintlocks are unreliable and not worth the time. The guy that took the three attempts was saying he wished he had his bow instead because he could have easily hit the deer using that.

In a state like Pennsylvania that is so fortunate to still have a real "primitive" deer season, I can see that it does attract young guys to give it a try. I don't know what traditional gun clubs there do to try to haul in a bunch of those guys for a "free" training afternoon, but I would hope there is something that is or can be done to teach them the right way to get good performance from their flinters and encourage them to stick with it.

Perhaps a topic for another thread.

Mike