Maxi:
1: If it is flashing in the pan you are having a problem with vent blockage. Take a large gem clip & open out one leg of it & use needlenose pliers & make the tip about a 1/2" arc. Swab the bore & then put that clip in the vent with the arc towards the muzzle. Load the rifle & then take the pick out & insure the hole is open.
2: Be fure to wipe the flint, frizzen, pan every time after you shoot.. I use an old tee shirt & I just put material over my finger, wet the tip with saliva & then I wipe Under the flint & top of it, then the frizzen, then the pan, in this sequence. When done if it looks moist I wipe it with a dry part of the tee shirt material. ( I shoot, swab, wipe frizzen, put in vent pick, reload, remove pick, prime, shoot again, etc.
3: You may be using way to thick a patch to swab with & clogging the vent. I see this happen ALL the time at the range. Guys swabing with a shooting patch & just pushing all that crud down into the breech & 10 shots later, no boom. Swabbing should be done with light material so the cruds can push past the front land of the swab & the material gather & grab the cruds on the stroke out. Down & back ONE TIME. We are not cleaning the bore, we are trying to make the bore consistant from shot to shot. Use old tee shirt material to swab with, swab down & back one time.
4: You may have to open the vent hole up slightly. Start with a 1/16" drill & see how that does. (but I think that is what it is) I leave them small as I don't know what each individual will want. Some want them real small, some want them real big. Now if you want it really fast ignition, run a 5/64" drill bit in it & you will see a REAL difference in ignition time, as it will be fast. You will get some powder trickle out the 5/64" hole when loading if you don't use a pick, but I always use a pick so it is not an issue with me. I use a 5/64" hole on all of my rifles from .40 cal. & up. If it were me I would drill it out to 5/64" but that is entirely up to you. And just FYI, it has a 5/16" Chambers White Lightning vent liner, beieve me, it is coned on the inside ! The inside cone on that vent holds about 2 grains of powder and they are the best vent liner on the market.
When I test fired the rifle I used Lehigh Lube and do all the swabbing with Lehigh also, and I had only one pan flash in over 50 shots. From the records I have, I shot it over 50 times in 2 dif. days after building. (25 the first day & then well over 25 the second day) I had one pan flash & it was the 38th shot. Wiped it all off, cleaned the vent hole out & shot it another 15+ times with no problems. (I quit counting them after 50 shots) It had no more pan flashes or ignition problems after that. Now how it will do with other lubes I cannot tell ya, as all I use is Lehigh or my own liquid lube.
But as I said, drill it out to a 5/64" vent hole, swab with a Tee shirt patch & saliva or Lehigh & your ignition problems will end.
Don't swab with a shooting patch, use a tee shirt patch. Take your cell phone to the range with you & if you have a problem with it, call me from there.
