Flint versus Percussion

[albert]

I was at a friends house today and ran across in interesting article in the Museum of Fur Trade quarterly (vol.39 #2,summer 2003).There was data collected by the East India Company in 1841.Their troops fired 13,711 rounds under test conditions from 1,387 pistols,carbines,and muskets.Any weapon that failed to fire,including a flash in the pan, was recorded as a misfire. The total misfires were 1,834,a misfire rate of 13.37 percent.Among the principal causes were;flash in the pan(433); bad frizzen(433);bad spring(323);burned powder residue of flint and frizzen(205);and plugged vent(140)
Smaller scale tests were done with newly issued percussion arms.Of 1,080 shots recorded,there were misfires of just 1.57 percent,a tenth as many with flint guns.The two principal causes for failures were determined to be the soldier not having rammed the powder charge down tightly,so no powder was in or near the nipple,and his failure to have properly seated the cap on the nipple.
A related discovery made by the British government's Ordnance Committee was that ,because no gas escaped the nipple,percussion weapons needed less gunpowder to produce the same projectile velocity as a comparable flintlock.The conversion to percussion resulted in a 13 percent savings in gunpowder for the military.

 

[musketman]

I think flint locks were not phased out as fast as other ignition systems because of this...

"Caps are a one time use only, you can almost always find a sparking stone on the ground somewhere."

I would rather hunt with a flint lock than mess with those little caps, and yes, I have used a in-line capper before.

I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic, or just hopeless...

 

[musketman]

You'd think it would be the other way around, maybe the caps draw moisture in the cappers. I seen cappers hanging in the elements unprotected.

 

[Claude Mathis]

quote:Originally posted by djnye:
during a discussion at the spring shoot at friendship the topic of reliability and flint and percussion systems came up and it was a consensus among some very knowlegeable folks that during wet weather the reliability of flint ignition went up while the reliability of the caplock went down. go figure!I believe this same fact was mentioned in either Muzzleloader or Muzzle Blasts not too long ago.

 

[tg]

I have found flinters to be my choice in wet weather, I suspect it has someting to do with the comparitivly large area between the cap and the powder charge and its tendency to draw moisture as compared to the flintlock. You can't stand around in a down pour but with the gun tucked under my arm protected by my coat/cape or a lock cover I can hunt all day long in the rain and be confident the gun will fire, under the same conditions with cappers I did have a missfire now and then.

 

[albert]

In this same article,they tell that in wet weather they had more trouble with flintlocks that percussions. Most likely I think the guns and locks of old and new are of comparable as far as setting off charges, I would bet that todays powders are better in wet conditions . What do you think?

 

[musketman]

Good point, did they also state if they used FFFFg in the pan during wet conditions?

I think FFFg would work better in the rain, FFFFg tends to pack and cake in moisture.

Our modern powder is engineered better than powder as few as 20 years ago, I think it is more weather friendly.

 

[djnye]

during a discussion at the spring shoot at friendship the topic of reliability and flint and percussion systems came up and it was a consensus among some very knowlegeable folks that during wet weather the reliability of flint ignition went up while the reliability of the caplock went down. go figure!

daniel

 

my dad, grandpa, and uncle were up in Cadillac, MI on a blackpowder hunt. There was quite the terrible blizzard a goin' on. My dad was using his self-built .40 flinter of North Carolina architechture. After getting no deer, all three of them went back to the cabin. Their neighbor (who lives elsewhere in the woods) was over there waiting for them. He was drunk as a skunk, but still noticed that my dad was using a flinter. "Uhh...dat thing 'll never go off" he says. The lock dripping wet with snow, my dad lit off that flintlock. No trouble there!