flintlock shooting tips?

[paulvallandigham]

If the touchhole is properly drilled above the flashpan, the right size, and you prime the pan correctly, and poke a hole in the main charge with a vent pick before closing that frizzen, and you are shooting a properly tuned lock that throws sparks into the pan, ignition will be a kBOOM!, where you don't have time to tense up or flinch before the gun fires. Yes, you can hear the flint strike the frizzen, but is should be s strike and scraping motion of the flint is set to strike the frizzen at the correct angle. I have had experienced percussion shooters ask me if I had switched to shooting percussion from flint, because my gun went off " so fast ". Even when I have them stand and watch the gun fire, so they can see the ignition sequence. they wonder how a flintlock can fire so fast, every time.

Read my article at[url] www.chuckhawks.com/flintlocks.htm.[/url]

All my secrets are revealed there.

Paul

 

[crmyers]

Link dosen't work for me.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I don't know why not. When I google it, I get the article. Try this:
[url] http://www.chuckhawks.com/flintlocks.htm[/url]

The mistake is putting the period after the htm. I just discovered that fact.

Thanks for asking. Paul

 

I agree with master Blaster. Shoot from the bench to build your confidence in marksmanship and to build up your resistance to recoil. Shooting from the bench will permit you to concentrate on sight alignement, sight picture and trigger control. Once you get used to holding and squeezing while ignoring the close up boom and smoke from the pan, yet keeping the sights aligned, then shoot offhand. You will be surprised at the reduction in felt recoil once you are shooting offhand and it will be like shooting a .22. Also - we all flintch now and then. For example, I flintch every time my daughter askes me for the car keys.

 

[Bougalee]

Pard, newbie here who is wondering what he done got himself into. Waiting for Christmas to get my gpr off the wall to shoot for the first time. I thought the prime was supposed to be on the otherside of the pan away from the vent to keep from having the fuse effect???? This knapping thing got me too, I bought some english black flints and thought I'd replace the stock flint. It was too long so I decided to knap it with the back of a knife blade. It also hit the pan on one try and the barrel on another. It ended up looking more like a marble when I was finished than something I wanted on my rifle. How hard is it to convert a flinter to a caplock. Just joking I'll figure this stuff out with yaw'lls help. Done figured out though I might not have it ready for the next muzzle-loader season in Arkansas.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Obviously, you now understand how important it is to order the right sized flint. Do so. You have time for them to arrive by Christmas. Next, square the edge to the face of the frizzen, by opening the frizzen up slightly so that the edge of the flint will strike the bottom of the frizzen face, or the back of the heel of the frizzen if you look at the frizzen from the side and see its similarity to a human leg and foot. Hold the frizzen at the correct height, with the side of your left thumb, cock the hammer back to full cock, with your right hand, and then pull the trigger. a new edge will be chipped off in one blow across the entire width of the frizzen. The only adjustment you need to do to the flint in the jaws of your cock is see that its aligned sideways correctly, so the inside edge does NOT scrape barrel, see that the flint is not too long, so that it will smack the bottom of the pan when the hammer is down, and then make sure your cock screw is down firmly on the flint and lead or leather wrap. If you use leather, stick with thin leather, like what you might get using the tongue of an old wornout shoe., or even the leather from a well worn out wallet. If you use lead, make sure its also thin, about 1/16-1/32" thick, and drop the cock five or more times to allow the lead to flow and fit snuggly to all the smooth curves and dips on the flint, and then tighten that cockscrew down again.

You did right by banking the priming powder away from the touch hole, but remember to run a vent pick into the barrel through the vent hole to clear a path for your flame and heat when the priming powder ignites. Ideally, you want the touch hole slightly higher than the top of the pan, and it never hurts to grind out the pan to make it wider, and shallower, and then polish the heck out of it so it is much easier to clean, and lest likely to hold dust and crud that will absorb water from the air between shots.

YOu don't hve to use 4Fg powder for priming powder. Instead, use whatevery Black powder you load in the barrel. That saves you from owning two horns, and having all that stuff rattle around when you are humping it through the woods.

Work up a load for your gun on a bench with a rest, and ask us when you actually have your gun, know the caliber, have measured the land diameter( bore) and broove diameter of the gun, so we can tell you exactly what size round ball you need to buy for it, and what thickness patching will work the best.

In the meanwhile, read the posts here, and study up on patch lubes, and gear. Go to Dutch Schoultz's website,[url] www.blackpowderrifleaccuracysystem.com[/url]

and order his system, Its the best $15.00 you will ever spend anywhere, and it will shorten up your education on how to find that accurate load for you gun so much it is almost a sin to make that much information available in one source!

Good luck to you. And Welcome.

 

[Bougalee]

Sorry, it has taken me so long to reply to your great advice which I truly appreciate. My gpr is hanging on the wall and I have promise my wife not to fire it until Christmas. I have fired some prime though it when she was at work. Really wanted to give it a shot or two,but I have bucked up using all of my will power not to. I will certainly buy the instruction info. you suggested. I will also give your knapping method a try when the need comes. I have shot prb in a .45 espous (sp) caplock long ago and do not remember any problems then, as a matter of fact it is my recollection that the rifle was very accurate and I was always impressed with its killing power, having taken a number of deer and feral hogs with it. I do realise that shooting a flintlock will up the challenge, but that is the whole point isn't it. Again thank you for your kindly expressed advice and encouragement.

Bougalee deBayou

 

[davecampperry]

When you 'dry fire' a flintlock with DS triggers,(or any other gun for that matter) don't cock the gun. 'Set' the trigger, then pull through to 'click' it. For single trigger, use a 'Dutch' flint, which is a piece of hard wood cut to resemble a flint. It will save you money on flints and won't wear your frizzen.

 

Typically, I do not flinch. But there are times - whole shooting sessions in fact - that I flinch constantly. Like yesterday. I don't know why, I just do. Someone in this topic string sugested using a smaller amount of prime and I think I will give this a go. Usually I use 2 or 3 pushes of the brass prime pen to load up the prime pan. I think less may be more in this case.

 

[Many Klatch]

When I started shooting 20 some odd years ago some old timers gave me good advice.

1) Practice holding the gun for as long as your arm can stand it to build up the muscles. If you think about it, it's a wierd set of muscles that you use to hold the gun up, the arm is twisted like a pretzel. Back in the day, the old boys that shot these guns chopped wood, forked hay, sawed wood, pulled roots and chopped with a hoe, their arms were solid.

I finally wound up getting a 20 pound dumb bell and filed a sight groove on the top. I would stand sighting down the groove at a mark for as long as my arm would stand it. Then I would put my arm down, rest and do it again. After about a year I was able to hold my smokepole pretty steady.

2) The Flinches - everybody has had them. The same oldtimers told me that it takes about a 1,000 dry fires to get rid of a bad case of the flinches. That may be an exageration, but then it may depend on how bad the flinch is. The idea is to use the wooden flint in your gun and put a small mark on the wall over the TV. Stand there and watch TV while you practice dry firing at the mark. After a while your body and mind gets used to the gun not hurting or the flash being scary.

Practice your follow through while you are at it. Don't put the gun down as soon as you pull the trigger. If you have ever had a hang fire, you will know why that is important. I have gotten lucky recently and scored an 8 on a hang fire.

Just remember "The guy with the most luck, usually has the most practice" :thumbsup:

Many Klatch

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

... imagining a figure 8 with the 8 lying on it's side, and the intersection of the lines on the desired point of impact. The shooter traced this figure eight with the sight, slowly decreasing the size of the pattern. The theory was to start squeezing the trigger on the downside of the pattern as the sight approached the intersection with the target. This was followed up with a 1 second follow through after the shot.

Has anyone else ever tried this?

Jimbo:

That method works and is actually the technique that champion Schuetzen offhand shooters of the past century advocated. In addition, they stated that as one "traced the 8" - Lefties and Righties need to do it different.

A LH shooter needs to trace the 8 so that you are coming DOWN to the 6 o'clock hold from '8 to 7' (as looking at a clockface). Think coming DOWN from high-left.

A RH shooter needs to trace the 8 so that you are coming DOWN to the 6 o'clock hold from '4 to 5' (as looking at a clockface). Think coming DOWN from high-right.

You also need to time the squeezing of your trigger with your breaths. The suggestions for breathing you give is right on, but I'll add that for 'most people', your body will be most stable from between 4 to 7 seconds AFTER you hold the breath. I try to 'trace the 8' so that when coming down from the side (I'm a lefty) I am at 3 seconds or so. That with a slow squeeze tends to put my shots into the black offhand, as I'll typically be at or near 5-seconds into the breath as she fires.

This Schuetzen technique really works, as does supporting your forend arm hold by your skeletal frame and not your muscles! When I started Schuetzen style shooting single shot rifles, I'd have some good shots and then some wild ones ... but ... I learned to CALL them.

Then once I settled down, I'd tend to put all shots into the black using a 6 o'clock hold and the trace method ... along with breath, aim, follow through, and calling your shot. My present dry firing practice is 'to hold and aim finer', so as to tighten up my groups.

Now that said, I haven't tried this with my new 'flinchlock' yet ... as I just picked her up :thumbsup: , a Caywood smoothie in 62!

 

[juancho]

I migth be completly off here, but this is what works for me, at least so far.As I start pulling the triger I start to count 1...2...3...
By around 1 1/2 the ball is hitting the target, the secret is to put a real effort to count to 3.
It not only gets rid of the flinch but it helps to follow thru, as your attention is "deviated" from the pan flash to the count of 3.
Am I making any sense here?

 

[Shelby Skinner]

Just a general observation--but a properly set up flintlock should be nearly as fast as a good percussion gun--so much so the speed of ignition will be indistinguishable from the flare in the pan. If you are experiencing slow woosh bangs from your flintlocks something is amiss. If this is your situation and you know the flint is sharp, the powder is dry, and the touch hole is where she should be then you probably need some help from someone who knows his way around a flintlock rifle...specifically how to tune your lock.

Like all guns your concentration as you break the shot must remain on the FRONT SIGHT. Shooting is nearly completely a mental activity and you need to will yourself to remain focused on the front sight. Needless to say a good pair of shooting glasses are in order when shooting a flintlock and these will go a long way to helping you overcome the fear you have of that pan flash going off so close to your face/eyes. As you break the shot you should be saying to yourself--Front Sight, Front Sight, Front Sight...and as the gun goes off you will not even notice the hammer fall. Even after the shot goes off and the recoil of the gun pulls you off target you shouold follow through and attempt to regain the sight picture and your focus which remains--FRONT SIGHT!

 

[coscyc]

I'm 67 years old. I have shot flints for over 30 yrs.
I used to shoot a double bbl shotgun. One pan is ALWAYS in front of an eye. The debris goes to the side. That's why you shoud be careful where you stand on the firing line. Wear eye protection and ignore the flash.
I've seen several references to delayed ignition.
If you have this, and it's not raining, you need to tune the lock. If the touch hole/vent is placed where the bottom of the vent hole is water level with the pan top, you can fill the pan all the way.
You can carry in all positons and fire with no delay. In fact, if the piece won't fire as fast inverted as upright, something isn't correct.
Most of my hangfires were spark related.
In dry weather, you should be as fast as a percussion.
If anyone is ever interested, I can tell you the few simple things I did to tune for instant ignition. I say if you're interested because most folk aren't.