Flintlock to Percussion conversation

[wild willie 10]

Maybe I'm lazy or some other short coming on my behalf but I can't get into the flintlock system of my new Austin & Halleck Mountain rifle. All that being said, what would it take to convert this rifle from flintlock to percussion and what would be the approximate cost of this surgery? Thanks to all that can help me work through this problem.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Flint to percussion is generally a simple conversion, which is why most old flinters have been converted at some time in the distant past.
Remove the vent liner and re-tap the hole to take a nipple drum.
The lock presents a couple of options. Getting a new percussion lock from A&H may be a problem since they are now out of business but if you can find one you could probably sell the flint lock on one of the online sites.
Or you could modify the flint as the old ones were done. Remove the frizzen and spring, cut off the pan and file a semi-circular notch to fit up to the nipple drum. Then replace the hammer with a percussion style or just fit a block of 5/16" square stock into the flint hammer with a recess in the nose to strike the cap. That actually looks kinda neat if well done.
Don't feel bad about giving up on flint, I gave up on several before I finally got one I could live with, now I prefer flint over cap guns. :grin:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Maybe I'm lazy or some other short coming on my behalf but I can't get into the flintlock system of my new Austin & Halleck Mountain rifle. All that being said, what would it take to convert this rifle from flintlock to percussion and what would be the approximate cost of this surgery? Thanks to all that can help me work through this problem.

Simple solution, trade it off for a nipple gun.

 

[CrackStock]

TANSTAAFL is right and this is more easily done than you might think since you are doing the opposite of what most ML shooters try to do which is go from percussion to flint.

CS

 

[renovato]

Having recently bought A/H Mountain Rifles in both flint and percussion, I just went and compared them side by side.

I already knew that the trigger group is the same for both guns. I was hoping that maybe the locks would be interchangeable and all you'd need to do is install a drum.

It looks like the vent and drum locations on the barrels are identical, but to be sure, I'd need to pull them apart and measure. However, the flintlock lock plate is larger than the percussion, so the inlet would be quite oversized for the percussion lock. I was assuming they'd use the same inlet so they didn't need to deal with 2 seperate stocks, but that's not the case.

A/H had spare locks in stock as of a couple weeks ago. I ordered 1 for each gun. You might buy a percussion lock from them and see if you could use the parts to convert the flinter's lock plate into a percussion lock. You can get drums at TOW if A/H doesn't have them.

Personally, I think I'd either enjoy it as a flintlock, or buy a percussion gun. The A/H flinters shoot wonderfully. At least the one I own does.

 

[fw707]

Now wait a minute...you guys are confusing me. i thought it was always easier to convert from a caplock to a flintlock??
Reason being you are installing a flintlock into a mortise that has been cut and fitted for a drum, and the touch hole liner is gonna go into the hole where the drum was, and therefore line up closer with the pan on the new flintlock, rather than screwing a drum into the flash hole threads and trying to fit the drum to a new percussion lock. :hmm:

 

[CrackStock]

In the case of many production guns, the process is set to facilitate interchangeability. Or more accurately, the fact of making the guns one way results in interchangeability. You can convert. However, it is in most cases more trouble than it is worth unless you stumble on all of the parts -- including a spare barrel breached for the other type of gun. Yes, it is possible to replace vent liners with drums.

I would not bother since it is easier to swap off with someone desiring a flint lock in which case, there is no cost and no spare parts laying about.

If I had an excess of money and a desire for excess parts, I would trade for the type of gun that I wanted and then buy the parts which supported the type of gun that I wanted.

CS