Flintlock Trapper?

[Protrucker]

I have a Traditions flintlock Trapper pistol. The vent hole is barely visible at the edge of the pan. Ignition seems to be kind of slow. I thought that the hole should be level with or slightly higher than the top of the pan. Has anyone else had one like this? I'm wondering if I should contact Traditions about this or maybe grind the pan down some so that the powder will sit lower than the vent. Suggestions?

 

[Zonie]

You are correct about the proper location for the vent hole.

There are several things you can do to improve the ignition speed/reliability.

Check the vent hole size by trying to insert the shank of a 1/16 diameter drill into it. If it won't go, then carefully drill the hole out using that drill bit. Go slowly so that the bit removes all of the drilled out metal. You don't want to kick up a big burr on the inside of the barrel.

Remove the material from the bottom of the pan.
There are a couple of things to watch for while your doing this.
First, you don't want the edge of the pan which is against the barrel to be lower than one of the barrel flats.
Second, on some locks the mainsprings upper arm pushes against the bolster right about where the pan is. If this is true with your pistol you don't want to remove so much material that the springs end tab will break thru into the pan.

(As you can tell, I don't own a Trapper pistol and your lock may have a coil mainspring. If so, you can obviously ignore my last comment. :grin: )

 

[mykeal]

That's not a good situation. The hole should be level with the top of the pan, and centered on it. Whether to contact Traditions or grind down the pan is a matter of personal choice. If it were mine, I would (and have) modified the pan, but not everyone is comfortable with that. The down side of going back to Traditions is that they'll probably want you to ship it back to them, so it'll be out of your hands for several days (weeks?).

 

[chopeck]

Well being new to this forum, it is nice to be able to participate a bit. I have the same model and it gave me an excuse to play with the pistol. Upon inspection, mine has the top of the pan bisecting the centerline of the vent and the bottom of the pan 1/32" below the bottom of the vent. I have shot this pistol more times than I can count and have not experienced hesitation or misfire ever.

If it were me, I would make sure that shaping the pan does not involve too much material to be removed and go for it. That is just me.

Hope you get it solved