Flintlock vs. Caplock accuracy

[tecum-tha]

You`re only 20 years of age and I can understand your desire to get a flintgun, because I have been there,too,in Germany about 15 years ago.
I was 18 when I bought my first flinter (Pedersoli Hatfield :nono: ). Back in that time there were no message boards and I didn´t have any mentors shooting ML guns. I was the laughing topic at the range, being the only flintshooter where the gun fied abou 50%.
Now, I know better and learned a lot from friends in the US(some of them are natioal Champions and I have shot in Championsships in Friendship,too) in the last 10 years of hunting there.
So here is what I learned: Production guns may works fine, but they may be a big disappointment,too. Their value drops almost instantly to about 40% of their original price. Just take a look at egun. Important features in a production flintgun, like LOP,Cast off,drop... are only for the average sized guy. I am not average and had to learn the hard way.
Result: Over this Christmas I will completely restock the Pedersoli and reuse the lock, part of the barrel, the trigger and reshape the trigger guard. I will exchange the patented breech against a flint breech and put in a white lightning touchhole liner. I bet, the ignition problems will be gone.
Do not buy the pre-cut patches they sell you, it is just a rip-off. Please go to www.blackpowderaccuracy.com and take a look at the material there. I would suggest that you order the material. It will repay 1000% very soon, it saved me hundreds of €. I have a T/C PA carbine in flint, here near Stuttgart and would be willing to lend it to you, until you have saved enough money for a decent flintgun, the only thing it will need is the Austrian proof-mark. It is ok, but not even comes close to one of my customs or self-buildt ones.
Think about it!!!!!! :thumbsup:

 

[Tom Compton]

Not having the time, skills or equipment to do a decent job even on a kit, I opted to assemble a group of compatible parts.

$75 TC Renegade stock off ebay
$190 GM .54 percussion barrel from Track of Wolf
$28 Replacement flint breechplug
$25 Install BP
$125 L&R Replacement lock
on hand Traditional style trigger guard
on hand TC triggers

Will refinish the metal brown and replace the butt plate with something similar to that on the Mortimer http://www.trackofthewolf.com/(S(p...catId=12&subId=81&styleId=280&partNum=AAG-181

Should have fast reliable ignition and shoot well.

Merry Christmas!
TC

 

[Moloch]

I made a new decision, instead of going the cheap easy way (Lyman GPR flinter or Harpers Ferry 1803) I went the more expensive custom way and I am going to get a rifle I always wanted to have without any compromises. :bow:

As my first flinter I ordered me a TOW jaeger rifle kit with a swamped rice barrel in .62 and iron hardware: TOW jaeger
As some of you have suggested, I went the expensive way - with my favorite, the TOW jaeger kit. I've heard that the TOW locks are pretty good and giv nice bright sparks.
Should arrive in one or two weeks.

I always had a soft spot for big caliber medium-length rifles like the european jaeger, and beeing an austrian it was clear to me what my first flinter should be. :grin:

Ah, a swamped rifled barrel in .62 caliber, thats pure heaven. :thumbsup:

 

[tecum-tha]

I have no doubt that you get good ignition with a percussion gun. Now Moloch will have a great time assemble the kit and will end up with something useful.
To Moloch:
Hey, you`re getting younger :nono: !
And you will see that even the kits need quite some knowledge to put it together. But if you follow Mike`s tutorial, you should be fine. I hope your barrel has the breechplug already fitted. I hope, that you ordered all the neccessary taps and drills,too. It helps, since it is almost impossible to get the right drill bits here in Europe. Though, the taps are usually no problem to get at the auction site. I can send you pictures of original jaegers, which detail where the touchhole is located toward the pan. You will have to drill and tap that touchhole liner by yourself with the kit. But that is no big deal. Is the lock already inletted in the stock? :thumbsup:

 

[tecum-tha]

Sorry,overread that you have installed a flint breechplug. Then you should be in business. But it will still be only a production gun with replacement parts for about 450 dollars and you had aleady some parts on hand. Please remember that it is almost impossible to find stocks on ebay here in Europe and if you order from different suppliers the postage will kill you. :surrender:
Moloch did right with the kit,despite the iron furniture, which is much harder to work than brass. But he will dig into it... :thumbsup:

 

[Moloch]

Hey, you`re getting younger !

Yes, I have noticed that the date of my birthday was wrong, 19th instead of 29th. Woops!

With the TOW kit I have used the labour offer from TOW, installed barrel wedges, the breechplug is of course assembled, no sliding wood patch box. It sould be easy to assemble, a little bit of inletting the hardware, sanding etc. For the finish of the stock and drilling the holes for the lockplate I'll use a gunsmith for safety reasons. :hmm:

Of course drilling the touchhole and installing the vent liner is gunsmith work too, you have only one chance to screw up a barrel.

Is the lock already inletted in the stock?

Yes the lock is fully inletted, as is the ramrod + hole, the barrel (its swamped!), the butt plate is also pre-inletted.
Shouldnt be that hard to put together. :v

Here is a pic of TOW how it should arrivew/o sliding patch box)

 

[tecum-tha]

Please,still mark the right spot for the touchhole for the gunsmith. Most gunsmiths are modern gun specialists, but have no clue about antique firearms. Unless you have a real specialist on flintlocks, I would not give away that gun without personal supervision. You may end with a professionally installed liner at the wrong place!
Read the "breechplug" thread on the gunbuilders bench as well, because your lock is already inletted into the stock.Some modifications may be neccessary.... :hmm:

 

[Moloch]

I trust my gunsmith, he is very good at restoring old muzzleloaders, so I think inletting the parts for a pre-inletted ML should be nog big deal.
He also very good at engraving in silver and brass, if it not costs too much I'll ask for that too.

About the position of the touchhole, I'll ask for the ''raised'' position so the the heat directly goes into the touchhole for faster igintion.
I've heard this position requires the touchhole beeing 50/50 at the top end of the pan; right?
Like this:

 

[Dphar]

Moloch,
keep your hands away from Pedersoli flintlock guns. Please!! My Hatfield Frontierman is the worst flintgun due to the patented breech. Do not buy a flintlock with a patented breech. In production guns, the touchhole is not at the right place too often,too.
All above does not necessarely apply or caplocks, but for flinters it does!!!
My custom jaeger and my self-stocked jaeger made from TOTW parts work all great and are more reliable in a hunting situation as any caplock as well!!!!

A poorly made patent breech in a low end gun should not be used to condemn all patent breeches used in flintlocks. All the best flint guns made in the late period in England had patent breeches.
I have a true patent breech (The Nock flint design is considered to be "the" patent breech in England or so I am told) that works extremely well with GOOD powder. Powder that produces large chunks of fouling in the bore or breech will cause difficulty in about 3 shots. With swiss it can be shot all day.

Dan

 

[paulvallandigham]

Unless that pan is very deep, you need to have the vent hole located .030" above the top of the pan, not split, 50/50 as this one is.

Heat rises.

If you keep that in mind, you understand why it should be higher than your burning fuel.

If you can't locate the vent hole that high, then put it as high as you can. The higher it is, the more you can simply fill the pan up, and fire it. Otherwise, you need to fill only a 1/3 of the pan, and then bank the powder away from the barrel, and vent. My rifle has a vent located similar to this one in your picture. I bank the powder away from the barrel every time I load, and it shoots fine.

However, my gunmaker who built my fowler located the vent hole above the pan, and I can fill that pan to the top to make the biggest target for sparks, and it goes off reliably and fast.

:thumbsup:

 

[Moloch]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I am afraid that the limiting factor of the touchhole location is the barrel, the barrel is octagonal and I dont want the touchhole+vent liner cutting the barrel edge. With the vent liner it is quiet possible that this happens if the touchhole is over 50/50 at the pan. But I can only judge about this when I have the rifle in my hands, everything else is just speculations.

I have one question if you dont mind, I am not too sure about the function of a vent liner.(I ordered one at TOW )

I've read a description saying that the vent liner is there to protect the actual touch hole from burning out, erosion and the vent pick. If the vent liner is burned out it can be replaced with a new one. That makes sense, but I've never seen a burned out touchhole, and I have seen several flint rifles dating back to 1750-1800 and all the touchholes were in excellent conditions. And does a vent line not weaken the barrel wall?

Is that just hype or does it really help to have one installed?

 

[user 13289]

Hey Mo,

I'm late but think I can offer some useful words.

#1 Being-if you actually go and shoot every two weeks (with advice available here) you'll quickly become quite proficient with any flint-arm.

#2 Touch hole liner-while vent hole erosion will be easily repaired using a liner-the selling point of modern liners is that they are cone-shaped on the inside. This coned hole allows part of the main charge to be closer to the heat from the pan and thus surer and faster ignition should occur. Touch hole liners are also made of stainless steel, which resist erosion much better than barrel (mild) steels.

That's how I understand it.

Froliche Weinachten!

 

[paulvallandigham]

There are a couple of reasons to use vent liners. In the old days when barrels were made of iron, it WAS possible to burn out the touch holes, so that pressures in the chammber dropped, and accuracy suffered. Rather than replace the whole barrel, a vent liner allowed the vent hole to be "replaced", at a much lower cost, and the gun restored to service. With today's guns having barrels made of steel, the chance of the vent hole burning out is fairly small.

However, a vent liner does allow you to determine what SIZE hole your gun requires to prevent misfires. What size and Brand of powder you use, the load you use, the caliber of the gun, the design of the chamber and vent hole all will determine if your gun will fire reliably. With a vent LINER, you can experiment by drilling out the vent to find a size that guarantees reliable ignition. If you go too far, you can cheaply, and quickly change the liner for a new one, and drill that one to the proper size.

Using a vent liner allows the INSIDE OF THE LINER to be coned. This moves powder CLOSER to the priming pan, and to the heat created when the priming powder burns. This speeds ignition and improves the reliability of ignition.

Some liners are shaped differently than others. Jim Chamber's White Lightning liner is coned using a parabolic curve, rather than a straight, triangle-shaped bevel to the coning. The parabolic surface apparently defies some laws of physics, but users swear that the liners make their guns go off faster.

I am a believer that the White Lightning liner is better, and faster. My brother, who is an Engineer, says I am wrong. We disagree. I believe that for a brief Millisecond, the small dish-shape parabolic curve forces and focuses both heat, and gases back against itself, and in conjunction with the few milliseconds it takes to ignite the main charge, this delay causes the chamber pressure to rise FASTER, and the temperature in the chamber to RISE faster, than the PRB or conical can begin to move forward, resulting in faster ignition of the main powder charge in the barrel, and a quicker build up of gases behind the PRB or conical, all before the inertia of the projectile can be overcome. My brother says you can't delay the expansion of gas out of a hole.

All I can tell you is that when compared side by side with standard straight coned liners, the White lightning SOUNDS faster, to shooters and by-standers.


There are other liners being sold that cone the OUTSIDE of the liner, to bring the priming powder closer to the main charge in the barrel. There are adherents to these style of liners, too. The common thread is that the priming powder and main charge are put closer together, when a liner can be used. I think this general idea can be accepted by both sides, and explain to new shooters why liners are used, today.

I hope this helps you understand the use of "vent liners" today. 150+ years ago, vent liners were not necessarily made of harder metals.

There are museum examples in Europe with liners made of GOLD, or PlATINUM, or SILVER, or other metals. Some of these were thought to transmit heat faster, so that they aided in speeding ignition that way. With modern electronic timers today, many of these suggestions have been tested and found to be NOT TRUE. IN fact, softer metals were found to erode quickly from the heat and pressure of the escaping gases. The different metal to the liner does make a pretty contrast of metals at this location, and is an artistic contribution to some highly decorated pistols and rifles.

 

[Zonie]

The vent liner is usually made of materials which are more resistant to hot gas erosion. That's another way of saying they last longer than a simple hole that is drilled into the low carbon or iron barrel.

The big advantage of using a screw in touch hole liner however is the fact that a good one will be hollowed out on the bore side. That is to say, the bore side of the liner is drilled out much larger than the actual vent hole.
This shortens the length of the actual touch hole allowing the powder from the main charge to be much closer to the flash in the pan.

Some of the gunsmiths who made the old originals which used a simple touch hole that was drilled thru the barrel wall went to the trouble of enlarging the touch hole from the inside of the barrel to accomplish the same thing that the vent liner does.
Working inside a barrel to do this enlarging took special tools which explains why many of the originals just have a simple drilled hole thru the wall.
While these will work, they are not as reliable nor is the ignition as fast as a short vent hole.

As for weakening the barrel, theoretically yes it is a bit weaker but in reality there is absolutely no cause for concern. The working pressures are far below the strength of the threaded vent liner or the tapped hole in the barrel.

 

[Tom Compton]

The parameters for this rifle were different than the 3-4 customs on hand. Craftsmanship and pride of woenrship are well taken care of with those fine pieces.

On this project, I wanted a medium length barreled flintlock capable of good accuracy with a .54 PRB. Rifle to be a user and even a loaner to a few but without worries as to minor damage to the finish. The stated components will yield a rifle fitting the paramaters.

By the way, unless one starts from scratch in a blacksmith shop, all barrels, locks, screws and bolts we and custom makers use are production items. Custom builders even use production furniture.

Merry Christmas!
TC

 

[tecum-tha]

Here you go. I placed my touchhole and therefore the liner at the location according to rifle 1 and rifle 2. Having liners, the guys who used them seemed to have been out hunting quite a bit. http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/gallery/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=139
The rifles are from the Badenian State Collection in Karlsruhe.
My rifle fires great with 30-50% prime in the pan.
It is this one: http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/219257/post/547481/hl//fromsearch/1/

 

[Glenfilthie]

Hi Moloch.

I am in the same boat you are, only I intend to build my first flinter.

I have an old investarm plains rifle in percussion .54. It is a darned handsome rifle with nice wood. The rear sight is an adjustable piece of manure and will be replaced as soon as I can get down to the gunsmiths. The trigger is a grinding POS - but it still shoots remarkably well in spite of that - and the gunsmith could probably take care of the trigger quite easily too if I cared enough about it.

I bought it because I could afford it but now that I have more money these days I am going to get a kit from Jim Chambers and build my rifle the way I want. The geeks around here a full of great advice and will always help you out too.

 

[tecum-tha]

You`re right with production parts beeing used by custom gunsmiths. But a lot of those production parts are altered by those gunsmith,too, most of the time to work better than before. It is a great way to save costs and to make a more affordable product for the customer, but the assembly tolerances are usually overcome by custom work...
I have no problems with patented breechplugs, they`re just not for me. I have a few friends who are kings of "snapping" caps at whitetails with their caplocks. I think the problem here is, that it is real hard to keep that small channel perfectely clean of powder residue under field conditions. It depends a lot on the maker of the gun,too. But for me, there is no reason to use a patented breechplug, just more hassle to keep clean. I never had my flintgun fail and I hate to hear that snapping sound on a good humid TN morning from across the road where my buddy hunts :shocked2: It happened to him 5 times in a row this year,and he lost complete confidence in his gun and his ability to shoot it.
Anyway, enough of that :bull:
:surrender: :surrender:

 

[Moloch]

Thanks all for helping me understanding the vent liner. Seems that such a vent liner is not a bad idea; I wish I had ordered more from TOW to have replacements, but oh well.
The single liner should serve me well for several hundred shots, hopefully.

@ tecum-tha

Oh, your Jaeger rifle is quiet awesome, I really like the heavy design of the stock, its just so typically ''jaeger'' design; very nice.
And its a .62 caliber too; love that caliber; historically its also correct, thats IMO far better than the .50 and .54 Jaeger wannabes I've seen. I guess you also shoot the correct loads for such a caliber? :grin:

Thanks for the touchhole pics, the one with the liner gives a quiet good idea where to place the touchhole. As I can see its a bit above the upper edge of the pan, but its still completely covered by the frizzen.

@ Glenfilthie

Do you have any misfires with your lyman GPR percussion .54 with the patent breech? I am asking because I want a easy to handle cheap fun rifle just for 50yds and was thinking about the GPR, also in .54 and percussion to keep things simple- I guess wiping between the shots is a no-go with the patent breech, right? :hmm:

Trigger job should be no problem, polishing the lock parts and adding light oil always helped me to tame even the hardest triggers . I am used to heavy creeping triggers anyway, shooting 50 shots through a rifled musket each week really teaches you to build up some muskles in your trigger finger. :wink:

Thanks for the help, and MERRY CHRISTMAS by the way. :hatsoff:

 

[tecum-tha]

I ordered from TOW,too and opted for the Rice barrel for that rifle. So far I am shooting 110 gn of 2F "Wano"or 65 gn of F Swiss. I prefer the swiss, because it burns cleaner and easier. As prime I use "Null B",the swiss priming powder.
Even at reenactment battles, that rifle fires very reliable even with the 3F Goex as a prime. Take a look here,action starts about 3:10 min into this video. http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ax_ovhbPwnY
I am fighting with the last British Militia marching in from the left with the English Commander. I fired 23 shots at that battle and never had to reprime. :thumbsup: The cleaning is a little more messy, but I still do it without water,but with moose milk. It takes about 8-10 patches,too. :grin: