Flintlocks and Rain

[robinsroost]

If it is pouring down rain, I will stay inside until it lets up. If I am already out when it starts, I will stay and continue to hunt, or if it is sprinkling I will go. Get a cow's knee and waterproof it. I take a grayon, I like red because it is easy to see, and put down a layer of wax around the pan and touch hole. You could probably use a beeswax stick as well. Keep yer powder dry......robin :wink:

 

[Vaino]

Have squirrel hunted on rainy days fairly often w/ a flintlock and w/o any incidence of failure to fire. A lock cover in mandatory and after the pan is fouled, a thorough cleaning of it is done. This eliminates the need to change the prime often, if at all depending on the humidity.

The prime, even w/ a clean pan, should be periodically checked....BP is hygroscopic and on a very warm, humid day discovered black "soup" in the pan......Fred

Don't attempt to seal the pan seeing it's too much work after every shot and most of the time, it doesn't work....anyways for me.....Fred

 

[BrownBear]

Have squirrel hunted on rainy days fairly often w/ a flintlock and w/o any incidence of failure to fire. A lock cover in mandatory and after the pan is fouled, a thorough cleaning of it is done. This eliminates the need to change the prime often, if at all depending on the humidity.

The prime, even w/ a clean pan, should be periodically checked....BP is hygroscopic and on a very warm, humid day discovered black "soup" in the pan......Fred

Don't attempt to seal the pan seeing it's too much work after every shot and most of the time, it doesn't work....anyways for me.....Fred

You wrote a whole book in a few lines! Well done.

The big thing with rain is to get out into it and learn how to deal with it.... Before hunting season. Sure easy to stay home when it rains during the off season. But you'll pay a very high price if the hunting season turns out wet, and you're out there trying to figure out how to go bang. Kinda like learning how to drive on country roads BEFORE you try driving in a city.

 

[jrmflintlock]

I notice that the birds will not gobble very much when they are wet. Kinda ruins the mood if you get my drift. but they will come in. especially after the rain stops. They will also be likely to out in the open trying to dry off.

Good luck!! And don't forget pictures!!! We all love pictures!

 

[The Baron]

I'm back. An enjoyable trip but no turkey for me. That's 3 trips to NY state and have yet to get a tom. I might have to stop passing up easy jakes, just to break the ice in that curs-ed state. LOL

Weather ended up holding off rain until about 7am the first day, then we enjoyed light rain off and on, a bit steadier toward noon. Day 2 was light-steady rain all morning. I would never hunted in that with my flintlock at home, here's what I learned. At the end of morning #1 my gun had very light surface rust on the barrel. It wiped off with very minimal marking, but still made me nervous and a bit disappointed. For day #2 I gave the barrel a good smear of Ballistol (all I had) before going out and that seemed to help a lot. I did not find my cows knee, so I simply used a fleece watch cap to cover the lock area at all times. I just held in place with my hand and it was easy to slip off if I thought a shot opportunity might come. Kept the barrel pointed downward when possible and changed my priming powder 3-4 times each morning. After morning #2 I thought I'd better fire and clean/dry/reload - I starting having doubts the gun would fire and I would have felt sick if I had a failure if an opportunity finally came my way. So, I primed 'er up at camp and it fired wonderfully without any hesitation. :thumbsup:

Day #3 was clear, but very heavy fog until 9am-ish.

Summary of the hunt was that we had a good sized jake at 10 yards on our first setup, and let him walk. Our guide called in 2 toms and 3 jakes on our second setup of day #1. They didn't appear to notice the decoy and were going to pass by on an old road on my buddy's side, so he took the first tom with his electronic sighted 12ga. The other tom hung around a bit at about 40 yards and my buddy tried to pass his gun to me and I said no thanks - I knew if I took that gun and shot the tom, I would regret it.

After that, the rain started and the birds were entirely uncooperative. We really had no exciting moments after that. BUT, I faithfully stuck at it with my flinter and came home with a sense of accomplishment.

One little bonus was out hunt took place in Amish country (I have an immense amount of respect for those people). Standing there with the flintlock in my hand while a horse and buggy pass by, and having the gentleman wish me good luck seemed incredibly right and catapulted me back in time for a second.

Oh, and I really want an Amish hat now - one of the wide brimmed black ones that has a sort of cowboy-ish style to it (not a dressy Sunday hat). I have no idea what they are called.

Thanks to all for the input on rainy day flintlock hunting.

Watch cap cover worked fine.

 

[jrmflintlock]

Sounds like it was still very fun! That's why they call it hunting and not just killing.

Better luck next year!! :thumbsup: