Flints keep shattering

[M. De Land]

Yup, Alaska is pretty much void of good sparking Chert. I had some generous folks send me some samples of the chert in their area and some of it was excellent.
Most of my flints however come from scrap flakes of heat treated chert I bought to make arrow points with.
My favorite so far is the Keokuk chert from Oklahoma.

 

[54ball]

Have you tried knapping your own flints and harvesting flint from the wild?

Many here do so with great success apparently.

I've tried capturing wild flints. In my trap I use frizzens as bait.
No luck.
I guess the next step is strikers and files but I don't know if my little trap will hold the big game. :idunno:

 

[Davemuzz]

I've tried capturing wild flints. In my trap I use frizzens as bait.
No luck.

Well....you see it all depends upon your frizzen. If your using old worn out T\C frizzens.....those can be had by the thousands....and they all have the same scent. Good flints know that.....so they stay far, far......very far away!! :grin:

 

[M. De Land]

I wonder if the older TC frizzens can be shoe-ed/lined to stop the flint breakage?

 

[Rifleman1776]

I've tried capturing wild flints. In my trap I use frizzens as bait.
No luck.

I already posted this in another thread. Oh, well, no sin to do it twice.
I caught this one yesterday. Had to chop off it's head to make it stop kicking.
http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr329/Rifleman1776/flint trap.jpg

 

[SDSmlf]

Thought you would have used a flint axe to finish it off......

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I got so tired of smashing flints with my TC hawken, I originally thought it was the frizzen being way too soft. That was indeed part of it. It had a trough cut through the case hardening and the flint would strike right at that trough and stick, or break off the edge. I had an old wind up alarm clock and pulled out the clock spring. I cut a piece of it off, matched it to the size of the frizzen face, roughed up the outer curved side of the spring and then epoxied the spring to the frizzen, using a c-clamp to hold it fast for 24 hours, Never had a problem again. I did switch to English flints, but I think the thickness of the spring, combined with the better carbon steel of the spring metal made just enough change in lock geometry to make it a good sparker. My brother still hunts with that same gun and frizzen 40 years later.

 

[M. De Land]

Thanks for the reply as it confirmed a remedy I had cross my mind.

 

[Greenjoytj]

I’ve used TC flints in my Lyman GPR 54 since I got the rifle maybe 8-10 years ago they have always worked. I started with them because I liked the precisely ground shape. I have sharpened some by rubbing on a wet diamond particle coated sharpening surface. I have a bunch on real knapped flints from TOTW and someday I will try them. Most of the real knapped I have need to have a nasty big hump ground off the top so they’ll fit in the clamp more securely.

 

[Dave Orchard]

I have had good luck with black English flints that have a slightly "greasy" feel.
Amber French ones I have tried haven't worked as well for me in the past, but there are new sources of top quality French flints.

Frizzened has to kick up against the cock's down-stroke so the sharp flint "slices" shavings of steel off your properly-tempered frizzened.

Shattered flints may possibly be caused by them being worked from flint exposed to surface and having been frozen repeatedly during winter/hard frosts(?)

The only lock I have had personal experience with that w wasn't fussy about needing sharp, high quality flints is a MIQUELET, which might spark adequately with a chip of paving stone
Dave

 

[Dave Orchard]

Re. Smashed flints:
Just about any lock will work (sort of ;-) for percussion.
Imco(in my curmudgeonly opinion;-), the very best flintlock you can buy is barely adequate".
There are a few happy exceptions, like my Charleville, and a Miquelet replica, but you'll save time & aggravation if you spend the $s for a top-quality lock in the 1st place, and use good English flints in it.
Long ago I ran sawn flints from Gunther Stifter in my Bob Rller locked flingers, but the precisely sawn agate(?) struck frizzened in the same place each time and made frizzened surface look like a washboard as the 1st cut bounced the frizzened back and then as the frizzened spring shoved it back against the descending sawn flint, a 2nd divot got sliced out of the frizzened.
My frizzened had been hardened deeply enough that they still sparked well after I ground them even/removed the divots.
Using real flaked gun flints that don't strike in exactly the same place will increase frizzened life a great am mount before you need to replace or half-sole your worn frizzened.

Spend your $ on plain stock wood, go smoothbore instead of rifled, skip the facy gingerbread carving and inlays, but DO not "save" on your gunlock!
If you don't get the best flintlock available, you are storing up grief & aggravation.

Alternately, you need to learn to be your own "lock Doctor".
After reading all you can, spending $ for tools, locks, parts and several years you may (no guarantee)-: attain heights of "barely adequate"....
(Just get the best lock you can in the 1st-place!
Dave PS spell-check continues to make a fool out of me....you can imagine how great a flintlock mechanic I am ;-)

 

[MSW]

Zonie's advice is good, and you should heed it whenever possible... take the rifle (or, at minimum, the lock) and ask whoever sells you the flints to show you how to set it up. Each lock has its own peculiarities, or eccentricities, or whatever you want to call them... once you figure out how to make it work, you should get pretty consistent performance out of your T/C lock.

As regards the T/C 'flint' it is, as I am given to understand, a cut agate. There is said to be a German cut agate which works well, but i've yet to actually see one, so as nearly as I can tell, agates are pretty much good for throwing at passing politicians. I've used Track of the Wolf flints (I think Tom Fuller makes them) to good effect for many years. French Amber flints look cool, but don't spark any better (or any worse) in my experience … you pay extra for looking cool, and there's nothing wrong with that; they're your hard earned, God-entrusted and overtaxed dollars, so spend them as you see fit!

by way of 'bottom line,' don't blindly follow conventional wisdom, but try various tricks and see what works best for your particular system. I'd be happy with fifty strikes of a flint before I had to re- knap it, and there's no reason that a properly adjusted flintlock will misfire. Your results, of course, may vary.

It is possible that your T/C lock is simply FUBAR. In the unlikely event that this unfortunate turn of events has beset your rifle, do not despair. Track of the Wolf sells a replacement lock - here's a link:

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/759/1/LOCK-LR-03-F

this is, of course, an absolute last resort … you should be able to get the lock in your rifle to work with a little tinkering.

Good luck with your project, and

Make Good Smoke

 

[Felix the Cat]

I take my Bess to a game fair every year and man a "have a go" stall for the public. Although the gun laws in UK are fierce, a musket is classed as a shotgun and does not need to be used on a purpose built range.

I go through around 300 rounds over the weekend using prepared paper cartridges. The Bess is remarkably reliable, however my experience of flints is very variable. I sometimes get a flint that lasts 30 odd shots, others smash on three! Grrr, but that is what you get with natural materials! One factor which does not seem to have been covered here is the need for the leather wrap around the flint which acts as a bit of a shock absorber. This needs to be reasonably thick to be effective, and a good tip is to snip a notch out the back for the screw. You can apparently use lead sheet, but I have never had much success with this..

We used to be able to get genuine 18th Century flints in UK from a diving club on the south coast that got them from the wreck of the Earl of Abergavenny, an East Indiaman which sank in the 1790s. This source has dried up and we are back to modern knapped flints in UK. I still have some, but no longer use them. To be honest, although the old flints are better shaped, they are no less variable than modern ones...

 

[Gene L]

No flint where I live. I doubt our ancestors had the skills to knap a flint out of a rock. They were imported from England and France made by those who had the skills to do so.

 

[MSW]

ah, now we enter the leather vs. lead question of flint wrap. I have tried both, and in some locks, leather works better, and with others, it goes to lead and with some, it doesn't seem to make an appreciable difference. some will say that the additional mass (if you use lead wraps) will cause the lock to bash itself to nothingness, and that Chambers will not honor their warranty if a lead wrap is used. I have not confirmed this with the folks at Chambers. since your lock is now no longer warrantied by S&W, it's rather a moor point. I make leather wraps by smooshing a roundball flat in my bench vise, and then trimming it into a rectangle. fold it over the flint, and dry fire the lock a few times. retighten the cockscrew and there you go.

try things out and see what works best in your system.

Good luck with your project, and Make Good Smoke

 

[Felix the Cat]

No flint where I live. I doubt our ancestors had the skills to knap a flint out of a rock. They were imported from England and France made by those who had the skills to do so.

True flint is only found on chalk. It seems to be produced by calcined water running through channels in the rock and depositing material. The flint appears as nodules in the chalk and is either mined or found on beaches where the chalk has weathered away.

Flint has been mined in the South of England and Northern France since prehistoric times. It was widely used for tool making by prehistoric man. Because flint is produced by deposition it has a laminated structure which allows it to be worked in flakes. Gun flints are knapped by breaking off flakes from a lump. The flake is then split into strips at an angle to give the characteristic front and rear angles. The strips are then hived off into individual flints. English flint tends to be dark grey or black, whilst French flint is more brown and amber.

The traditional area for flint knapping in the UK is around Brandon in Suffolk. Flints were produced on a commercial scale until relatively recently, when there was still a market for them in Africa. I think there is only one guy left doing this commercially, and he has gone down the caveman/prepper/craft route and seems more interested in selling knapping courses than usable flints. He seems to be selling most of what he produces to tourists and museums. The prices are ridiculous and the quality has reduced..

 

[Gene L]

Someone in England (I think) is still producing gun flints. Since I have some, unless they're machine made...which I don't think they are. I thought flint was associated with limestone.

The majority of arrowheads found in my area are quartzite. Which I don't know if it's hard enough. Although I have seen sites in SC where chert chards were all over. I don't know if it was indigenous or the result of trade.

I also have read that "flint" is a general term...no rock is scientifically known as "flint". Is this true?

 

[M. De Land]

I wouldn't know a flint if it reached up and bit me so, it's probably not surprising that I haven't tried knapping one to make a "flint".

I've seen a lot of volcanic lava, quartz, granite, petrified wood and some "Apache tears" ( obsidian ). I recognize these.

I've also seen rocks and whole mountains plus my fireplace made out of sandstone.

I've also seen a whole bunch of red rocks, gray rocks, tan rocks, white rocks, black rocks and even some rocks with copper veins in them but I don't think any of these would make anything that would knap into something that would make a frizzen spark.

That's why I'm not a great believer in the old,

"You can just find flints all over the place.
Just reach down and grab some rocks to keep your flinter shooting. Flints are just laying around so you will never have to worry about having a flint for shooting your flintlock."

I suspect many of the people that say things like this don't know a flint from a piece of sandstone.

That's very true Jim, here in AK flint is hard to come by in nature as I have never seen or even heard of any deposit's locally. I have to buy it and have it shipped from the lower 48.

 

[Felix the Cat]

Flint is a form of quartzite chert and, as I said, is found in Chalk or limestone deposits..

Flints are very hard and were used to face the outside walls of the Napoleonic forts on the south coast of England as protection against cannon shot.

Here is a clip of a flint knapper from the early 30s. You can see the process I describe above..

 

[Rat]

Heating and bending the cock is easy to do. When I first got my Pedersoli Brown Bess kit, the cock was okay front to rear angle, but was actually listing, or bent to the right a bit. (listing to starboard!) So it was hitting the frizzen at a horizontal angle. Anyhow, easy to fix, and she sprarks great now. Not as fast as the Chambers on my Jeager, but I believe only two miss-fires in about 20 years. (one being in front of about 100 people at an Appleseed shoot, of course.)