Flints

[Nav]

Seems like flints are out of stock or backordered almost everywhere. Does anyone knap/make their own? There is a ton of chert where I live. Almost every stream bed is full of it. It is a is sedimentary cryptocrystalline rock just like flint. The vast majority of stone age points and tools found on the Ozark Plateau are pressure flaked almost exactly like flint points, and when I was a Boyscout as a kid chert is what we made stone tools from. I'm wondering if chert will spark a frizzen like flint, or if maybe flint is harder since it forms in nodules? I would have no idea where to go looking for flint, but I think I might recognize it if I found some. Or, I might mistake it for chert.

Has anyone else noticed there aren't many flints for sale? I bought some on Ebay, which I'm not overly fond of...

 

[Banjoman]

I make my own and chert works good. Ain’t hard. I figured if a primitive man could do it, I could learn to do it also. The ones I make may not look the best but they work.

Go for it!

 

[BJHabermehl]

Rich Pierce used to make gunflints

Seems like flints are out of stock or backordered almost everywhere. Does anyone knap/make their own? There is a ton of chert where I live. Almost every stream bed is full of it. It is a is sedimentary cryptocrystalline rock just like flint. The vast majority of stone age points and tools found on the Ozark Plateau are pressure flaked almost exactly like flint points, and when I was a Boyscout as a kid chert is what we made stone tools from. I'm wondering if chert will spark a frizzen like flint, or if maybe flint is harder since it forms in nodules? I would have no idea where to go looking for flint, but I think I might recognize it if I found some. Or, I might mistake it for chert.

Has anyone else noticed there aren't many flints for sale? I bought some on Ebay, which I'm not overly fond of...

Rich Pearce used to make gunflints from Missouri flint. Probably the same stuff you are finding. BJH

 

[springfield art]

Track of the Wolf advertises flints by Tom Fuller...have you tried them? Muzzle-loaders.com has flints at $7.50 a piece! Are they now going to be like Caps??

 

[wiscoaster]

I had no problem at all recently getting flints of the correct size for my rifle from Track of the Wolf.

 

[Indy Durtdigger]

I've tinkered around with it, they work just fine so long as the material isn't too soft. Between glacial deposits and an inexhaustible supply of broken whatnots left from the natives to be found in my fields there is quite the selection of types to choose between. I keep an eye out for the black, gray, and a specific brown one and have been slowly filling a half gallon jar of suitable pieces to make flints out of when my supply of purchased ones runs out.

 

[Nav]

It depends on the size. The 7/8 ones are pretty hard to come by right now.

 

[WALT53]

It depends on the size. The 7/8 ones are pretty hard to come by right now.

You could call Loyalist arms in Nova Scotia a call they have ‘em .

 

[Robin Henderson]

I bought 2 dozen flints this past weekend from Log Cabin for $30/doz. Was told that unfortunately the next they got in would have a price increase. I didn't quite understand it but it has to do with the Brits limiting the mining of flint nodules from the chalk deposits.

 

[deerstalkert]

have never bought a flint. as soon as the cut on my left bird finger stops oozing i will get back to making some more.

 

[IanH]

No shortage here. I make them from anything from river gravel to surface/ledge mining to bull gravel to most recently buying Arkansas novaculite. It all knaps and it all makes sparks. Novaculite works better than anything I've ever tried, but river rock nodules, layered, laminar chunks, anything chertlike works fine. Don't heat treat it.

Pick up some rocks, start driving off thick flakes with at least one sharp edge and the slope a flint needs, trim them up on an anvil made from a big file cut in half and hammered into a stump. Hold them upside down on the anvil and chip the three edges square with the sharp one.

Try to make blades like these, or shorter.

This is a whole rock broken down, not a very good one for spalling due to lots of quartz inclusions, about half of the pieces you see made good finished flints.

Here is an example of all sorts of local riverbed chert I've used:

If you get some fine, pure flint or chert nodules with no inclusions, freeze cracking, or cracks from being tumbled for miles during floods, you can quarter and spall long blades that will get 2-3 flints each, but that kind of rock is hard to come by for free. I like the challenge of making good gunflints from junk an point knapper wouldn't even pick up off the ground for a closer look.

 

[Kansas Kid]

Looks better than the ones I hammer out.

 

[IanH]

Looks don't mean anything as long as they stay put, make sparks, and wear your frizzen properly. Unless you're Will Lord, who will destroy a five pound quarter of the finest English black flint you ever saw to get just a few, perfect blades. Flintkappers and guys like me would be begging for his crumbs if we could and do cry over what he throws away.

 

[R Ellis]

Seems like flints are out of stock or backordered almost everywhere. Does anyone knap/make their own? There is a ton of chert where I live. Almost every stream bed is full of it. It is a is sedimentary cryptocrystalline rock just like flint. The vast majority of stone age points and tools found on the Ozark Plateau are pressure flaked almost exactly like flint points, and when I was a Boyscout as a kid chert is what we made stone tools from. I'm wondering if chert will spark a frizzen like flint, or if maybe flint is harder since it forms in nodules? I would have no idea where to go looking for flint, but I think I might recognize it if I found some. Or, I might mistake it for chert.

Has anyone else noticed there aren't many flints for sale? I bought some on Ebay, which I'm not overly fond of...

International Military Antiques sell flints by the pound .I just checked and they are in stock for $30 a pound I got about 45 useable. in my last pound sometimes you get less and they are different sizes i just cut them on a wet tile saw it works great

 

[Gtrubicon]

International Military Antiques sell flints by the pound .I just checked and they are in stock for $30 a pound I got about 45 useable. in my last pound sometimes you get less and they are different sizes i just cut them on a wet tile saw it works great

I would love to know how you do this. I’m very new to flintlocks, I was a tile/granite contractor for 24 years. I have lots of diamond tooling and half a dozen tile saws.

 

[laagamer]

I had no problem at all recently getting flints of the correct size for my rifle from Track of the Wolf.

I just bought mine there as well. I love supporting TotW. They're awesome.

 

[Ohio Rusty]

I have a bunch of flint spalls already spalled from the nodules if anyone wants to make their own flints.
I can send you a nice handfull to try -- reasonably priced.
Ohio Rusty ><>

 

[Nav]

Wow. Those are nice! Not the rejects, but ready to trim.

 

[springfield art]

I bought 2 dozen flints this past weekend from Log Cabin for $30/doz. Was told that unfortunately the next they got in would have a price increase. I didn't quite understand it but it has to do with the Brits limiting the mining of flint nodules from the chalk deposits.

Whoo, boy, all we need is some conservationists halting harvesting of millions-years-old flint!

 

[smokepolehall]

Track of the Wolf advertises flints by Tom Fuller...have you tried them? Muzzle-loaders.com has flints at $7.50 a piece! Are they now going to be like Caps??

I don't think Tom still makes the flints. Maybe his under-study has the business now.