Hang fire question

[Tanker]

I have been doing some shooting lately. I have noticed some slow response in my TC PA Hunter carbine and some FTF. I have got pretty good at holding steady until the rifle fires. That is at a target not a deer. I am sure when I have a deer in front of me I will mess it up. I read a few of the posts here and I will be checking my touch hole tonight. It is original so I may need to drill it out a little. My question is I am using clear shot powder in the barrel. It's at least 15 years old. I use goex bp for the pan that is the same age. Will that cause ignition issues?

 

[sb 54 cal.]

Yes it will need real black powder or use duplex load with about 10 grain of real black first.

 

[Tanker]

What's a duplex load?

 

[biliff]

A duplex load in this instance refers to dropping about 10gr real BP down the barrel before loading the substitute powder.

If you have access to real BP, it would just be easier to use that for pan and main charge rather than dealing with the substitutes, especially one that is out of production, sugar based and apparently rather old.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

What's a duplex load?

Duplex load would be like 10-grains of real black powdah down in the breech (to be ignitied by the priming charge) with the balance of the load charge above it being one of those ...phew, phew .... 'synthetic' powdahs ...

Duplex loads have their place in BP cartridge shooting, but I'd advise that the OP using nothing but real BP in their flintlock.

 

[Tanker]

Thanks. I understand completely. I will switch over to the real stuff. When I bought the rifle new many many years ago. Clear shot was the new cool thing. I bought a few cans and have had them since.

 

[Crewdawg445]

Buy the real stuff, absolutely nothing is comparable to real black, hands down.

You could also enlarge your touch hole a wee bit, but real black with probably solve your issue with certainty.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

The Goex in the pan will be fine. Black Powder won't lose potency with time. When I got my first flintlock rifle, I was trying to use some Pyrodex that I had used in a percussion rifle with it. Couldn't get it to light off no matter what because those substitute powders have a much higher flash point.

Auto-ignition point of Goex black powder is approx. 464°. Auto ignition point of Pyrodex powder is 740° (granules).

I then pulled out the glass jar that I had packed away about 4-oz. or so of black powder in. I'd purchased a can of that back in about 1970 and this was the remnants of that can. In 2004 when I pulled it out and put it in the pan, it fired right off. Used it both down in the pan and down the barrel for the next loads and worked just great. So, after about 33-years of storage, it still worked every bit as well as it had when I first bought it.

So you absolutely want to be using Black Powder in your flintlock. Night and day better reliability.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
Dan

 

[don hepler]

The TC's that I have, are equipped with a screw in liner for the touch hole. The early liners, had a screw driver slot, but later one's had a hex, in the liner, that could be easily removed with an allen or hex wrench. The later one's have a deeper recess and well help in faster ignition.

However, finding the later hex wrench liners, might be difficult to find. I haven't looked lately.

Also, use real black.

 

[Zonie]

Actually, I'm surprised you only had some hang fires.

The few times I messed up and loaded a synthetic black powder (new Pyrodex) I had to prime the pan 2 to 3 times to get it to fire.

About the time I started really grumbling I figured out that I had mistakenly used the wrong powder flask. (I have several and this flask had been filled with Pyrodex for my percussion guns).

As was suggested, if you want to burn up the synthetic powder, dump 5-10 grains (by volume) of real black powder down the bore and then load the remainder of the powder charge with the synthetic.

The real black powder at the bottom of the load will ignite fast, like it should and it will ignite the synthetic stuff.

 

[Tanker]

Thanks for all the info. I have a can of the real stuff. I will switch over. I will go to the range this week and work up a load. The synthetic stuff I will hold for my double 58cal. Seems to shoot fine with it but it is a percussion.

 

[Tanker]

I have been reading on some old posts that TC had a issue with their hammers and replaced a bunch of them. I looked up a photo and a description of what the old and new hammers look like and I have the old one. Could this also be the problem? From what I read the old one had poor sparking. I have only ever shot 2 different flintlock. One was a tradition Wal Mart special and it throws crazy amounts of spark. So I'm not sure if I know what's good for sparking.

 

[Tanker]

I finally got to the range today. I tried the real BP before I drilled out the flash hole. I am glad I did. With the real BP it fires almost instantly. I shot a decent amount to see if I was going to have any issues and I didn't. It did change how much powder I use. Which I suspected it would. The synthetic stuff was 85 grains gave me the best grouping now 80 grains work the best. I had 5 shots at 30yds that could be covered by a silver dollar. So I am happy with it. I did develop a issue with my son's BP rifle but that is for another post. Thanks for the help.

 

[Zonie]

I'm glad to hear you got things working.

That makes shooting these flintlocks a lot more fun. :grin:

 

[mr.flintlock]

Before you do anything mechanical to the rifle, such as enlarging the touch hole, Get yourself a can of Goex fffg and load your main charge with it and you will see a drastic difference in ignition speed. BP substitutes do not work well in flintlocks.