igniton lock time

[doulos]

Im pretty ignorant about flintlocks. I am curious about the lock time difference between a caplock and a flintlock. how much slower is the flinter?

 

[jtmattison]

If your flintlock is tuned properly and you do your part to keep everything set up properly you should see no real difference in ignition time. The flintlock is slower but at least with mine it is not noticeable enough to make a difference.

HD

 

[Rifleball36]

If it is tuned right it is just as fast as the caplock, or so close you can't tell the differance.

 

[MikeC]

I don't care what anyone says, there is a difference regardless of how well tuned it is, and if your used to shooting caplocks you will notice the difference.

That being said they are much more fun to shoot and the difference is nothing that can't be overcome with practice.

 

[cowpoke1955]

You're right! There is a difference. I have a Blue Ridge flinter that is faster than any percussion :rotf: .

 

[MikeC]

No offense, but I find that extremely hard to believe. :youcrazy:

The mechanics and physics just make it impossible. Unless their is something wrong with your caplocks.

 

I agree with you -- my Blue Ridge is scary fast. Maybe its that beer bottle shaped prime pan? Way faster than my GRP.

 

[Zonie]

As I recall, a test using ultra-high speed photography recorded the speed of a Flintlock at about .07 seconds (7 hundredths), a Caplock was about .01 (one hundredth) seconds and a modern centerfire was about .004 seconds.

Although the shooter can sort of sense the difference, all of these are really faster than a human can discern.

These numbers came from an article in MuzzleBlasts, but I'm too lazy to dig thru all of my copies at the moment to say which issue. :redface:

zonie

 

[Larry Pletcher]

I may have written one or more of the articles you mention, however I did not write about caplocks. That was another writer.

All flintlocks are not alike. A well built large Siler that I used for many different testing sessions averaged .0388 seconds. The fastest flint I timed was an origional Joseph Manton owned by the late Lynton McKensie. It averaged .0277 seconds. Most flintlocks fall in the range from .0400 to .0600 seconds. It takes careful tuning to get a flint to break .0400 sec.

Percussion (side)locks that I have messed with hit a range from .0200 to .0250. Percussion are faster, but as others have said, our human senses cannot tell the difference. I have not timed a mule ear percussion, but would speculate that it would be among the faster percussions.

I have a large Siler coming my way that may be the fastest reproduction lock I've ever have the pleasure of timing. I'll report back.


Regards,
Pletch

 

[Ridge]

A good flintlock is fast. So fast that you can't discern the difference.

A bad flintlock is painfully slow.

Of course, I had a CVA caplock once that you could pull the trigger before you shouldered the rifle so I guess it works both ways.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

A good flintlock is fast. So fast that you can't discern the difference.

A bad flintlock is painfully slow.

No disagreement here. I do believe that some of the "slow" can be attributed to vent holes that are too small, too high, too low, etc. A poorly designed vent hole at least does nothing to help a lock with poor geometry.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[sniper68]

Here's a camera video (crapy quality)I took last spring. This what a working flintlock should look like, as far as ignition goes. :v
Link