Is this enough spark?

[sawyer04]

I have seen a lot less spark set the charge off. The arch on the strike and placement of sparks look to be a plenty. I am wondering about the vent though, can't really tell where it is.

 

[Cruzatte]

Throw that agate man made cut flint away and put a real black English or French amber flint in the jaws. Also wrap it in leather not whatever that green stuff is. That’s your problem. I’ve never seen a cut flint throw near as many sparks as real flint. With that said the few sparks that cut flint is throwing will still set off a powder charge. Those man made flints dull really fast so don’t expect many more sparks from it after a few shots.

This is your answer.

 

[White Oak]

I couldn't agree more on the cut flints. High priced junk that I believe TC even sent with their new rifles. I know they sold them. Try some quality flints and I would suggest 3/4 X 7/8. I know 3/4 X 3/4 is the recommended flint for your lock but the closer you can get the flint to the frizzen without touching it and mounted with the bevel down, the higher you will hit on the frizzen. The 7/8 long flints seem to work best for me although I have to punch a hole in my flint leathers to clear the jaw screw. The reason I say this is I notice you have the old style TC lock. About the highest it will strike is about 1/3 up on the frizzen maybe slightly higher. I would guess you also have the old style frizzen which was case hardened. If you get good flints and still have trouble getting spark, the improved TC frizzens are available at a source I will leave below. They are jet black rather than case hardened. I have 2 TC flintlocks . I am still shooting the case hardened frizzen on one and a new style frizzen on the other. I have spare improved frizzens here for the day the original dies. It may be more productive to replace the frizzen than continuing to try to harden the other which is only a temporary fix.

The Gun Works Muzzleloading Emporium
Springfield Or.
541-741-4118

I believe they sell for about $25. If you choose to go this route, be certain to stress that you want the new style frizzen as they may have both. They purchased the remaining TC stock from S&W and may have both old and new.
Another source that sells Lyman frizzens machined to fit TC locks is:

RMC Ox-Yoke
Grove City,Pa
724-264- 4171
Their price was $29 when I bought mine.

Don't get discouraged with your old style lock. Both my Hawken and Renegade, both in 54, are old style locks. I believe the new style frizzen has been an improvement. The improved cocks are also available from the Gun Works and I purchased one for each rifle. There again , you must specify new style. Just thought I would get them while they were available. I have yet to put them on as I have few complaints about my locks. Someday, just to experiment, I will change one out and see how much difference they make.
The guys above said it best. Get some quality flints as your first attempt.

Good luck,
Ed

 

[Sam squanch]

Get a percussion and forget about it…

 

[Britsmoothy]

That's not bad for a pencil erasure.
Try a piece of flint

 

[MSW]

I think that WhiteOak got it in one. Get a proper flint, and (i suspect) you may see very much improved performance. When everything is in proper alignment, the flint should strike the frizzen about two thirds of the way up (from the toe to the tip). What you have in your vid is way too low. Also, whatever you're using as a leather is probably letting the flint mush around as it strikes the frizzen... this is bad ... what makes the "sparks" are actually tiny bits of steel being shaved off of the surface of the frizzen... the friction makes them glow white hot and this is what ignites the powder in your pan and makes the whole system go "bang."

Get some proper flint leather. I tried flattening a ball and using lead as a flint wrap, but it didn't work well in my Thompson Center (although i have seen it work well in other locks). The whole lead vs. leather thing will start enough hostility to initiate a good bar fight, so just check it out and do what works best for your particular system.

I get my flints from Track of the Wolf. I prefer English flints on all but one of my rifles. You can go with French Amber flints but, aside from the color, they work pretty much the same in my experience, so you're paying more for the "cool guy" amber color. If, however, you think it's worth the extra money, the by all means go for it.

They're YOUR hard earned, over taxed, God- entrusted dollars. Spend them as you best se fit and don't listen to "everyone else."

Tinkering with these guns is (i think) a good part of their charm.... keep with it and you will be rewarded. Make Good Smoke

 

[andy52]

Looks like it should ignite the pan. I bet you’d do better with an English flint.

+1

 

[Eric Krewson]

Nobody mention it but you have the old style cock which is less effective than the new style which has a better striking angle to the frizzen. You can get the new style from The Gun Works Emporium, they bought all the TC sidelock gun parts when Smith and Wesson took over. TC did a recall on the old style which had a tendency to break, I sent my lock in for a new style cock at the time.

Here is the difference;

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Nobody mention it but you have the old style cock which is less effective than the new style which has a better striking angle to the frizzen. You can get the new style from The Gun Works Emporium, they bought all the TC sidelock gun parts when Smith and Wesson took over. TC did a recall on the old style which had a tendency to break, I sent my lock in for a new style cock at the time.

Here is the difference;
View attachment 89828

Good info. I've never been happy with my GPR. Can I order the cock without sending the lock?

 

[Grenadier1758]

@glw, there are two people here who have presented the same recommended solutions that I would recommend. @Eric Krewson and @White Oak both have recognized that you have the old style hammer and frizzen. The problem is that the old style hammer and frizzen strike too low on the face of the frizzen and there is more bashing than scraping. That cut agate "flint" doesn't help a lot either. You need to get that flint to strike the frizzen face higher. If you have enough threads in the jaw screw, add another layer of leather under the flint. Do make the cut in your leather wrap to allow more room to adjust the flint.

Get the replacement "New" frizzen and "New" hammer. While some (but really only a few) have had acceptable results with the cut agate flint, better results will come from using the black English or French amber flints. The longer length flint will work best when the leather wrap has the cut out at the fold of the wrap. @Loyalist Dave has shown a pattern to cut the wrap. I cut the wrap so the flint can rest against the jaw screw and I have more room for adjustment in the jaws of the hammer.

 

[Rawhide67]

Looks like every TC flintlock I've seen. Which isn't a Tremendous amont, but they don't seem to be good spark producers.

I re hardened mine the way an.old timer told me to do it. Pack it in a soup can with leather scraps, throw it in a hot fire for about 2 hrs, cool it quickly, clean and it's ready. It helped . Not as much as getting the updated frozen from muzzleloading emporium.

 

[White Oak]

One thing to consider is the frizzen must be of high carbon material. If it has a low carbon content ,you can harden it all you want and never get good spark. Thus the casenite which produces a thin, perhaps .002-.004 thick striking surface on the frizzen which once worn away once again results in little to no spark. Strikers for flint and steel fire starters are high carbon. They are hardened and you don't find casenite on them. Lots of old farm implements were made using high carbon steel and are sought by blacksmiths in my area making strikers.
Both of my TC locks through decent spark. The one using the new style frizzen does better than the original and when the original wears through I have a replacement for it. I have both the replacement frizzens and cocks available. Someday I will try the new style cocks. I am not experiencing the flint bashing issue and get decent flint life nor do I have a sparking issue. If it aint broke don't fix it.
For those that are I would recommend replacing both the cock and frizzen.
Take care,
Ed

 

[JCKelly]

Metallurgist unfamiliar with cut vs knapped flint, &c
But any degree of case depth requires time. Once thru with Kasenit & you're lucky to get a o.oo1" depth of hard case. OK for a while, but when it wears through --What? Me, I would hard face that frizzen, say with a piece cut from an old (wood) hand saw, or a cheap wood saw circular blade. Soft solder to your frizzen & you shouldn't draw its temper.
By the way, I assume you have no idea from what grade of steel your frizzen was originally cast. If it should be something hardenable, the the "neck" of the frizzen, that relatively thin piece going from lower jaw down to neck, has also hardened. So one day while shooting the whole top half of the frizzen may just fly away. Have seen it.
You might want to learn somethin, just something, about heat treating steel before taking a torch to some gun part or other.
Best I know are those out-of-print English books by Kit Ravenshear. Get whatever ones you can find, he was a knowlegable gunmaker. For heat treat I would guess search for "Metalwork - Part 1 Cleaning, Hardening, Ageing Colouring, Kit Ravenshear" 1st Ed 1993 Looking for this, I just found one on barrels &c at abebooks.com. The bloody shipping cost from Great Britain was far more than the book itself. Yeah, I do like Ravenshear's work

 

[Bergmann]

This seems like not enough sparks to me in this slo-mo. I hardened the frizzen with Casenite once but only one cycle of heat/quench.

No video here either! Be aware. sometimes the foundries which cast the parts don't use the right steel for a frizzen! I have 3 "Chambers"

Does this video work better?

Plenty of sparks and right where they are supposed to go. I agree with others on here about the cut flint! Also; in half cock the flint should be almost touching the face of the frizzen for the fastest lock time. The farther the flint must travel before it starts making spartks the longer the lock time! Also; if that was my gun, I'd dump the factory lock (T/C?) and replace it with an RPL lock if one is available that fits! Better metal, better springs, better quality all around.

 

[White Oak]

The biggest obstacle with the L & R lock for Thompson Centers is the difficulty in installation that may be encountered.
Eric Krewson has responded several times about his experience with the L & R lock. I know Erics abilities far surpass mine and he was able to make the new lock work. I would not have had the success he did. They are not drop in locks. Hopefully he might chime in as anyone thinking of attempting this should read his info.

 

[Bergmann]

The biggest obstacle with the L & R lock for Thompson Centers is the difficulty in installation that may be encountered.
Eric Krewson has responded several times about his experience with the L & R lock. I know Erics abilities far surpass mine and he was able to make the new lock work. I would not have had the success he did. They are not drop in locks. Hopefully he might chime in as anyone thinking of attempting this should read his info.

Always a little bit of smithing to do! But worth it (IMO) to be rid of that coil mainspring! I put an L&R Bailles flinter on a gun I just finished. It drops sparks past my knees!

 

[Eric Krewson]

It was a challenge installing an L&R lock in TC, for others sometimes is goes well sometimes it doesn't.

I had to move the barrel back to line up the touch hole, cut off a piece of the under rib, relocate the lock bolt, grind the back of the breech to accommodate the new lock bolt location and shim up the place in the lock mortis that was too big for the L&R lock. I also took a ton of wood out of the lock inlet to accommodate the new lock internals.

The L&R lock bolt goes in a blind hole in the bridal, that was an interesting job getting the new hole to hit that blind fixture perfectly. You can see in the picture below how far I had to move the lock bolt off center from the original TC bolt after I plugged the old hole with a dowel.

The Lock mortis gap I had to shim.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

Didn't work for me.

Dunno what system you are running, but I have never seen an attachment similar to the OPs. I clicked on it and noticed it downloaded to my mac. Once it downloads you have to open the download separately.

 

[Bergmann]

It was a challenge installing an L&R lock in TC, for others sometimes is goes well sometimes it doesn't.

I had to move the barrel back to line up the touch hole, cut off a piece of the under rib, relocate the lock bolt, grind the back of the breech to accommodate the new lock bolt location and shim up the place in the lock mortis that was too big for the L&R lock. I also took a ton of wood out of the lock inlet to accommodate the new lock internals.

The L&R lock bolt goes in a blind hole in the bridal, that was an interesting job getting the new hole to hit that blind fixture perfectly. You can see in the picture below how far I had to move the lock bolt off center from the original TC bolt after I plugged the old hole with a dowel.

View attachment 89980

The Lock mortis gap I had to shim.

View attachment 89981

I don't remember it being that much work. As I recall, all I had to do was deepen the lock mortise here and there and do some scraping around the edge of the mortise! Different gun, maybe? The lock screw issue I solved by drilling the screw hole from the rear through the plate and then reinstalling the lock and drilling through from the front! It was then a simple matter to drill through the stock and then fill in the hole in the plate and hide it (almost but not quite) from view!

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have worked on a number of TCs and found they are not the cookie cutter guns that one would expect, they can vary. Others have stated they ran into problems with the instillation similar to what I found.

I put the lock bolt into the bridal like it was supposed to go, no shortcuts, no extra hole in the lock plate.

It all came out well in the end but I wouldn't want to do it again.