Knapping

[paulvallandigham]

I weighed my current flint wrap on my .50 cal. rifle, and it comes in at about 30 grains, which is a substantially small part of the original 170 grain round ball I began with. The lead's weight is insignificant, although it does seem to put mass out at the end of the arc of the cock as it strikes the frizzen, driving the flint's edge into the steel, and scraping off more bits of metal, than when leather is used. The leather acts like a shock absorber, bouncing back from the frizzen after that first blow, where the lead wrap does not. It is that shock absorber effect that loads the edge with steel bits, and makes people need to knapp the flint every 4 or 5 shots. With lead, and a Properly Angled Flint, each strike not only scrapes out steel to throw as hot sparks into the pan, but it breaks off the edge of the flint, eliminating the need for knapping with separate tools. The face of the frizzen is scraped and not gouged, leaving ruts like a washboard, and the sparks are white hot, instead of a dull orange, and bounce up and down in the pan twice or more times, as opposed to once when you use leather to wrap your flints.

The only time I now " knapp " my flints, is when they are first mounted in the cock, new, and, if on some firing, an occlusion or void appears, making a ragged edge( rare, but its happened more than once) , or an edge with a large hole in the center of it( one time). I adjust the frizzen using my index finger to hold it up so the lower edge on the face of the frizzen will be struck by the falling flint. A check of the cockscrew, and a test to see where the edge is now throwing sparks in the pan, and I am back shooting.