Leather or lead for holding a flint

[Artie Peltier]

A question for the room. My rifle came factory factory fitted with leather as a flint holder in the jaws. After some shooting it seems to need tightening and adjusting. I've heard that lead strips are used and rated better than leather. Haven't had much luck looking for them at the on line shops that a lot of the members recommend. Any and all information is welcome and appreciated. Thanks Art

 

[bpd303]

I make my lead wraps by flattening round balls on an anvil then cutting to shape with shears. As far as which is better you will get as many differing opinions as there are members here.

 

[Ken Cormier]

My smoothbore likes a lead wrap. My rifle likes a leather wrap it is a large Siler. Go figure

 

[bpd303]

Generally speaking the smaller (lighter) locks like leather and the larger (heavier) locks like lead. But that's just my experience.

 

[Claude Mathis]

Here's a few of the many threads on this topic.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/283185/ http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/281930 http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/268223 http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/238390

 

[ohio ramrod]

Ford or Chevy?. This is one topic that has people on both sides with each side believing they have the best! :idunno: :hmm:

 

[wattlebuster]

I tried lead a time or 2 and could see no advantage. Besides I dont think the lock makers favor lead much. Im stickin with leather :thumbsup:

 

[Zonie]

Lead flint wraps also get looser when they are first used.

After the lead or leather gets adjusted a few times as it crushes down, it conforms to the shape of the flint and then seldom requires additional tightening.

 

[yelnif]

Has anyone ever considered that the additional weight of a lead wrap flint might put unnecessary stress/ fatigue on the lock? Just thought it may be why manufactures don't recommend lead.

 

[Wes/Tex]

In rifle locks I'd say that's the primary consideration. With beefier musket locks it's probably not as big a concern. Some militaries used lead flint sraps and teh French went so far as to stamp them from sheet lead with small side tabs to wrap around the flint sides to keep the flint from moving around if the screw loosened a bit.

 

[bpd303]

Has anyone ever considered that the additional weight of a lead wrap flint might put unnecessary stress/ fatigue on the lock? Just thought it may be why manufactures don't recommend lead.

My Pedresoli Cabela's Blue Ridge Frontier flintlock .54 caliber came from the factory with a lead wrap.

 

[Zonie]

I don't have any data to support this but there is only so much energy in the mainspring and a given tumblers interface with the spring will accelerate it to some speed depending on how massive the moving parts are.

When the sear releases the tumbler, that total amount of mainspring energy will drive the ****, flint and flint wrap forward, imparting its energy to those pieces.

A law of Physics says the total force is equal to the mass times the acceleration.
The acceleration results in a velocity when the flint hits the frizzen.
The velocity is then turned into a deceleration giving the energy back in the form of work.

If the ****, flint and flint wrap is light in mass (weight) it will be accelerated to a high velocity. The high velocity and light mass will be turned back into a given amount of energy.

Driven by the same spring/tumbler, if the ****, flint and flint wrap is heavier (more mass), it will be accelerated to a slightly lower velocity.
Again, the lower velocity times the increased mass will result in the same amount of energy.

In both cases, the amount of energy imparted to the ****, flint and flint wrap and given up by the ****, flint and flint wrap will be the same.

Someone can argue with the laws of modern man but the laws of Physics are fixed.

Uh-oh. I made some more heads ache.
Bad Zonie! :nono: Bad Zonie. :nono:

OK. I'll go to my room.
Wait. I'm already in my room.

 

[Billnpatti]

My late friend Paul Vallendigham was a very experienced asnd knowledgable man on many subjects, not the least of which were muzzleloading rifles, both flint and percussion. This is what he had to say on the subject:

"4. Wrap your flints with lead, not leather. Leather tends to act as a shock absorber, and the flint will rebound or bounce off the face of the frizzen just at the time it is cutting into the steel and starting to shear off bits of steel at the high temperature required to ignite the priming powder below. Instead, when the flint rebounds, it tears bits of steel off that are then caught on the edge of the flint. The second repeat hit will produce a few sparks that may ignite the prime.
Within a few shots there will be usually so much steel clogging the edge of the flint that it will not throw a spark from the frizzen into the pan. Misfire! Then you will see the shooter take out his knife, or a hammer, or some other device, and begin pounding on the front edge of the flint. He has to knock off enough of the edge to make a new one, free of the bits of steel that are clogging the edge. That takes at least 20 shots out of a flint, takes time, leads to flinching, and a general distrust and dislike of flintlocks in general. Finally the shooter buys another muzzleloader that uses percussion caps or shotgun primers for ignition! And all because he wrapped the flint in a leather shock absorber instead of lead.
Lead does not give, or bounce, and it doesn't let a flint bounce when it hits the frizzen. Lead holds the flint firmly in the jaws of the ****, and provides weight to drive the flint into the frizzen and down in a scraping action to cut and throw very hot steel bits into the priming pan. If the lock is tuned properly, the angle of the **** to the frizzen will be correct and the flint will not only scrape steel from the frizzen in one continuous stroke, but will be self-knapping. That is, it will make a new edge every time the gun is fired. There will be no need to knap the flint, as it will not clog its edge with steel.
It takes a few shots for a flint to "set up" in lead, unlike a leather wrap, so you have to initially check the tension on your **** screw about every 5 shots, but it will hold the flint firmly once the lead forms to the smooth surfaces of the flint. About every 30 shots you will need to check the flint to see where it is throwing the sparks. You may have to move it forward in the ****, and use a piece of twig behind the lead wrap to keep the flint wedged in the forward position. Aren't you glad that Mother Nature provides us with twigs virtually everywhere?"

I must add one caveat and that is that one of the better lock manufacturers will void his warranty if you use lead rather than leather. I don't know why but, if I were to attempt a guess, I'd guess that he is afraid of the added momentum breaking the ****. Personally, I have never seen such a thing happen and I have both used lead and been around many many people in my 40+ years of shooting muzzleloaders who use lead and I have never seen any negative effects from using it.

 

[bpd303]

No headache here. What I do know is the Blue Ridge sparks like the 4th of July and never fails to ignite the prime.

 

[MSW]

ah ha ... you are not, per chance, an agent provocateur? come here among these good people to sow the seeds of confusion and dissent?

your questions has and will, I am certain, continue to keep otherwise perfectly respectable and normal people at each others throats for years to come. it is not new: there are references to this choice going back at least a century or more.

while I start with lead preferentially, I make it a practice to see which a particular gun seems to prefer, and I use that which works best for that particular gun. in the guns which seem to go either way, i'll stick with lead.

Mr Pletch did an excellent slow motion video study on this ... if you can find it, it's well worth the watch...

whichever you decide, make good smoke!

 

[Larry Pletcher]

MSU mentioned this testing 3 minutes before I finished.

This topic comes up fairly often, and has folks liking both methods. Some time back I used photography to see if there was a difference in spark production. Below is the link with the photos and my conclusion:

Lead/Leather

The placement of the photos on the page is not to my liking and must be repaired. The photos are numbered, so you can compare the trials of both types for yourself.

And last:

Paul and I had some disagreements about flint theory, and this was one of those times. Our discussion was friendly, and I appreciate Paul's ability to put his argument forward in a professional manner. I did have the advantage of some slow motion digital video that Paul had not seen. In 80+ slow motion videos of flint ignition we saw no evidence of flint edges bouncing. With Paul at peace and unable to defend his position, I choose not to go further with this.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[dikman]

Thanks for posting that link, Pletch. Pretty hard for anyone to argue a case either way when faced with such clear evidence.

Yes, Zonie, you made my brains hurt! Theoretically, if using a lead wrap it will take longer to accelerate it, as you say, but the inertia will be greater when it hits the frizzen (due to the increased mass) so should give a more "solid" scrape with less energy being devoted to rebound.

Theoretically. In the real world, however, I'm with MSW - you find which one works better with that particular rifle. There is no overall "right" or "wrong", as Pletch has so elegantly demonstrated.

 

[Wes/Tex]

With Paul at peace and unable to defend his position, I choose not to go further with this.

Regards,
Pletch

Thank you sir, you are a gentleman. :thumbsup:
I too had the privilege of meeting him and we went round on a few things but he seemed to win more than myself. I finally tried a few variations of the flint wrap and found that if I took a .454" ball and hammered it fairly thin with my trusty ball-peen and trimmed it to fit the jaws...low and behold, it worked best. I called him up and confessed my sinful ways and got a good hearted chuckle. Miss him.

 

[MSW]

OK - off topic, but ...

I had great respect for Paul ... his arguments were always well thought through and consistently devoid of the hyperbole and vitriol so common in 'modern discourse.' (I would suspect that he was, in the courtroom, a most formidable adversary.)

It was he who encouraged me to give lead a try, and I would have been a blind follower of leather were it not for his encouragement.

May he always hit the X-ring.

 

[stuartg]

Maybe I missed it, but where do you guys buy your leather to secure your flints? Also, does a certain thickness bode better than others?