Well, to add my 2 cents worth, shooting a flinter isn't "rocket surgery" as the ad says on TV. First thing I would do, in your case, is flush the pellets down the toilet and forget about them forever. Get some 2F or 3F to go along with your 4F priming powder. Use about 50 grains of the 2 or 3 F down the barrel. Don't worry about getting an accurate load at this point, just learn how to get the gun to go off, and without flinching. Use a loose patch and ball combo, along with a liquid lube. There are a number of recipes on the Forum you can look up. I use my Cat Whiz stuff and can shoot thirty shots without swabbing the barrel. Accuracy remains good. I also don't like swabbing between shots all the time because of the risk of pushing gunk down the barrel into the area of the touch hole. After every shot, I wet a finger with my tongue and wipe the underside of the flint, the frizzen, and the pan. This takes about 5 seconds. I then give them a wipe with the piece of rag I have hanging from my bag. Last step before priming is to run my pick into the touch hole and make sure it is completely open. I do this routine every shot and about the only time I have a misfire is if the flint dulls. On very rare occasions, about 1 in 200 or more shots, I get a flash in the pan because.....who knows. It's a flinter. As to the amount of powder in the pan, I fill it to slightly over half full, maybe two thirds full, but keep it away from the touch hole. You don't need it mounded up but at the same time you need enough to do the job. I have seen a number of people, new shooters, who tried to follow the "use very little priming powder" theory, and got carried away, not using enough. The flash has to be big enough to make it through the hole and only the part of the flash on the left side of the priming charge is near that opening. A small amount of prime may make and impressive flash but it is going straight up and not doing the job. Start out with at least 2/3 full and after you get reliability, start dropping back until you have problems. Then increase it until it is reliable. Again, dump the pellets and write them off to part of the cost of the learning curve. If you have a nipple gun, use them there, but keep them away from the flinter. More bother than they are worth. If you insist on using them, along with the kicker charge of priming powder, remember to NOT dump the kicker charge straight from the priming device. Use a measure, just like priming from the horn or flask. Keep us posted on your progress. :m2c:
