My flints don't last long. Help!

I have a .54 cal. gun with a L&R English or Hawken flintlock (according to a pic in the Dixie catalog). A flint lasts about 10 shots then gives out. I have tried french flints, english flints, cut agate and cut arkansas stone and they all act the same. The edge of the flint becomes flat and a little ragged. The frizzen has horizontal gouges where the flint striks it. I get an orange yellow spark that seems to pop and jump in the pan when the flint is new but starts to degrade after five to seven shots. Cut flints will only work if installed with the bevel down. The frizzen is so hard that a sharpened needle file won't scratch it and the teeth slide right over it.

I know this topic has been covered peripherally on a few strings and I have sort of reached the conclusion that the cock is striking the frizzen at the wrong angle. Could someone post a photo of a known good lock with the flint just touching the frizzen so that I can get an idea of what a proper angle should be? I am getting to the point of attempting to bend the cock to a better angle. A photo of the flat part of a used but servicable frizzen would be useful as well. If someone has another idea, that would be useful too. Any comments on how many shots a flint should last, with and without sharpening?

 

[Mike Brooks]

I've used those locks twice, never again. :shake: I had the same results with both of them that you have had. I bent the cocks, but had no better results. I believe they are a hopeless case. :boohoo:

 

[Dave K]

You may try paking the frizzen in sand and placing it in the oven at around 350-370

 

[Donny]

Get a Jim Chambers lock. ::

 

[TANSTAAFL]

A simple try, use a shorter flint. I have found this often allows the flint to impart a scraping action on the frizzen on the downward arc, rather than battering the frizzen square on.

On some locks, I had to ground a groove in back of the flint to obtain jaw screw clearance for shortening flint.

 

[Cpl.Parker]

I have limited knowledge and have had the same problem with a flintlock. I asked a knowledgable friend and he said it was probably that my frizzen spring was to stiff. Most of the hammer's force was used just to overcome the frizzen spring and not to producing spark. As I said I am no expert. Just a couple of pennies I has rattling around.

Kevin

 

[jdixon]

Before you try to re-design your lock by bending the hammer or messing with frizzen hardness, be sure you have tried everything with regards to you flint.
You are correct, flint striking the frizzen head on will tear up you edge in a hurry. Flipping the flint over will significantly change the angle of attack on the frizzen, give that a try.
Check to see where you flint edge ends up at the end of the hammer's travel. Is is hitting the bottom of the pan? This will obviously tear your edge down. Another problem, is a flint that stops with its edge directly in front of the vent hole. Many believe that the jet of hot gas from the vent is strong enough to blow away portions of your flint (this theory has some skeptics however). Set your flint position with the hammer in half-cock and the frizzen closed. Pull the flint forward so that it is touching and lined up up with the frizzen face, then back it up just slightly, anywhere from the thickness of your patch to probably no more than 3/32" depending on your lock. Finally, use a fresh leather with each new rock and tighten that sucker down hard to hold it in place. A loose flint will get torn up faster than a tight one. Re-tighten after two or three shots, it will loosen up a bit, then re-check every 7-10 after that.
L&R makes a good lock. Though I have never owned the design you say you have, I have had some similar and they have worked just fine, once I figured them out. There are two schools of thought out there, limited lock tuning and those who re-design every lock they ever purchased. I tend to fall on the side of limited lock turning. Most of the problems have been engineered out of these better commercially built locks, and I include L&R's in that catagory. I would try everything else first and then take the lock to someone who has been a flinter for a long time and get a second opinion before I would start messing with hardness and hammer angles.

 

[roundball]

Before you try to re-design your lock by bending the hammer or messing with frizzen hardness, be sure you have tried everything with regards to you flint.
You are correct, flint striking the frizzen head on will tear up you edge in a hurry. Flipping the flint over will significantly change the angle of attack on the frizzen, give that a try.
Check to see where you flint edge ends up at the end of the hammer's travel. Is is hitting the bottom of the pan? This will obviously tear your edge down. Another problem, is a flint that stops with its edge directly in front of the vent hole. Many believe that the jet of hot gas from the vent is strong enough to blow away portions of your flint (this theory has some skeptics however). Set your flint position with the hammer in half-cock and the frizzen closed. Pull the flint forward so that it is touching and lined up up with the frizzen face, then back it up just slightly, anywhere from the thickness of your patch to probably no more than 3/32" depending on your lock. Finally, use a fresh leather with each new rock and tighten that sucker down hard to hold it in place. A loose flint will get torn up faster than a tight one. Re-tighten after two or three shots, it will loosen up a bit, then re-check every 7-10 after that.

:thumbsup:

 

[ol vern]

:agree: JR done nailed it!

 

[robin du bois]

I'm not sure I understand the problem here. I have three guns, two built by Allen Martin, all of which carry Chamber's locks and none of which will shoot reliably after 10 or so shots. Thus a small tool and the flint hammer. A few light taps along the leading edge and I

 

[Dave K]

With a Tom Fuller flint I "usually" get somewhere around 35-50 shots out of my Chamber's lock,before knapping. My L&R would only get about 6-10 shots, until I had the frizzen softened a little as I posted above, and now it gets about 30-40 shots, before knapping. :results:

 

[Davecoughlin]

Never met a flinter, regardless of manufacturer, that didn't require practice, fiddling around and generally figuring out. Bottom line is practice with the placement and size of the flint will help to extend flint life.

The groves in the frizzen can be sanded out with a sander and the 350 degree oven trick will answer any questions about hardness. Once you have the frizzen back in shape the proper flint will keep it so!

Good luck.

Jester

 

[AZ-Robert]

I have three guns... none of which will shoot reliably after 10 or so shots. ... It is supposed to work like this, isn

 

The groves in the frizzen can be sanded out with a sander and the 350 degree oven trick will answer any questions about hardness. Once you have the frizzen back in shape the proper flint will keep it so!

Good luck.

Jester

What is the 350 degree oven trick and how deep does the hardened part of the frizzen go? If I sand out the grooves, won't I be removing all the hardened metal?

 

[Davecoughlin]

Trigger,

Modern frizzens, from reliable manufacturers (like L&R), are hard all the way through.

You can carefully sand out the groves to leave a nice smooth face, being careful to remove just enough material and to not overheat the steel. The smooth face will not eat up the flints like it is now. A shorter flint will help stop new grooves from forming.

The 350 degree oven trick is outlined by Dave K (above). It will reharden steel to the degree required for proper sparking. You probably don't need to do it, but it will give you peace of mind!

Jester

 

[Blivetmaker]

The way I understood it, the oven procedure doesn't harden a frizzen. Rather it softens it slightly. If you heat steel
until it glows and toss it into a bucket of water, it "locks up" with a very hard brittle structure. The japanese would cake the back of sword blades with clay, heat them up and quench them with only the edge metal exposed directly to water. Because the main body of the sword cooled significantly slower than the edge, it remained springy while the edge became hardened and retained sharpness.
The fun part for us rock crushers is to get a good balance between the cutter (flint) and the cuttee (frizzen). If the frizzen's too hard, any degradation of the flint's edge will result in misfires. The flint needs to be razor sharp to get anything out of file-hard steel. If it's too soft, the larger hunks of metal dug out will have too much mass to be heated to burning point by the act of being ripped out of the frizzen proper.
I can get around 40-60 shots out of a Fuller without retouching it. The flint is sharp to start with but after 20 or so you'd have to be ultra-careless to cut yourself with it. At 50-60 it's dull and doesn't throw sparks that split into two or three smaller "poppers". Retouching gets another 30 or so.
My frizzen seems to be fairly well balanced hardnesswise for what it's supposed to do.
The first sparks, cut by a sharp flint sparkle and even pop into smaller pieces. Later it slows to a good pan-lighting
shower. Towards the end I get a few good sparks but nothing I'd trust a competion or a buck with.
I hope this helps. :thumbsup:

 

[BLAHMAN]

I think that lock has a roller on the frizzen toe.

I wonder if the frizzen spring may be so stiff, that the frizzen has a difficult time rolling over as the flint strikes it.

Every now and then, I reduce the frizzen spring (simple file work will do) so there isn't as much tension.

If the hammer is striking the frizzen and there is great resisitance placed on the frizzen via the spring, by reducing the tension you may allow the flint to scrape, rather than smash the frizzen.

 

[Blivetmaker]

If the frizzen spring has a roller, you should carefully inspect how the roller and frizzen toe interact. On my Pedersoli LePage, the frizzen toe was poorly formed (kinda square) and provided a huge initial resistance. I rounded the toe very slightly and it did wonders for flint life.