Pedersoli Yeager

[vulture]

I have a Pedersoli Jeager rifle, which I truely love, but the lock is a mess, the geometry of the cock to the pan is wrong to begin with, and the frizzen doesn't produce a lot of spark, thus I get missfires often. I know there are better products out there in the form of kits, I've looked at them and really didn't want to add another project, and although this isn't a true Jeager design, it is exactly what I wanted in design, so, my question is simple, is there a fix for this lock, replacement or work I should do on it?

 

[Stophel]

Exactly HOW is the geometry wrong? Are your flints sharp? At what angle does the flint strike the frizzen?

Do you have a photograph of your lock so we can see how the flint is striking the frizzen?

 

[vulture]

Sorry, no photo, but after posting I've looked at this a bit more and I want to try a coupld of things, like a new flint, the one I have is sharp, and when at halfcock the flint is right up against the frizzen, almost touching it, the angle of of contact with the frizzen seems good as the cock comes down, but the shower of sparks are very weak and many of them are hitting the front edge of the pan and having to bounce back into the priming. The fint is installed with the bevel up, at least I think this is the way they are discribed, the bevel on the flint is pointing up so the straight flat edge is down, hope that explains this. The flint is hitting the frizzen about 1/3 down on it's serfice.

 

[vulture]

Sorry, it seems to be working somewhat better, takes a very, very sharp flint, not like my Centermark trade rifle that produces a good shower of sparks with a flint not near as sharp as the Pedersoli, would this be due to one frizzen being harder than the other?

 

[Jaegermeister]

I'm not sure but mine was fast as lightening. They are very nice rifles.

 

[Stophel]

Sorry, no photo, but after posting I've looked at this a bit more and I want to try a coupld of things, like a new flint, the one I have is sharp, and when at halfcock the flint is right up against the frizzen, almost touching it, the angle of of contact with the frizzen seems good as the cock comes down, but the shower of sparks are very weak and many of them are hitting the front edge of the pan and having to bounce back into the priming. The fint is installed with the bevel up, at least I think this is the way they are discribed, the bevel on the flint is pointing up so the straight flat edge is down, hope that explains this. The flint is hitting the frizzen about 1/3 down on it's serfice.

Your "geometry" actually sounds just right. Sometimes a lock simply will not like a particular flint, for inexplicable reasons. You should have a bunch to choose from! :grin: The mainspring may or may not have anything to do with it. Although you actually don't need a whole lot of power to make good sparks, it still could be too weak, I don't know. :idunno: I doubt the hardness of the frizzen is the problem, but it is barely possible. How badly does the frizzen score and gouge up the frizzen face? If everything is right, the flint will just leave scrape marks, with very little "gouging" where the flint first strikes it. If the frizzen is heavily gouged at first contact, then the flint is hitting it at too square an angle probably, or the frizzen may not be hard enough (again, not likely, but possible). :hmm:

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Sorry, no photo, but after posting I've looked at this a bit more and I want to try a coupld of things, like a new flint, the one I have is sharp, and when at halfcock the flint is right up against the frizzen, almost touching it, the angle of of contact with the frizzen seems good as the cock comes down, but the shower of sparks are very weak and many of them are hitting the front edge of the pan and having to bounce back into the priming. The fint is installed with the bevel up, at least I think this is the way they are discribed, the bevel on the flint is pointing up so the straight flat edge is down, hope that explains this. The flint is hitting the frizzen about 1/3 down on it's serfice.

Hey Vulture,

If you flint at half-cock is almost resting against the frizzen, you will very shortly start experiencing the same frustration to wrote about to begin with. If the frizzen is almost touching the frizzen, it will hammer the flint into it instead of slicing along it and will crush the edge of your flint.

To check out what angle your flint is actually striking the frizzen, pull the cock back all the way and depress the trigger while lowering the cock slowly until the the flint touches the frizzen and look at the angle it is hitting. Ideally it should hit somewhere between 55° and 60°. That will give you the perfect slicing motion and shower the pan with sparks.

If it hits the frizzen at a lower angle (presuming horizontal is 0° and straight down is 90°) it will crush the edge of the flint into the frizzen instead of slicing along the face of it. You may get as many as 5 or 6 shots out of it before it stops sparking. If you put it in with too much of an angle, the top instead of the edge of the flint will hit against the frizzen and knock a big chunk off the bottom of the flint.

So that 55° to 60° angle is KEY to getting good performance and long life out of your flint.

Move it forward or move it back; flip it bevel up or bevel down; do whatever you need to do to get that angle of the flint on the frizzen. If you need to move it farther back and the leather is butting up against the back. Take the leather out; fold it over; and cut a V notch out of the middle of it. When you re-install the flint, that V notch will allow you to move it back just a little further because it allows the leather to go around the cock screw instead of butting up against it.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[vulture]

Okay, I've been playing around with the depth of the flint into the cock jaws and the sharpness, re-knapped the flint, and the bevel position, up and down and I am now getting better sparks than before, thanks for the help, I've been spoiled with my other three flintlocks, they don't seem to be as particular as this one. I also think I would like to try a wider flint in this lock, the one that came with it is a bit narrow in my opinion, have some ordered in different widths so will be able to switch them around and find the best fit. Now if I can just get my foot healed up so I can take this out and give it a work out I'll be very happy. Again I know this is not a correct design for a Jeager, but actually reminds me more of the English sporting rifles I have seen pictures of, but it is just what I want to take on the 2016 muzzleloader deer hunt here in Utah, just need to get it working reliably and sighted in, then I'll be ready to sit quietly under some nice aspen tree and hope nothing comes by too shoot. I'm not a big hunter, don't like killing any longer but a close friend of mine really wants me to go with him, we are about the same age, served in Nam about the same time, have a lot in common, besides that I don't want to let him down. If something does walk by me then I'll shoot it and the wife and I will make use of it, but it's not a wasted trip if I don't get anything. Thanks again, Stew.

 

[Flash Pan Dan]

My friend bought a Pedersoli Jaeger from Dixie Gun Works. He bought a flintlock and it wouldn’t shoot. He had me look at it and yes the geometry is off. The cock hits too low on the frizzen. At rest the crook in the cock is straddling the fence on the pan. And the flint almost touches the pan.
So I told him to put a wooden block under the flint in the jaws. This made the flint strike higher on the frizzen. And it is still working well after a year.

 

[valen]

I just got a Pedersoli Jager this year. Mine is used and I don't know if the previous owner had it worked on or not, but I've had no trouble generating sparks from a rifle sized flint.

 

[thecapgunkid]

Vulture, I think you might just have the luck of the draw working against you.

I bought their Jager Hunter because I wanted to learn some technique by re-finishing it. It is on Gunbroker unfired now because I want to flip it and move to something else.

The lock always sparked, but initially it seemed a little weak, which sounds like yours. After sucking up every video I could find, I gradually filed the outside of both the mainspring and frizzen spring to lighten the throw and that pretty much solved the problem. I got the flint to scrape rather than hit.

Try other approaches first, such as those seen here, before jumping into the file work, tho. I asked an experienced riflemaker about the lock before I had snapped it more than four or five times, so I had a clear idea of what I wanted to try in what order. The tortoise approach is better than the hare.

Since it is a production gun, it'll have out of box problems because nobody is standing there loving the product they make. On the other hand a lot of Pedersoli Guns have provided a lot of satisfaction to a lot of living historians.

Everybody gonna have an opinion.

You can see the gun on Gunbroker, and what I enjoyed doing to it was stripping off the factory finish, doing some carving and re-finishing it to get it right for my eye. Whisker and hand rub the oil you use because the Walnut needs a lot of TLC once the plastic looking finish is replaced.

Oh yeah...that plastic patchbox lid toe was so atrocious I refinished it with ivory piano keys. I dunno why they did that because the patchbox is attractive except for that black plastic

I've never had a Pedersoli that did not work, and my advice for you is to proceed slowly, trying one thing at a time, until you get it right.

There are a ton of videos and references to your problem out there.

Your biggest issue with the gun might prove to be the fact that they have a concave breech plug. When I ran a patch, the barrel proved slick and I noticed a ring around the bottom face of the patch where it should have been universally blackened. Rather than tear the gun apart, I crafted a jag to fit the concave recess.

If it don't sell, I'll be perfectly happy to shoot it.

The guys in the other forum jumped all over me when I associated the words Pedersoli and Jaeger, so I did not try to Jaegerize it. One guy mentioned the Bivens Buttplate, so I kept my styling to early Pennsylvania/transitional/conjectural.

Lastly, the frizzen on the gun out-of-box was snapped in two when I first saw it. When I contacted them, they turned out to be the fastest vendor I ever had respond, so don't hesitate to e-mail them. Dixie Gunworks and VTI are also among your parts source, and it comforting to know I won't have any issues getting parts.

At the end of the day I'd advise you to finish working your problem with baby steps, because the gun is doubtless so well put together that it'll make a good shooter. Good luck.

 

[vulture]

I've had time to work with this rifle and have it working much better. The solutions were so very simple I should have gone down that path before complaining about it. I love the looks and fit of the rifle, fit to me, and look forward to actually shooting it, once my foot is healed. The first thing I did was round up a new flint that fit it well, that helped with the sparking, and then I dug out my priming horn with ffff grain powder and that works like a charm. I haven't had a chance to load and shoot it, but the way it's working now I don't anticipate any real difficulties. Thanks to every one that posted replies, it's great to have a place to go and find help when one is having trouble.