Picking Flash hole

[ApprenticeBuilder]

I do too. It is just a matter of good maintenance. 100% maintenance = 100% performance.

Every time, guaranteed performance.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Come come now gentlemen, what is all this ruckas about? I think some people are forgetting the whole beauty of flintlocks. Ya take some powder and some balls out back and just mess around untill you feel you've got it right. Whether that means picking the vent or spinning around in circles three times before every shot, who cares? I know I'm only new and all but I've been out twice and that was enough to know that picking my vent does the trick ON MY RIFLE. So it seems the answer is, go out and spend some time with your rifle. If you pay close attention she'll tell you what she needs.

I'm not saying ignore suggestions from people on here, I'm just saying make a list of them all and spend some quality shooting time figuring out what works best. Just remember to change one thing at a time.

 

[FPDoc]

I agree with your approach.. try things and have fun. Welcome to the forum. Sometimes I turn in a circle three times... sometimes I jump up and down and blow a dog whistle.. heck whatever seems to help. :grin: "Make Smoke"

 

[tg]

and in this corner....I think my method is as good or better than any mentioned, and I think I will keep it to myself!

 

[Dphar]

Dan:

The difference here is what I have already mentioned: In talking to older shooters of flintlocks, they learned to accept the slower ignition of a flintlock, with the priming powder covering the vent hole, the powder packed right up to the outside of the vent, and the slow ignition and obvious fuse effect when the gun did fire. They have accepted an occasional flash in the pan, as expected, and part of the " Charm?" of shooting a flintlock. They taught themselves to hold their sights on target through a long wait and follow through while the main charge finally burned and fired the ball out the barrel. They just never have known any other way.

Then here I come, once a " Young whippersnapper", and show them how to make that same gun go off as fast, and sometimes faster than a percussion gun, destroying the advantage they have over newer flintlock shooters with all the years spent learning to hold those sights on target through the long slow firing sequence, by teaching guys how to get the gun to go off so fast that the sights don't have a chance to move.

It has nothing to do with age nor does it mean that everyone who might find your posts at odds with their experience is shooting slow flintlocks.
It has to do with the impossibility of making a flint gun to fire as fast as a percussion through some minor manipulation of the main charge at the vent. Or that someone can SEE the main charge fire before the cock is fully down.
High speed photos of flintlocks firing the priming show either is IMPOSSIBLE. UNLESS you have a poorly designed percussion breech that always hang fires then its about as fast as a flint gun. I once had one that was very slow. ALWAYS produced a pop-bang as the cap fired then the ball cleared the barrel. HOWEVER, most good percussions are about as fast as a side hammer cartridge gun like an 1874 Sharps, at least by shooting, how electric timers would see it is something else. The actual ignition sequence of a percussion, from the time the cap fires until the charge exits the barrel is pretty quick. The fastest percussion I ever shot was built using the guts and hammer of a L&R "Manton" (#1700P) and a "Hawken" perc pistol breech from TOW. It had a fairly short hammer fall and the lock time was about as good as any "hammer" handgun I have ever shot.

Back to FLs, high speed photos show that the lag in the flint gun is in the ignition of the PRIMING. It takes a significant period of time to get the priming burning. It requires a slighter period of time for the priming to reach a heat level that will ignite the main charge through the vent.
Liners.
I have made quite a number of liners that are made from #10-32 stainless set screws. Counterbored to allow them to fill with FFFG or FFG powder. They are bored deep enough to place the main charge within .040 of the pan. Vent of .055"-.065" I honestly cannot see a difference in this and a White Lightning, electronic timers might, I can't. The WL BTW is simply a remake of the liner widely used by the English in FLs for decades and is excellent.
As I stated previous I have played around with a lot of vent and lock designs over the past 40 years or so. I don't like slow igntion. Slow is defined as a repro Brown Bess with a standard drilled vent. I have only shot one original flintlock. It was a 1814 Common Rifle IIRC.
It was PAINFULLY slow. But the military locks were not always the best from the speed standpoint and this appeared to be the problem. It had a replacement frizzen but otherwise appeared original. So, coupled with this, owning at least one pretty poor flinter in the 60s, a Bess musketoon repro for a time I know "slow". Do I rememebr how fast every rifle I ever owned was, no. Just a few standouts for slow. Now if you were used to shooting a Bess or something like the Common Rifle and you suddenly started shooting something like my 54 or the 16 bore "Manton" it might be possible to think it was as fast as a percussion. But they are not.

Now can lock modification increase lock speed? Sure. I seemingly cut the lock time of an L&R "900DT Late English lock" by 1/2 by one very simple mod. Perhaps your rifle fell into the slow category and you found a work around to make it more like a good flintlock. It is almost impossible to buy a lock that works to its best as it comes from the box. Flabby cast springs are the most common problem. Bad cock jaw angles are also common.

Way back in the mid-60s someone made a test lock with adjustments for almost everything, replaceable frizzen curves and moveable angles etc., etc. to try to determine what made a reliable and fast lock. Wrote it up in Muzzle Blasts but they had no timers. To assume that the people who conducted these tests or others who built and shot flintlocks simply put up with slow fuse type ignition until someone of your vastly superior intellect came along to show us *how* is frankly a gross insult. You seem to think we were just to dumb to know flintlocks were as fast as percussions.
The Manton's, Nock and a host of other pretty damned smart gunsmiths in England spent their entire lives speeding up flintlocks to make wing shooting easier. They changed EVERYTHING about the lock, the breech and the vent.
Look at an American longrifle from 1775 vs a 1775 first quality British gun vs a first quality Manton recessed breech gun in the final years of flint. The wing shooters gun had to be as fast as possible and absolutely reliable.
Yet when the percussion system was perfected the English wing shooters switched almost as one BECAUSE THE LOCK TIME WAS MUCH LESS. The English rifle shooters, I have read, actually staid with flint longer than the shotgunners did.
So you suddenly find out you can tune a lock, make a cavity in the main charge and make the flint gun as fast as a percussion? You think nobody else ever did this?? Picking a loaded gun, unless you use a reamer type "pick", simply results in packed, ground powder at the vent. You can avoid this by putting a pick in BEFORE loading. BUT any *cavity* will simply FILL IN if the rifle is, jarred, carrried very far or transported. So how can this be magic? In fact a loaded flint gun will actually leak powder out the vent if vibrated as in vehicle driven on a rough road. Sometimes a significant amount, 10-20 grains. Please test this if you doubt me.
You make claims that are simply not possible in my experience. Yet your only answer is I am too dumb to know better. You seem to think you are the only one who has played with vent designs, lock changes, picking touch holes or priming levels in the pan. Or a lock with no frizzen spring. This is *not* the case.
These are a few things I consider to be fact. If a shooters rifle is slower with a 3/4 to full pan of powder than a 1/2 or less pan it is surely a mechanical problem built in or he simply thinks its faster. I typically use more priming for hunting than just shooting or matches. I can say I have never seen a difference in the "lock time" with a little powder or a lot. But I don't shoot guns with problems. I don't make them that way in the first place and fix them if they are not right otherwise.
Full pans of powder are always more reliable with no speed penalty I can see from shooting. If the vent is covered with powder it will slow ignition. But this does not mean a full pan is slow with a higher vent. Its the top layer that lights that set off the charge in most cases. The extra powder makes for a longer flash and less chance of a flash in the pan.
Years ago the hot tip was to wipe the pan with a damp finger, prime then dump the powder out leaving just what would stick to the dampness. All this ever did for me was make reliable rifles into reliable flashers. But the people who figured this out swore by it. I know a guy who screwed up the liner in a very nice, very accurate, very reliable rifle I once owned because it would not fire primed in this manner.
Vents with a deep exterior cone promote flashes in the pan if not picked/cleaned. Thus I don't do this anymore. Fouling builds up in the "cone" and seems to insulate the powder in the vent. Brushing with a stiff brush or perhaps picking is needed.

When you get independent timed testing done that proves your method is as fast as a percussion let me know. Same for the main charge firing before the cock stops moving.

Dan

 

:rotf: Wise guy!!! :rotf:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I am not saying that my gun is firing a ball out the barrel before the cock finishes its fall; I have only said that the main charge is igniting before the cock finishes its fall. My offer still stands. I can show you, what you don't want to listen to. I am not the only person to notice this. It has been the subject of too much comment, and gawking at the range when I shoot for it to be a figment of my, or anyone else's imagination. My brother has seen the same reaction from other shooters when he is shooting his flintlocks. Other members here have sent me PMs telling me how fast their flintlocks shoot, how surprised they were to find out that what I recommended works, and how other shooters at their clubs have reacted to hearing how fast their flintlocks fire.

I don't doubt your experiences, nor do I doubt your veracity. We just have a failure to communicate here.

As for the hole in the main charge filling in, I don't see that as a problem unless you leave a feather or some other projectile in the barrel when loading the gun, and then remove it before priming.That action is likely to cause powder to fall into the " Hole left behind ".

My liner does not permit FFg powder to fall out of the barrel. My liner does not fill back up. The reason I run the pick in through the vent is to move the powder aside, twisting the pick to shovel it around, and LEAVE a hole in the powder.

Yes, I am sure if I hammered the gun on the ground, or knocked it hard, some powder would come loose, and fill in the hole. But that same abuse will also move the powder in my flash pan. When I do have such a jarring, I stop, re-pick the vent, then reposition the priming powder in the pan, and then hold the rifle upright and prepare to shoot.

At a range I am not inclined to prime until I am on the firing line, facing my target, and the range is clear and the line open by the Range officer. In the field, I am carefully raising my gun as the game approaches, or as I approach the game. NO jarring takes place. I don't even try to mount my gun to my shoulder fast!

 

[Flint311]

Just some observations: I don't pick the vent, but may be due to the powder I use (elephant). It's dirty and when I pick before loading, it knocks stuff loose to, then gets pushed to the vent when ramming the ball in. (Don't pick to far?) I'll use something else when my supply runs out :grin: Shoot some, then run a wet patch down the barrel. Blow down the barrel (I know) and see if something suddenly plugs it, does mine. Some pieces of crud are larger than others and will block the vent. If I just load and shoot, the powder gets past the crud, then almost self-primes when ramming the ball home.

If I can take a quality lock (Siler and L&R) and get it to fire, anyone can! :thumbsup: Don't think it makes a difference on the maker/brand, as long as it throws good spark and goes where it should! Speed depends on other factors. But, then again, every rifle is different and it's up to the shooter to do his/her part.

 

[Runner]

Hey Dan, if you don't like Paul, take it elsewhere.
As has already been said. Paul challenges people to test his ideas, and he never said he discovered these things by himself. I answered that challenge and I know what he said was 100 percent accurate for my gun and a couple of others I know of. If you don't like his way, do it your way already. I will use my gun in the manner that it will plainly demonstrate to anyone who is open minded enough to check is the best for that gun. In the manner best for my gun. My cheap lock fires like one of the big boys now, but it only does that one way. Paul saved me a lot of hassle way back when while three guys just like you were beating him around the head and shoulders with the exact same arguments on another site. I am thankful for what he told me.
We already did this dance elsewhere. Set your digital camera to the longest exposure possible or to manual exposure if you have it. Set the camera up on a tripod pointing towards the gun focused on the lock. Turn out all lights. Trip the camera and then fire the lock as soon after as you can. Shoot leather and lead. Shoot bevel up and bevel down. You will be able to see exactly what happens. When you find the combo that consistantly produces the largest number of hot dancing sparks in the pan, you know what to use with your gun. It isn't rocket science. It just takes a few minutes time and a mind open enough to make the effort.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

I have pretty much stayed on the sidelines here as I don't have a dog in the fight. I have collected evidence over the last 20 odd years that I feel can add to this.

In 1991 Gary Brumfield encouraged me to write an article for JHAT in which I timed a custom-tuned large Siler. I used high school physics interface and infrared gates to separate the mechanical time from total ignition time. Mechanical time used up roughly 1/3 of the total time. 2/3 of the time occured after the cock came to rest, sparks were in the pan, and we're waiting for the pan to flash. These trials were an average of 20 trials. In raw numbers mechanical time was .0151 seconds and total time was .0377 IIRC.

I have filmed more than 30 flintlocks (some highly tuned, some stock, and one original Manton) at 5000 frames /second. None of these locks ignited the pan before the cock came to rest. The fastest of the bunch, Manton, ignited about the same time the frizzen returned.

If I were to doubt any reports here, it would NOT be that careful tuning can make a lock faster or that careful tuning can make a barrel ignite faster. I do doubt the human eye and ear to detect such quick events. In 20+ years of timing locks on I cannot detect with either ear or eye differences of .01 second in ignition time. I doubt that human senses see a jet coming from a flint vent and tell if it occurs before the cock comes to rest.

I make these comments respectfully but believing that it would take a camera like we had at Friendship to see these events. I do have a film of a rifle done at 15,000 frames/sec attempting to do this but was disappointed because it was quite under exposed.

I do believe in attending to the details when makeing a flintlock perform. If for you that means using a pick that's fine. I personally like a pipe cleaner used before reloading instead of a pick after loading - but that's just me.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[Runner]

Did you ever do the same tests with a caplock that used a vented bolster so that the same ignition comparisons could be made as far as time?

 

[paulvallandigham]

I will agree with Larry to the extent of observing that the shooter cannot usually tell how fast his prime and main charge is igniting, other than realizing that it is going off so fast that his front sight moves much less against his target. By the time the shooter feels the cock hitting the hammerstop, the shot is already gone. My comments are based on repeated statements of other experienced flintlock shooters watching my gun when it is fired. I do know, from holding the lock out of the gun, and priming it, that the sparks are thrown into the priming powder in time to begin ignition before the cock hits bottom. The other guys are the ones who say they see smoke coming out of the vent before the cock stops its forward motion. Its close, one way or another. And its fast enough to get guys looking every time I have the gun at the range. I don't believe I feel the recoil of the gun before the cock stops, so that may be where we aren't communicating the best. It is fun to have the percussion shooters demand that the club not have a separate match for flintlocks, and then beat them at their own match!

 

Do you have a movie of it, Paul? That would be fun to see.

 

[paulvallandigham]

NO, cooner, I don't. As I stated before, even finding high speed camera equipment is difficult to do( I tried for another research project 15 or so years ago). It is very frustrating to not be able to put this down in either still or film so that others can see. The best I have been able to do is describe the tuning and loading process to get there. I know half a dozen people who have tuned their locks per my articles, and report the same results. One is my brother in Florida, And even Phil Quaglino was tickled to see what we did to the locks to make them shoot faster. He apparently has been doing much the same thing for years, but never advertised the fact. He just wins matches.

 

Well, shucks!

 

[Larry Pletcher]

Did you ever do the same tests with a caplock that used a vented bolster so that the same ignition comparisons could be made as far as time?

Runner,
I have not done well trying to time a percussion. My fixture does not work well with perc because there is no drumm and nipple arrangement. I tried once to time a percussion lock on a CVA mountain rifle because it had a cleanout screw that I could remove and aim a photo cell at the opening. The numbers were better than flint but I lost the data on an earlier computer. The other problem was that I was faced with a different set of variables with percussion and I could not stand behind my results as valid. One of these variables was that on the gun, the percussion lock had to be fired using the triggers. I removed the trigger guard and hand held the solenoid against the set trigger. This left me with too many things I wanted to control but couldn't. (When doing flintlocks the solenoid fires against the sear rather than a set trigger.)

Anyway I never published the percussion data because I didn't have confidence in it.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[OLD CROW]

HAVE HUNTED(STILL DO) WITH center fire, rim fire and shotgun. (REVOLVER WHEN I LIVED STATESIDE) JUST STARTED BLACK POWDER RIFLE THIS SPRING. USUAL TROUBLES. LOCAL BLACKPOWDER CLUB PRESIDENT HELPED ME OUT. OPEN VENT TO 5/64th.and cone inside,Good English flints, 3Fin pan as well as main charge (.50 cal. kentucky rifle) use vent pick. I NOW HAVE NO MORE MISS FIRES. RIFLE IS A PLEASURE TO USE. I HAD NO PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS ABOUT MY FLINTER BUT WAS READY TO SELL IT. ALL HAS CHANGED BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE MODIFACTIONS. AT 60 plus years, I HAVE MORE SHOOTING FUN THAN EVER. HAPPY NEW YEAR OLD CROW :thumbsup:

 

[MrMarine79]

and in this corner....I think my method is as good or better than any mentioned, and I think I will keep it to myself!

:rotf: :youcrazy: :rotf: :blah: :grin:

 

[Runner]

Cool.
I suspect that the difference between a flinter working well and a caplock is a lot smaller than most folks think.
If you use a digital camera and a long exposure like you would use shooting fireworks, a lot of the mystery disappears. If I use a leather wrap and do the test, I get waves of sparks off the frizzen as the cock/flint bounces it's way down the frizzen. These can easily be seen as waves of sparks where the flint hits or digs into the frizzen repeatedly on the way down. When you change to lead, the bouncing behavior stops. The number of sparks is multiplied and there is none of the "wave" behavior seen in the leather shots. As the cock digs into the frizzen face and bounces using leather, not only are fewer sparks created, but they are scattered going in all directions. Some go in the pan, but not many. When lead is used, there is no bounce and many times the sparks the leather wrapped flint produced are deposited in the pan. When leather is used, the sparks are yellow and die out rapidly. When lead is used, they are hotter and some of them dance and split in the pan. It doesn't take a fancy set up to verify this.
All it takes is a digital with a long exposure or fireworks mode.
If everyone in this discussion would do this simple digital camera experiment, then we could discuss this subject a lot easier. It pretty much eliminates speculation and belief from the equation and replaces it with a good record of the truth.
Not sure that there is such an easy way to test the pick question. My gun fires faster if I pick after it is loaded and the powder inside the vent is loose. There are so many variables to loading the powder, getting it to settle into the breech, loading pressure, and such that it would be hard to create a test to see which way actually produced the fastest ignition.
My vent is in the bottom of a screwdriver slot. I should cone the outside to give the flash better access to the vent. I would, but the gun already goes off every shot if I do my job. I should do it anyway because I know it needs doing.
Go slow and Paul is not an enemy!

 

If I use a leather wrap and do the test,........... When lead is used, they are hotter and some of them dance and split in the pan.

That's a good description of the results you observed. However, it should not be assumed (by anyone) that this test will reveal similar results in all locks. There is no doubt in my mind that the results you got will be similar in many locks. There also is no doubt in my mind that some locks will exhibit little, if any change when tested. That's why, with all of these 'tricks', it's important to do your own testing. There's no shortage of people on this forum that will believe anything posted as gospel and a cure all for all locks/guns without checking for themselves and there are no shortage of those that don't believe anything posted and refuse to test for themselves. Those too subborn to listen and/or too lazy to do their own testing will forever be relegated to mediocrity.

If everyone in this discussion would do this simple digital camera experiment, then we could discuss this subject a lot easier. It pretty much eliminates speculation and belief from the equation and replaces it with a good record of the truth.

True, but aint never going to happen and even if it did, then everyone would be argueing over their differing results. There's too many people that think that a flintlock is a flintlock is a flintlock. Just like not everybody likes onions, not every flintlock responds to trick A,B or C.

My gun fires faster if I pick after it is loaded and the powder inside the vent is loose.

Yes, that's the whole point towards picking the vent. Your basically doing with a pick, what Nocks patent breech was designed to do. The faster ignition achieved with Nocks patent breech is attained through the use af the anti-chamber. The anti-chamber makes it impossible to compress the powder next the the touch hole ensureing that it is always loose thus speeding ignition. These psuedo 'patent breeches' used today, while lacking an anti-chamber, use a sub-bore size powder chamber to achieve a similar effect. No matter how hard you ram the ball home, the shoulder, created when the bore is stepped down to chamber size, prevents the powder in the chamber from being compressed. This is why flat breeched guns will often benefit from picking (to loosen a compressed load) and a 'patent breech' (which is a misnomer)in a TC or Lyamn often does not benefit.