picking up flint

[tom in nc]

How many on here pick up your own flint when you're out in the wild? My wife and I like to take our grandsons out to picnic areas nearby when the weather is nice and there is usually a stream that they can play in. I'd like to learn to recognize flint and be able to pick it up to try my hand at knapping it into useable pieces for my flintlock rifle, like my late grandfather did. I will be watching some Youtube videos I suppose, and carrying a file with me on the picnic trips.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Not all flint is created equal. In my area it crumbles before flaking. Not suitable for knapping. But about 75 miles south of me there is, reportedly, some great knapping flint. A few hundred miles NE of me in the St. Louis is same great white flint. But, yes, if it were worth the bother, I would pick up flint and try knapping.

 

[nkbj]

Picked up workable shapes on railroad tracks 45 years ago. Worked in the CVA kit.
Found some awesome sparkers around Marble Falls, TX.
Tried hunting for out croppings in the Flint Hills (Kansas) but didn't have any luck there. There's a place over in Ohio I want to check out some day.

 

[bubba.50]

When I first became interested in BP I thought it would be neat to ‘just pick up a rock’ to make your gun go ‘BANG’. So I picked up every piece of flint I found on the farm in southwest Virginia where I live. It was a pretty rare occasion to get one that sparked worth a fig.

 

[tenngun]

Never learned to knap, but I have picked up flint/chert hit it with a hammer and got chips I could use in a gun.

 

[Walkingeagle]

No flint in Alberta.
Sigh...
Walk

 

[Ames]

Not sure if I have any in Maine. Never looked. But at $2 each for bought flint , I'm okay with it.
Now, if you guys out west want to trade blueberries or lobstah for.................

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have used broken arrowheads just to see if they would work and they did quite well. This seemed to raise the hackles of some folk the last time I mentioned it. I had a sizable collection of artifacts that I gave my son and granddaughter. After we sorted through the buckets of unwashed field finds for the good stuff, I had hundreds of broken pieces left, many center sections just right for a a rifle flint.

When you hunt the same fields you always pick up the broken pieces to keep from spending time flipping them over should they resurface the next year after the field is plowed.

 

[yonderin]

No flint in Alberta.
Sigh...
Walk

There are some chart pits in the Pass. Haven't gotten around to checking it out.

Anybody have much experience using chert? I understand it can be used.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Anybody have much experience using chert?

Chert is flint. No difference except how it is deposited in the earth.

 

[Sean Gadhar]

Just Grabbed a few "Flints" while down in Texas. 3 are about tennis ball size. I have dreams of them working. . . . . though I have never knapped flint in my life so I'll likely bleed a lot and make a mess LOL

 

[rich pierce]

Look up “uwharrie rhyolite”. Knappable Rock in NC.

 

[oldarmy]

If I lived in northern Arkansas there is lots of black Arkansas novculite
Makes a great Flint
Cut some when I worked for the old norton Pike in northern nh

 

[steam1993]

Time to invest in a electric stone cutter , I have 2 flinters and need flints.

 

[Kansas Kid]

I collect and use chunks from creek beds. I wouldn’t call what I do knapping but instead I attack it with a large hammer and when a piece comes off that looks workable I may get a gun flint out of it. The stuff around here sparks very good and has put meat in the freezer.

 

[russellshaffer]

I did the same as Kansas. I bought a Tower type pistol from a pawn shop in the '60's and broke rocks with a hammer. It sparked plenty good enough to fire. I didn't know anything about it so I loaded with a capful of powder from the DuPont can. I have no idea of what was ahead of the powder, maybe something out of a shotgun shell. I expected 22 class recoil since it was an antique. It blew out of my hand and landed behind me on the first shot. WooHoo. My brothers quail hunted with it while I was in the Air Force but never managed to kill anything. Good times. I don't know the bore but it was close enough to 12 gauge to work.

 

[plmeek]

You guys aware that one of the more popular trade items the French and the English traded with the Indians were gun flints? Having made stone tools for eons, the Indians quickly realized the imported flints were superior to anything they could pick up and make on their own.

 

[Rifleman1776]

If I lived in northern Arkansas there is lots of black Arkansas novculite
Makes a great Flint
Cut some when I worked for the old norton Pike in northern nh

The novaculite deposits and mine are localized in the Hot Springs area which is almost 200 miles SW of where I am. Sparking success with purchased novaculite flints has been poor at best.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I live in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Enough said. If I find a good piece or nodule, they seem to work well.

 

[Kansas Kid]

My pile is getting low and it’s a good time of year to go looking . Small crow bar and a 2.5 pound hammer are my prospecting tools.