Pinnacle Powder and Flintlocks

[montanadan]

Warning Low Tech Test- for ignition purposes ONLY. Custom Flintlock cal:50,GM barrell 1:66,Rice triggers,Jim Chambers Lock.This was a custom built flinter,the builder is not important. The shooter has been shooting nothing but flints for the last 20 years,all his rifles are flints and custom built. Pinnacle 3fg only was used,2fg is a little to coarse. Test one prime pan in it's 3fg granulation,very poor ignition and very slow(almost a hang fire). Now to do it the way Goex said to prime the pan, using your fingers,gently rub powder,to duplicate Goex 4fg. Prime pan,ignition was instant, every bit as fast as a caplock. We did this 5 times in a row without wiping pan,frizzen, or adjusting the flint.All five times ignition was instant,Tom Fuller flints were used. This powder does not produce the grey hard cake reisdue like APP does, more like a real light white film(very light) wipes right off. Loaded with 60grns,3fg Pinnacle,prime the pan(using the Goex method). Shot five shots with this load,no adjustments or wiping,ignition was instant. The oginal flint still being used, no knapping(sp). The wind was blowing at least 40mph,this is Wyo.,we were shooting out of a barn, at 25yds.After re-adjusting the flint,wiping the frizzen and flint,went to 80grn. laods. Ignition was very fast and clean. Well I learned a lot about flintlocks,and why you need to spend the bucks for the good locks and flints. Besides I got to shoot a flintlock for the very first time, I flinched bad,shot a right flint, left handed. Goex stated to me that Pinnacle powder has real charcoal in it, and much lower flash point than the rest of the sub's. It cleans up easily with plain water,un-like APP no hard grey caking or hard cake build up. Goex is still doing multiple tests with this powder, Goex did say SD's are more in line with real BP,they would not say anything about "Chrony" tests, only that every one would be very pleasantly surprised. Flint's are tooo..COOL(chicks dig-em)..I hope this helps..Respectfully Montanadan... real shooting tests to follow.

 

[jim gray]

montanadan,

Thanks for the info I'm sure this will be helpful to those shooters who find that BP is very hard to come by. Fortunately, I do not yet have that problem.

Welcome to the flintlock world. Don't be too hard on the production locks, though, some of them are pretty darned good. I have a couple of Lymans, a couple of Traditions, and a T/C, which appears to be identical to the Lyman locks, and all of those, if properly cared for and primed properly, shoot extremely well.

 

[cayugad]

I shot Pinnacle in my T/C Hawkins flintlock. I had the same results almost. I also ground Pinnacle between my fingers as the prime. It would fire the main charge of Pinnacle but sometimes there was just a fuse effect, and sometimes it never fired at all. When it did the ignition time was very slow.

With Goex 4f as the prime the ignition was much better. My overall conclusions were, Pinnacle could be used in a flintlock, but I felt the Goex was a much better choice.

I just finished off a second pound of Pinnacle today. I was shooting it out of a .50 caliber sidelock. It worked perfect and no swabbing between shots was needed... It also worked great in my inline rifles...

 

[montanadan]

Flas-in-the-pan I am sincerely sorry if I offended anyone on this forum,this flintlock is not mine and I did not do hardly any of the testing.Heck, I do not even own a flint, let alone a Custom rifle/pistol of any kind. I do own a Gpr, a couple of Traditions,and 2Pedersoli's.Actually this test just happened by chance. I did talk to a friend of who shoots T/C's in flint and has had good success with Pinnacle powder. Respectfully Montanadan

 

[Tahquamenon]

This is very interesting news regarding the Pinnacle.
Looks like I need to get some soon.

I need to get my butt out and shoot my new T/C flintlock.
Hopefully this weekend or next.

I'll be trying PRB/Wad & Black Mag'3, 777, Swiss and Goex 3F.

For the subs, I'm planning on also using 3F Swiss in the pan versus the crumbling subs between the fingers move.

But I'll try that as well. I'll likely crumble up some BM'3 wearing rubber cloves so to not contaminate the powder and then use it from a pan charger.

 

[montanadan]

Tahquamenon- Believe it or not we used the Pinnacle to light T-7 in 2fg, we put 5grns(Pinnacle -sized to 4fg Goex) down the barrell prior to loading,this was a 70 grn load of T-7.I thought the owner of the rifle was going to have a cow,he thought that was a pretty hot load! Un-like APP it does not turn to powder(dust),I am pretty sure you have seen this with APP.When you Duplex load, make sure you have the "THINGY" in the touch hole(forgot what you call that "THINGY"). I read some of your posts on Subs,over on the Modern section.I hope this helps..Respectfully Montanadan.

 

[Tahquamenon]

Thanks!

I think the Thingy is called a toothpick, vent pick, feather or anything you wish to put in the touch hole to prevent the main charge from spilling out when loading finer grain powders. ::