"Prick your Lock" - now a fairy-tale ending

[flm_shooter]

You've all heard my horror stories about ignition problems with my flinter. After listening to the sage advice on the forum, I made some changes.

Last month (pre-changes) I shot at rendezvous, and shot terrible. mis-fires, hang-fires, the absolute pits. Gave up in disgust.

This month I just returned from the turkey shoot. Shot 12 3-5 round matches in 2 days. Had 2 misfires that I can remember. Took first in one match, 2nd a couple other times. The only flinter on the line in terrible (for California) weather: wet and drizzly. And my best bragging point- my first-ever group I could cover with a quarter. (25 yards, 3 shots, .50 cal, all outside edges covered).

What's the secret? Not a new gun - just a combination of all the suggestions put forth here.

-- I drilled out the touchhole liner to 5/64"

-- Made sure only FFF was used as main charge (gave all Pyrodex to wife)

-- Left pick in touchhole through entire loading sequence

-- dumped less priming powder into pan then before

-- used 1 good english flint entire weekend - no replacement needed

I also only dry-swabbed between shots, would run a wet cleaning patch down every 10 shots or so.

 

[Allan]

Brrrravo......
A well tuned flint is hard to beat.
My only observation being this..
I never have left the clean out pin in the touch hole while loading. To my way of thinking this is defeating the pupose. I want my 3F right in sight of the flash, as close as possable. By keeping the pin in while loading, I am preventing the powder from getting close to the flash. I load with no pin and when I flip back my frizzen and see alittle 3F spill out into the pan when I prime, I know she's come roaring out the other end.
My thoughts only....
Congradulations on your AWESOME weekend.
Allan

 

[Zonie]

To Plug or not to Plug, that is the question.
You will hear arguements on both sides of the fence but I think the Plug people may be on to something because when you load the powder gets right up tight aginst the plug. When you remove the plug you loosen the powder right at the touch hole and this exposes more of each granules surface area to the flame front passing thru the hole. Think of trying to light a bunch of shavings with them all crammed together (kinda hard to light) or loosely packed (a lot easier to light).
Just my 2 cents worth.

 

Like allan, I like to see the powder at the touch hole. Like he says, that's the whole point of a counterbored liner. However, I also want my powder loose as 'zonie suggests. When I load, I don't plug the hole. Rather, after loading and before priming, I pick the hole to loosen the powder that is in the liner chamber. I don't push it back into the barrel, just loosen it up a bit. When I prime, I push the spout of my priming hord into the pan, lift it enough to close the valve and drag it across the pan so I have a line of powder across the entire pan. This way, even if I only get one spark in the pan it will find powder. I you put the prime at the far side of the pan (away from the touch hole) as some suggest, you run the risk of a spark landing between the prime and the barrel and no ignition. I don't know if any of this makes sense but I get wickedly fast lock times and consistent ignitions.

Cody

 

[roundball]

FYI...
I use the new design vent liners in all my rifles that are heavily coned on the outside by virtue of having a large hex wrench opening instead of a screwdriver slot.
They also have a large .075" hole in a .030" wall and the FFFg can be seen sitting perched right there in the hole.
I never put any foreign objects in my vents and never use a vent pick with this design as they are self cleaning.
If they were any faster I couldn't stand it and the only misfires I've ever had have been due to dull agate flints before I switched to black english flints.

 

[musketman]

What if you remover the vent liner completly and shot it that way... What a whoosh that would make...

I would like to try this one day, just for the sake of the big whoosh, but my Bess doesn't have a liner, just a small hole drilled into the side of the barrel...

It's safe to assume the firearm's charge would yeild reduced velocities and pressure because of the leaking gas, but with a 1/4 inch hole in the side of the barrel should be easy to clean...

Of course, I'm joking about this...