problem with a flinter

[Old40Rod]

If you are not doing all of this from sand bags, you are wasting your time.

Best advice yet... :wink:

Control your variables, or else you are just guessing. Blind squirrels do find nuts, just not very often.

 

[45-70cannon]

Of course I'm callin him a knothed! He ain't helpin me out!
Ana nother thing, I have spent a ton of time on this gun. I ain't new to flint locks. I luv em and am planning on getting another. Its just what am I gonna do with this one, besides use it for a tomatoe stake!
My buddy and I ordered two guns at the same time. His gun came through with a Dehaas barrel. In 54 cal. the ball and patch combo go down the barrel smooth as silk, and using a 70 gr. charge of 3F it hits everything ya shoot it at.
LEonard put a green mountain barrel on mine and it won't hit. Won't shoot, flings balls all over the freakin place and let me tell ya the last time I had a gun that did that, that gun is sittin on the bottom of White's Reservoir. This chil got a bit upset, of course the 6 pt buck had a good laugh!

As I said, I have tried a lot of ball, patch, powder, grease, spit patch, ox yoke, TC lube, the only lube I ain't tried yet is vaseline and other stuff ya mite use in other plkaces besides the smoke pole.
An by the way, there ain't nothin wrong with this chil's language bein a church organist and all. I've heerd worse in church mind ya, I'm a bit cleaner and I ain't so happy, but I'm keepin it clean fer now!

Me and God knows whats goin on in my brain and as long as he's happy with me, I won't worry about callin someone a knothead!

 

[45-70cannon]

I've been using .015 patches and ..490 and .495 balls. The gun likes a dirty barrel. Plain and simple. If you use a .020 patch and 490 or 495 ball ya need a hammer to get it down the bore but it will shoot more accurately first time out then shooting the first five and then getting tack driving accuracy.

The gun has a28.5 inch barrel, full stock, brass fixtures and cherry stock. Sweet looking, fits me like a glove, is light to carry and I bench it every time I am at the range. This morning too, as i am heading to the range with it to see if running the steel wool down the barrel will help or stop it from eating the patches. :nono:

I will mess around with powder today, 2F and 3F. I know the 3F eats patches, where the double F doesn't I'll see if I can find a 3f that I can live with that won't eat patches and of course if it hits the target that would be nice too. I'll let ya know what I did and how it went.
After that I gotta go do some work and make money (for the next flintlock!)

 

[hanshi]

If you've tried everything you can and still aren't satisfied, I'd think you got a bad barrel. Can happen anytime, anywhere. I believe it's time to look at that supposition and work out from there.

 

[45-70cannon]

Well today, I found that it will shoot consistently 2 inches low, dead on at 25 yards, swabbing between all shots, using .015 lubed patches, 490 balls and 60 grains of 3F. It totally destroys the patch and if I keep this load I will have to take another eigth of an inch off the front blade to get it where it is tollerable. If it wasn't eating patches it would have its full power and it would be a rightious gun but.......

 

[45-70cannon]

Well, I'm excepting her the way she is. She is shooting fairly accurately at 25 yards, only low so I took a bit off my front blade this evening and tomorrow morning I'll hit the range again and see where she is shooting. If I can get her shooting good at 25 yards, then that gun and I are going after monster hogs this fall in New York.
That would be fittin for this flintlock, afterall she is a custom gun, made for me and all my guns kill and this one will too.
So the trials continue, but at least it looked promising today shooting 3F powder, just 60 grains of it and taht's all. She is accurate and shoots consistent with that charge. So all things equal, I will adjust the sites with my file and see if I can make it an accurate rifle just the same.



Then I'll rebarrel her!

 

[Dave K]

Your burning up patches? I had that recently and after much tail scratching, it was the patches themselves. I had bought some material that mic'ed the way I wanted at .015, but it just didn't have the thread count. After some more searching at the JoAnn's I found the same exact thickness, but a much higher thread count. AH ha, problem solved. Also, try folding a lubed patch and placing that over the powder, before sending your patched ball down and see if that doesn't help with the burning patches.

 

[45-70cannon]

I like that idea, yup definitely like that idea, that way if a patch is going to get burned it would be the first one and the patched ball would provide the seal I need to get the full power of the load. Yup, I never heard of that one before and I thank ya kindly.

 

[musketman]

I will mess around with powder today, 2F and 3F. I know the 3F eats patches, where the double F doesn't

That's happen to me before, but it was with my larger calibers. (.69 and .75)

I went to a paste type lube and plastered it thickly on the ball side of the patch and that seemed to help with the burn through's.

One thought, are your patches fresh? Old cloth will rip to shreds in the barrel because the threads are deteriorating and cannot withstand the centrifugal force or the blast.

 

[Dphar]

I've been using .015 patches and ..490 and .495 balls. The gun likes a dirty barrel. Plain and simple. If you use a .020 patch and 490 or 495 ball ya need a hammer to get it down the bore but it will shoot more accurately first time out then shooting the first five and then getting tack driving accuracy.

The gun has a28.5 inch barrel, full stock, brass fixtures and cherry stock. Sweet looking, fits me like a glove, is light to carry and I bench it every time I am at the range. This morning too, as i am heading to the range with it to see if running the steel wool down the barrel will help or stop it from eating the patches. :nono:

I will mess around with powder today, 2F and 3F. I know the 3F eats patches, where the double F doesn't I'll see if I can find a 3f that I can live with that won't eat patches and of course if it hits the target that would be nice too. I'll let ya know what I did and how it went.
After that I gotta go do some work and make money (for the next flintlock!)

If its really a 50 cal. I.E. a .500" bore and grooves .012 deep or perhaps even more the patch is too thin with a .490 ball. I shoot .020+ patches with .490 in 50s Douglas, GM and Colerain. I can load a .535 with the same patch in my 54 Douglas without a starter.
If the balls will not go down once started you have a lube problem.
Some solvents and petroleum distillates seem to make the patch grip the bore rather than slide.

Spit is not a lubricant. Its a powder solvent.
If I were you I would find some *pure* neatsfoot oil (no compound or "neatsfoot" with distillate added) and try that on the patches and see if it will allow using a .020 patch. This will cure the patch burning. If you need a starter with the 490 and a heavy patch there is some other problem.
Some rifles do not shoot worth a darn with a wad or an over powder patch.
I was shooting a .530 and .020-.022 patch from a pistol with 40 to 50 grains of powder and the patches could be reused. Too much gas leakage in the grooves will eat patches.
The FFG load being a slower powder and more of it may be acting as a wad under the initial acceleration.
This is why the patch needs to be significantly thicker than the groove depth plus the clearance of the ball in the bore. If you have .012" grooves and .0025 per side ball clearance the .015 patch is too loose in the grooves. Leaks too much gas and blows the patch.
Frankly I think you are also under loading the gun. I would use 85-90 grains of FFFG if using GOEX.

Dan

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Well, it's always good to have such an even tempered gentleman as yourself join the forum. Your impulse control is truly inspirational and your ability to call a man names behind his back takes true guts and integrity.

Since you know all about flintlocks, it must be assumed that the barrel is at fault. If your next attempt at hitting something with it proves fruitless, perhaps you could simply toss it in the reservoir with the last one that fell out of favor with you. Not an especially adult solution to my way of thinking, but it seems to have worked well for you before.

A 60 grain charge is awfully light--really just a starting point in a .50 caliber rifle. Try 75 grains or more and a spit patch isn't worth the spit that's on it. You need to lube the patch. This can prevent most of the problems you are having. A good quality linen or cotton patch material is best. A real lube will ease that loading problem a great deal. None of this is new or secret stuff, it's been done this way for a very long time. There are commercial lubes available that are cheap and effective--even Walmart may carry some.

 

[hanshi]

An over powder wad (patch, paper, wasp nest, etc.) will often help burn through. I'd definitely try that. It's worked for me in the past.

 

[45-70cannon]

I tried a 90 grain load of 3F today and it shot worse than the 60 grain charge. Low left. Suprised me, I can tell ya that.
I would think a 70 gr charge would be suffiecient but who knows. I will have it out again this week as I took some brass of the front sight. So maybe we'll get something accurate afterall.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If your patches are so thin that they are burning thru, you need to buy thicker patch material. And you need to be shooting 2Fg powder, instead of those loads of 3Fg powder. I find that 60 grains of 3Fg powder is going to give patch burning problems in most guns. I shoot 60 grains of 2Fg in my .50 cal. rifle, with its 39 inch barrel, and use a .015 to .020" thick patch with a .490 ball. The barrel is made by Green Mountain. I used the thinner patches when hunting; the thicker when target shooting.

I have previously recommended that you use a Walter's Vegetable Fiber Wad Over the Powder( OP wad) to act as a fire barrier, to protect your patch. It also seals the bore better, giving you much better velocities, and more consistent velocities. That in turns reduces group size. If you are getting 2 inch groups now at 25 yards with burning patches, solve the patch problem, and the groups will be ONE HOLE- caliber size. Solve the gas leak problems and you will shoot less than 2 inch groups out at 50 yards.

Got now, until you find the solutions to some of these problems with proper materials, USe corn meal- buy it at the grocery store--- as a " filler" in place of the OP wad. The Corn meal will act as both a firewall, and it will seal gases Behind it, as will the Vegetable Fiber wads.

Getting your velocity up and the group size down is most important to you NOW, before you finish filing the front sight to bring the group up to POA. So, seal the powder with an OP wad, or corn meal, and use a better patch and lube to get better accuracy.

At least you have learned to clean the barrel between shots for best accuracy. That is an important lesson to learn. Work on group size, then on velocity, and only then move your sights, or filing them to move the POI to your POA. This is what Leonard Day was trying to tell you when he said you should do the final tuning yourself. All front sights come taller than they need to be, so that you can file them down to raise the POI up to where you want it to be.

I begin shooting any new gun at 30 feet( 10 yards), whether its a MLer, or a modern cartridge gun. That short range will tell me about both windage and vertical hold problems. I usually correct the windage problems at the 10 yard range, before moving back to 25 yards. At that latter distance I begin working on vertical placement, and group size. Once a load seems to be grouping well at 25 yards, and is fairly close to POA, I move back to 50 yards to perfect the load, and then adjust the sights to have the POI where I want it for that gun.

Best wishes. Paul

 

[Dphar]

I tried a 90 grain load of 3F today and it shot worse than the 60 grain charge. Low left. Suprised me, I can tell ya that.
I would think a 70 gr charge would be suffiecient but who knows. I will have it out again this week as I took some brass of the front sight. So maybe we'll get something accurate afterall.

Until you get the patch problem fixed nothing is going to work.
What you think is sufficient has little to do with what the gun needs to shoot well.
I built a 54 pistol that needed 70 grains of FFFG.
I have a 40 caliber shooting a picket bullet that so far has done best with 80 gr of FFG Swiss.
I am having good luck with 75 grains of FFFG Swiss (about like 85-90 Goex) in the 50 cal Colerain barreled swivel breech.
I once had a 54 that needed 120 grains of fffg Goex.
The firearm is asking the question. You have to find the answer.

I think the problem here is with a shooter trying to force the barrel to shoot what HE wants. This does not work very often unless the shooter has enough experience to give a good guess as to what will work. This does not seem to be the case here.
Some rifles need a tight fit. Some will shoot ok with looser fits. But its not the norm.

Wasps nests and such are a bandaid if used to solve burnt patches. They will protect the bore when to some extent but they often cause accuracy problems of their own. So you could quit blowing patches and STILL not have decent accuracy. The rifle should shoot into 1"-1 1/4" at 50 yards.
My 54 and the 16 bore dislike having a dry patch under the ball and the 16 does not like a felt or shotgun cushion wad over the powder. They both shoot well with no "special" tricks. The 54 has shot 6"-10" groups at 200 for example.
But it shoots best with the lands free of fouling, a "grease" lube (SPG bullet lube) with the .020-.022 patch cut at the muzzle. It does very well with an oiled precut patch but very best accuracy is with the grease and the muzzle cut patch. I shoot 90 grains of FFFG Swiss in this rifle it give better velocity than 100 gr of FFFG Goex.

Dan

 

[45-70cannon]

Me oh my, we have a leonard lover here.
Leonard lives 45 minutes away from me and I have spent quite a bit of time over there with his rifle and all.
Other than the fact that he stands out at 40 yards and hits a piece of paper with it, but doesn't say what the patch looks like or what he used to hit the paper and by the way, he isn't hitting the target on the paper either, just the paper.
Well I did that yesterday. Consistently hitting the paper, but this time it was consistently low, dead on instead of all over the place.
I like people that help and when you have the manufacturer of the gun not giving you any advise about it, then there may be something wrong. Leonard, afterall didn't design the barrel, be bought it. He put his name on it, but he didn't make it. So what do you do when you put your name on a quality rifle that doesn't have a quality part in it?
Well your name is on it so you have to satisfy the CUSTOMER, right? Otherwise the customer won't come back and buy another gun from you. As it is, i am looking around at other rifle makers as Leonard, now isn't making rifles anymore and is into kit guns only.
Leonard has made some beautiful weapons in the past. My buddies are shooting his swivel breeches and they are beauty and meaness all rolled into one./
Its just that the guys that are shooting his guns didn't have half the manure I am going through with mine. They all got different barrels of course, mine got a black sheep barrel and I'm supposed to live with it.I didn't just get this one either. This gun is, oh I'd say at least ten years old!
That's right, I've been messing with it for that long, except I spend more time with guns that are accurate first shot out, and more time with my longbows.

I told him to rebarrel it the last time I was there and by the way, just so you know, the first time I brought it back to him, when he glassed th barrel, he said if I had anymore problems with it he would rebarrel it. Those were words out of his mouth, not my idea at all. He is standing behind his guarentee. Well so far, he hasn't.
So I am destined to go through adding fibre pads or corn meal to my powder charge(incidently, nice idea. I will try that this morning).
.020 patches don't go down my bore with a 490 ball, lubed or not, they don't go. If they did, I'd be using them, but it is a difficult, difficult session putting a .020 lubed down my barrel and that's on the first, very first shot out, clean barrel and all.So what would that combo tell me?
Well adding the two of them together it comes out to .510 and if the barrel is .500 and tight thats like putting five gallons of gas in a four and a half gallon container.
Wouldn't you say that, Sir?
Leonard and I aren't strangers.

Do you even know where White's Reservoir is?
That gun went in the water after failing to fire on a six point buck. (would've been my first)
and it failed to fire not once, not twice, not three times, but a total of 13 times as the buck stood in front of me grazing, peeing and waiting for me to shoot him, before he nonchalantly walked down the road past my car and into another patch of woods. I probably should've thrown the gun at him, that might'a done more good than trying to shoot him with it.
By the way, the gun was a CVA, doyou know anything about CVA flintlocks, Sir? Well back in the day this is probably before you were a thought in your daddy's eye or his pants, whichever came first, they made flintlocks, surface hardening the frizzen, and after so many rounds fired through it, thehardness was gone and you got no spark and you had to replace it. Hopefully they have changed that part of the gun as their reputation was a fantastic, and accurate barrel but cheap, cheap, cheap parts in the gun, shoddy workmanship. Maybe today they are better. I don't know as I won't buy another.

My next flintlock will be a Lyman Great Plains rifle with a 1 in 60 turn for round balls. Conicals don't turn me on any and I shoot round balls in all my guns.
I would buy another TC except that they don't offer it in 54 anymore and I want the 54 cal.

I will continue the struggle with the Leonard Day. but when I BP hunt, the gun I usually reach for is the TC 56 smoothbore. It hits everything out and beyond 100yds. So does the Great Plains 54 and so does the Custon Hawken 50, and the Cherokee and the Seneca.
The Leonard Day is my first $1000.00 plus rifle. Will I spend that again on something that requires a lot of time, patience and experimentation to try and shoot accurately?
Don't know.

 

[45-70cannon]

One more thought, you wo shoot a flintlock should learn to shoot a longbow. It requires more skill than shooting the flintlock, but the same skills. Concentration and decipline, melting the mind and body into one, with the stick, making the stick an extension of your arm, willing the arrow to do what you want it to do. (almost like shooting the flintlock, right?)

I give free longbow lessons to anyone that wants to try it, as it is a thing of beauty and needs to be shared.

You, Mr. Frizzen I will also teach for free. But i bet you aren't in tune with yourself like you are coming off to be!

My bows are all H. Hills and are all over 65#s pull at 28" right handed.
Dare to try?

 

[brubincam]

-----I know a guy that bought a new semi custom rifle that grouped like a shotgun no matter what load he tried--told the maker and he put another barrel on and now shoots just fine-----

 

[Jblk]

Why don't you go to a bridal shop and get some linen remenants for your patch material and use Crisco as your lube.There are alot of good lube formulas on this site, but the crisco will work fine until the patch problem is resolved.I have even used old denium jean material for patches with good results.

 

[Dphar]

Why don't you go to a bridal shop and get some linen remenants for your patch material and use Crisco as your lube.There are alot of good lube formulas on this site, but the crisco will work fine until the patch problem is resolved.I have even used old denium jean material for patches with good results.

There is a problem here. Either the barrel is too rough or the shooter is clueless. Don't know which.
A 50 cal that will not load with a .020 patch and a 490 ball has a problem. Then we have the shooter who apparently does not understand that the patch compresses at the lands and the ball is marked with the patch taking up his supposed misfit.
Until he comes to some understanding of what he is trying to do he is not going to get the gun to shoot.
He still thinks that HE gets to decide what the gun will shoot. Until he gets over this delusion he is not going to make it work.
Could be the barrel is bad.
The maker should have had the rifle at least somewhat sighted it. But we have only what the poster tells us for reference and we have no idea what the rest of the story is.
Best to let he go his own way.
Dan