Hey justlearning,
Regarding the flints dulling quickly, besides the problem with the long screws catching on the cock, you may need to make another adjustment that will reduce the amount of knapping required on your flints.
Make sure the flint is hitting the frizze at a 55° to 60° angle and you will not only get very long life out of your flints, they will be pretty much self knapping. Do whatever you need to do to get that angle. Bevel up, bevel down, move the flint back a bit, move it up....whatever it takes. At half cock the flint should be close enough to the frizzen that you can see what the angle will be when it hits it.
When you get it set right it will slice the frizzen instead of impacting it too directly and crushing the edge of your frizzen or hitting it at such a steep angle that it misses most of the edge and hits the top of the flint knocking big chunks off the bottom of it.
I almost never knap my flints because this angle keeps it virtually self knapping, and I get good long life out of every flint.
Hope this helps!
Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup: