Suddenly started getting pan flash ?

[tenngun]

I blow down my barrel, lots of folks think that unsafe. Some folks blow down the barrel via a rubber hose to the side.
In absence of that a patch on jag ran down the barrel works. You should get a solid whoosh of air blowing out of the vent.
When you ram home the ball or on a smoothie the wad do you hear that whoosh. You should.
A wad or patch on the ball resist gas pressure going around the projectile. That means the air displaced by ramming needs to go somewhere. Air pressure blowing out the vent is better then a prick in to the vent. The prick can push an obstruction right to the end.
Pricks have their place, I’m not knocking them. And you can plug the vent while loading. As that can speed ignition. But I find that whoosh very reassuring before I charge the gun.

 

[kyron4]

I think you guys are on tract with both the fouled patent breach and humidity. The smaller hole going into the breach is only big enough to get a .22 brush into it. A 1/4" steel rod would not go through but a 3/16" would. Does this sound right ? Someone posted about feeling powder when picking the vent, looking back I didn't feel the "crushing" feel I had felt on the first few shots.

I removed the touch hole liner and with a bore light and a 10x lupe took a peak in the breach. It was fairly clean from the regular cleaning , but I went ahead and blasted some carb cleaner in it, swab with q-tip, and blew dry with air. I looked again ant there were a few hard burs/chips left from the drill , so I used a drill bit, (by hand )and clean out the chips.

I feel humidity did play a part in the issue, but here in northern Indiana it purists almost year round minus dead of winter. I would only get to shoot 3 days a year if I want a perfect day lol. My last session was on a cool day with 30% humidity and I had no issues. I'm learning alot and appreciate all the input. -Thank you

 

[Grenadier1758]

Sounds as if you were able to successfully apply our recommendations.

 

[flconch53]

I live in Florida and like you if I waited for days with no humidity I would never shoot. Just suggesting some ways to deal with it

 

[kyron4]

Sounds as if you were able to successfully apply our recommendations.

Yes, all very helpful and informative.

 

[kyron4]

I live in Florida and like you if I waited for days with no humidity I would never shoot. Just suggesting some ways to deal with it

Ya, I hear you, got to adapt and overcome in climates like ours.

 

[Johnnyntrain]

Still new to flintlocks, but I've had a couple range sessions with my traditions Kentucky rifle and things went well firing about 20 shots each time. Today I put a fresh flint in, an English flint from TOW. First few shots fired fine than began to get "flash in the pans". I picked touch hole after each shot and wiped pan, frizzen, and flint. I would keep picking and repriming pan till it fired which could take up to three trys. I even tried filling the pan full over the hole once and that didn't work. Then I started to get a few "click" with no flash. Flint looked pretty dull and beat up for only a few shots. Put a new flint in and next five shot fired as they should. What would has cause the low ignition rate ? Would a dull flint cause a pan flash ? Humidity was about 65% with a 10 mph cross wind, using 2F in pan if that matters. -Thanks

Dull flint. Happened to me yesterday toward the end of my flint life, (got about 40 out of it). If you have the tool kit brass use it to sharpen, or remove flint and press flake flint. I usually use the back of my pocket knife to tap along flint edge to get sharp. FYI open Frizzell put on half cock,with one hand I take the pressure off the sear a bit then tap, you should see flakes and bits coming off,doesn't take much.

 

[Mikekj]

Hole is .067".
Yes, has patent breach.
Thanks

Open it up to 3/32. All of mine have been, and eliminates a lot of fip.

 

[oldwood]

Always store your gun muzzle down to make any oils , or cleaning moisture drain to the muzzle. Before you load to shoot the first shot ,wipe the bore w/one patch , to dry the bore to the breach . Load the dry gun's bore , pick the touch hole , Prime with fine powder , close the frizzin , then if right handed , turn the gun counter clock wise , and bump with the palm of the hand to insure powder is next to the touch hole. All of the suggestions are before this one , are great. You need to use the ones that work for you.

 

[deerstalkert]

I very rarely get a flash in the pan
,I make sure my flint is sharp and screwed up tight in the jaws. and properly aligned with the frizzen face .
I wipe the , frizzen , pan ,flint and bore with a Isopropyl alcohol wet patch before I start to shoot
I wipe between shots , prick the flash hole after loading ,wipe the pan frizzen and flint with the next bore cleaning patch , prime with ffffg placed up near and under the flash hole .
All my flintlocks throw a mix of red and white sparks , mainly red , but never all white , it doesn't seem to be a problem to me , my observation is the red sparks last longer than the white , the prime flash is always orange red in my peripheral vision ,
I don't usually notice the pan flash unless I put in too much prime

yeah Cutfinger, i think the red sparks last longer and even bounce about in the pan, but the color i was refering to was the powder igniting and the color of the flash. just looks to me after experimenting with lighting powder on a stone that as it draws moisture the flash color darkens from white to orange and the heat reduces. just my observations.

 

[Mr. Flintlock]

Still new to flintlocks, but I've had a couple range sessions with my traditions Kentucky rifle and things went well firing about 20 shots each time. Today I put a fresh flint in, an English flint from TOW. First few shots fired fine than began to get "flash in the pans". I picked touch hole after each shot and wiped pan, frizzen, and flint. I would keep picking and repriming pan till it fired which could take up to three trys. I even tried filling the pan full over the hole once and that didn't work. Then I started to get a few "click" with no flash. Flint looked pretty dull and beat up for only a few shots. Put a new flint in and next five shot fired as they should. What would has cause the low ignition rate ? Would a dull flint cause a pan flash ? Humidity was about 65% with a 10 mph cross wind, using 2F in pan if that matters. -Thanks

Scrape the face of the breechplug.

 

[Joemolf]

Open it up to 3/32. All of mine have been, and eliminates a lot of fip.

I’m no expert but 3/32 is a pretty big hole you may want to add a shield if you go that route. All my muskets have replaceable touch hole liners. I found with the factory hole which is less than 1/16 inch I’d get FIPs. I’ve opened every musket I have to 1/16. FIPs are a thing of the past for the most. Last weekend I shot my Brown Bess where I added a White Lightening touch hole opened to 1/16. Twenty Nine paper cartridges with no FIPs one dirty barrel at the end. Even with 1/16 inch touch you get blow by through the touch hole where the guy to my right moved over a stall; the blow through was spraying him. Since that episode last summer i added a flash shield to the Brown Bess. I think the heavy charge has a lot to do with it.

 

[hanshi]

Being from Georgia originally one shoots at any opportunity since it's virtually always very humid. I've even loaded & fired in pouring rain by keeping everything covered the best I can. Yes, rain is bad juju with a flintlock, humidity can be dealt with a bit more easily.

 

[Larry Akers]

I have over 50 years experience building and shooting guns made with patent breeches and love them. To pick a nit your gun does not have a patent breech--it has a chambered breechplug. A gun with a patent breech will have no penetrations of the barrel wall as the touchhole, drum, etc. are integral with the breechplug assembly. There are three things you should look at. First is your cleaning jag/patch combo. I suspect it is too big and is pushing crud into the breech. The jag/patch should be sized to slide past the crud as you insert the rod and then the patch will bunch up behind the jag as you withdraw the rod and pull the crud out. Second is your loading method. As you know, your breechplug chamber is smaller than the bore--probably about 6mm in diameter. If you dump your powder charge quickly the powder mass often interferes with itself and jams together at the entrance of the chamber and no powder enters the chamber. This can be prevented by pouring the powder charge more slowly so the mass of the powder does not jam together and will fill the chamber. Bumping the breech of the gun with the heel of your hand a couple of times will help also. Now the main cause of your FIPs is that horrible touchhole liner. As you know, it is about a #10 size screw with a large cheese-head with a hole bored through the axis. The flash channel is about 3/8" long which is about 100 times as long as it should be. A way to make it work is to do as you have tried and tip the primed pan and let powder run into the flash channel, but I would use a finer powder for priming. Banking powder against the touchhole will also help as more fire will enter the breech as has been shown by highspeed camera and ignition will be more reliable. A fellow club member was having the same trouble as you and becoming more and more frustrated to the point I thought he might wrap the gun around a tree. After the shoot he asked me if I would look at the gun to see if I could improve it. I removed the original touchhole liner, bored the threaded hole to a #3 drill and retapped to a 1/4-28 thread. I then made a replacement liner and installed it in his gun (see attached drawing). At the next club shoot I returned the gun explaining the loading procedure as above. His gun never failed to fire if the priming flashed and ignition was much faster. You will notice the vent opening is quite small. The small opening in no way impedes ignition and keeps the fire and brimstone in the barrel where it can do work.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Larry, what about simply drilling the stock touch hole liner out down the center without completely drilling it out?

 

[Larry Akers]

One responder suggested opening up the touchhole but this is detrimental to the purpose of the patent/chambered breech which is to provide more uniform pressures shot to shot which translates to more uniform velocities which translates to greater possible accuracy. The name of the game is repeatability. Opening the vent to a larger size literally blows uniformity out the vent and does not address the long flash channel. Replacing the liner with one similar to the drawing gets more powder burning at once and the small vent hole keeps the pressure in the breech where it does work (moves the ball). I actually use a vent size of .055 (#54 drill) in my guns.

If you were suggesting "back-boring" the stock liner, the physical size of the screw would limit the diameter of the back-bore and be much less efficient than than the drawing design. Besides, the stock liner comes new with a vent hole that is already too large ( my opinion).

 

[Kansas Jake]

Thanks Larry. Back boring is what I was asking about.

 

[mmb617]

If you dump your powder charge quickly the powder mass often interferes with itself and jams together at the entrance of the chamber and no powder enters the chamber. This can be prevented by pouring the powder charge more slowly so the mass of the powder does not jam together and will fill the chamber.

Thank you for pointing this out as I hadn't thought of it.

I have a Traditions Kentucky rifle that has more of a pan flash problem than any of my other flintlocks. I have discovered that if I use 4f instead of my usual 3f as the charge powder the problem goes away, but I don't know why.

Perhaps it is that when I dump the powder in, the 3f bridges while the finer 4f does not, that makes sense. I'll have to experiment with the 3f again and see if pouring the powder slower does the trick.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Your Traditions rifle likely has a chambered breech. During cleaning it is very difficult to remove the fouling from the chambered breech a d your 3f powder is bridging at the mouth of the chamber and is not close enough to the heat of the pan to fire. Four f powder is fine enough to get through the restrictions. To clean the chambered breech, you need a 22 or 30 caliber brass brush with a wet cleaning patch wrapped around the bristles to clean the breech. Clean the breech and your flash in the pan problems should be at an end.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I’ve done what Grenadier suggested in cleaning the chambered breech on my 36 Shenandoah and it has made a big difference.