Touch hole liner vs straight hole

[smoothy]

I reread your original post and it appears that I deviated a bit from the answer you're looking for. My opinion based on reading and watching slowed videos is that you won't detect much locktime differences, but may experience consistent ignitions. I'm not understanding your curiosity in locktimes. Might be because I'm just too simple. To me the design of the flintlock with its longer than cartridge rifle locktime adds to the romance/challenge/nostalgia. Happy trails to you.

 

[Dphar]

I don't have a personna, but my preference was to build a rifle as authentic as possible. It's not, however, and you could pick many reasons why it is not. Yet, omitting the liner was any easy thing to do in order to make it look as authentic as I possibly could.
I do a moderate amount of shooting and have hunted the last six years with a FL. Four years I harvested a deer. Never did I have a misfire during hunting or practice during this time. This year I had 2 clean misses at deer. The gun went off, but I missed. Now I have to figure out why. My patch lubrication in extreme cold? But this puts the challenge in it for me. If it was easy it would be boring. I started out hunting with a cartridge rifle, but the FL has put the challenge back in it to the point where harvesting a doe is a trophy in itself. That's what trips my trigger, it might not be the same for others. We just need to respect each others choices, keeping an open mind to others ideas.

Where I live I am not necessarily the top of the food chain. As a result I like the better reliability. Being a bear turd would interfere with my shooting rifle building.

Dan

 

[Fred_Dwyer]

I have 2 flinty guns, one really old one with a straight hole through about .166 of barrel. That one fires every time (7/8 inch flint and about 20 lb on the cock), it definitely has the sisssboom.
My new fangled gun with the hourglass touchhole always surprises me how quick it goes wfbang. The straight hole has to fuse down to the main charge before detonation, the hourglass hole lets the flash immediately into the chamber. After 1 shot the stainless "blemish" is all covered in smooge anyway.

 

[MSW]

By way of 'dumb questions,' would it be possible to make a WL type liner out of something other than stainless, so that it would take rust blue, or charcoal blue, and not show (or, at least, not be so obvious)?

just one guy's dumb comment... completely free and devoid of any specific subject matter knowledge.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Chambers makes them in steel also but it is not much point for me when I can use the Snyder counterbores and get the same effect without a huge hole in the barrel from the get-go.

 

[Dave K]

Yes, as posted,Chambers does make a steel liner that can be finished so as to not see it. But, as he told me, they will not last as long as the stainless ones. Myself, I use the stainless WL vents. To me, in my thinking, they remind me of the platinum ones in many of the old English guns. I have a SxS flinter, that I had converted back to flint as it had been converted to percussion. When the drums were removed, they were replaced with a steel plug welded in and this plug was then drilled for vents. I personally did not do the work, but hired it done, so I do not know if these vents were coned on the back side or not. The gun would reliably fire, but the delay in ignition was too great for me. By the time you picked the bird up coming out of the trap house and then hitting the trigger, the bird was already broke, but on the ground. It was just to way slow for me, personally. I drilled and tapped the gun for WL vents and WOW, now it is great to shoot. The work done was by a gunsmith who regularly reconverts, converted flint guns back to flint. His name was given to me by a well known lock maker, as he is the guy he uses for this reconversion. I am sure it was a call the gunsmith made, as some people want no screw in vent and some people want faster vents, like I did.

 

[Zonie]

Making your own carbon steel vent liner is as easy as buying a steel bolt with the proper threads on it, cutting it off with a hack saw, filing the ends true and drilling the vent hole.
Because it is carbon steel it can be blued or browned to match the barrel.

A liner I made to improve the reliability of my Pedersoli Queen Anne pistol is shown mounted in a split nut in this photo.

The split nut provides a good way of clamping the short threaded stock in a vise or with a pair of Vise Grips.

I used a oversized drill bit to produce a counterbore on the back side before installing it in the gun.

I figure the total cost of the liner, including the nut was about 25 cents.

 

[Horserod]

You know this thread has (again) shown me how, even tho we are spread around this country of America and of different walks of life, we as Flint Lock shooters can come together and share our common knowledge and thoughts about the different issues with pretty good wisdom and even humor to help each other out. I wish it was possible to pull everyone together just meet one another face to face and shake hands. God, I love shootin' Flint Locks and am thankful for each and everyone of you that takes the time to be yourselves and help us shooters with our never ending problems and questions......God Bless you all !!! Horserod

 

[Dphar]

In the end its personal preference.
But if you shoot a lot and use a carbon steel vent or an inner coned barrel erosion will be a problem.
The thinner part of the vent gets really hot at the instant of firing and if this "web" is made too thin even stainless will burn black on the inside right around the vent.


Fixing a eroded vent costs money, it will surely effect the barrel finish. Its a PITA.
So for the shooter the stainless vent is the best bet.

Accuracy.
Shooting offhand most shooters will likely not see the difference.
But most TRADITIONAL MATCHES WERE SHOT FROM A REST.
Beef shoots ect were REST matches.
Turkey matches were REST matches for the most part though a shooter may have had to choice of 35 yards offhand or 60-65 yards rest.
Also string measure is a far different game than bullseye. It measures distance from center of each shot and adds them up. Look at the size of the 10 ring on a 50 yard bulls eye target then figure how far from center one can be and still shoot a "10". But bullseye is far quicker to score so it is now in common use.
In most uses it allows using the same target for multiple shots, but a good shot with a good rifle will make centers hard to find in a traditional rest match and thus its one shot per target.

But I am digressing here.
I a trying to point out that in some shooting games the FL shooter with a large vent may have an automatic handicap. A really good shot shooting a large vent may still win if the other shooters are average or worse. BUT is there are a number of good shooters the ones with the larger vents are at a disadvantage.
Its just a fact.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

Yes, as posted,Chambers does make a steel liner that can be finished so as to not see it. But, as he told me, they will not last as long as the stainless ones. Myself, I use the stainless WL vents. To me, in my thinking, they remind me of the platinum ones in many of the old English guns. I have a SxS flinter, that I had converted back to flint as it had been converted to percussion. When the drums were removed, they were replaced with a steel plug welded in and this plug was then drilled for vents. I personally did not do the work, but hired it done, so I do not know if these vents were coned on the back side or not. The gun would reliably fire, but the delay in ignition was too great for me. By the time you picked the bird up coming out of the trap house and then hitting the trigger, the bird was already broke, but on the ground. It was just to way slow for me, personally. I drilled and tapped the gun for WL vents and WOW, now it is great to shoot. The work done was by a gunsmith who regularly reconverts, converted flint guns back to flint. His name was given to me by a well known lock maker, as he is the guy he uses for this reconversion. I am sure it was a call the gunsmith made, as some people want no screw in vent and some people want faster vents, like I did.

The Nock patent breech is very fast but not the fastest. It produces better velocity than most. AND.
Its very consistent in Larry Pletcher's trials.
It was meant for SHOTGUNS, as most English improvements were where consistency in ignition time will produce more birds than a just as fast or faster system that is less consistent.

So there are valid reasons for the vent liner, both historical and otherwise.

Original rifles? So many of these were converted to percussion circa 1830-60 then back to flint in 1950-2011 that its impossible to say what was originally used.
We do know that by 1800 the English technology was well known in the eastern US and recessed breeches, vent liners, link mainsprings and roller frizzens were not only known but roller locks were SPECIFIED for rifles going to the western fur trade by the 1830s. They would not pay for "waterproof" locks but the rollers were ordered. Some today think the roller is unnecessary. However, in direct contact either the frizzen or spring gets worn way by the contact. In the days of poor lubrication this was a problem. The roller was in use in England by the 1770s at least. But most American rifles of the Colonial era and even later had very cheap import locks.

See "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865" By Garavaglia and Worman for the fur company orders and "Steel Canvas" by RL Wilson. Specifically the unfinished North dueler on page 70. Its the final evolution of the flintlock and it's American. All the visible features are just like a Manton of the same period.
Would I use a recessed breech, waterproof lock on a 1770 rifle? Of course not. I am just trying to point out that improvements DID cross the Atlantic.
But the vent liner seen in English "patent breech" flintlocks, Gold and later Platinum, were made via the "clean out screw" on the other side of the breech. The Gold/Platinum was pounded into the internal/external form in the iron to hold it then cleaned up and drilled.
In America economics alone prevented the use of expensive metals in the breech or elsewhere in most guns. Silver inlays were about as far as this would go. The lack of patent breeches in flint guns (for the vast majority anyway) was one bar to the exotic metal vent, lack of royalty etc to pay for them was another.

Running on too long got a honey do list :grin:
Spring is here I guess.

Dan

 

[tg]

Liner or no liner is a choice but Dans talk of inaccuracy and lack of reliability does not fly with the reports of a great many using plain holes and their number is growing, but this does fall into a pattern of sorts.

 

[hanshi]

Though not a slave to HC/PC; it doesn't mean I don't want to be as close as I can reasonably be. I like liners. When I get a new gun I take the liner out and open the cone as much as I dare. Stainless liners last very, very well. I don't mind having one any more than having my smallpox vaccination scar. And after the first shot you can't tell the difference, anyway. Lock time! I couldn't care less. After all, we're talking FLINTLOCKS! They are fast enough for me. And I never drill the liner touch hole larger than 1/16". It works for me.

 

[ebiggs1]

...I wish it was possible to pull everyone together just meet one another face to face and shake hands....

This would be nothing short of “interesting” to say the least. I wonder if the rude people are as so, in person. Possibly the nice guys aren't as nice either but it sure would be interesting!