Touch Hole Liner

[Kabo1313]

I have an older Traditions Pennsylvania that has never been shot but I plan on shooting it soon.

My question is about putting a new White Lightin' touch hole liner in it, before I start shooting it, so that I start off and keep shooting with the same parts.

I had problems, when I first started shooting BP, because the nipple on my percussion T/C Hawken was so small that it rarely got a spark to the powder and am wondering if the same will not happen when I start shooting my flintlock Traditions Pennsylvania.

So, if I do want to replace the factory THL with a White Lightnin', what size, etc. should I go with? Seems the larger the touch hole the better but that is just my opinion having never shot a flintlock.....yet. :grin:

BTW, my brother is a professional machinist and mechanical engineer and could do excellent work with it.

 

[Rusty_Nail]

Why not drill out the one you have first? Won't cost a dime. Try 1/16". Just take it out of the gun to do it!

 

[excess650]

You'll have to see how wide the flats are on your barrel, and if the THL is centered. I'm told the 5/16" WL has a larger cone inside than the 1/4" WL, so may be better. As for the touch hole itself, bigger isn't necessarily better. With a properly positioned touch hole, .055" works great. 1/16" is fine with fffg, but moving up to 5/64" (.080") will leak fffg. I wouldn't go above 1/16" if I didn't have to.

 

[Zonie]

Rusty is talking about drilling out the small touch hole in your existing liner, not suggesting you drill out the hole for the liner.

It's a worthwhile idea.

The factory touch hole liners installed on their guns almost always have a very small hole thru them which often leads to mis-fires.

Running a 1/16 inch or a number 51 (.067) or 50 (.070) drill thru the existing liner will often solve the vent problem for only the cost of a drill bit.

I don't know what the existing liners threads are but if Track of the Wolf's catalog is right, it has M5-.8mm threads.
The major diameter of these threads is slightly larger than .200 which will allow total cleanup using the 7/32 (.2187) diameter tap drill I would use for the 1/4-32 UNEF threads that are on a White Lightning liner.

If you do install any after-market vent liner, be sure to trim the length of it so it is flush with the inside of the barrels bore.

They are always longer than needed and if they are not trimmed they will protrude into the bore.

Not shortening the new liner will make cleaning the gun almost impossible and it will also cause a lot of misfires.

NOTE: If the TOTW catalog was wrong and the existing liner has 6mm or 1/4" threads on it you will have to go to at least a 5/16-32 White Lightning liner to have full threads after re-tapping to the new size.

 

[54ball]

I'm pretty sure that traditions still uses the old CVA style of breaching on that rifle with their patent breech system.

This makes installing a White Lightning or any standard liner a nightmare.

Try it as is.
Drill out the present liner a little.
If you replace, replace with the factory style liner.

 

[Wes/Tex]

In the purely FWIW category, you also need to consider the maker's attitude about touch hole liners before actually installing one. I realize the OP's question concerns opening the touch hole diameter in an existing liner but it's worth noting that at least one maker, in this case Caywood, not only condemns the practice and doing it voids all warranty, in fact or implied. Just wanted to make this known to some of our newer posters!

 

[AZbpBurner]

You don't need some glitzy-named touch hole liner to get great performance, despite what the manufacturer/seller may claim.

My GPR was a little finicky with the factory liner. I drilled it out to .067" (#51 bit) with the thought that I could always go up to .070" with a #50 bit, if necessary. Ignition with the .067" touch hole is now 100% - no need to change out the liner, or even go another step up to the larger hole.

Remember, powder is just inside the hole of the liner, so fire doesn't need to travel very far to set of the main charge.

As for that percussion cap - about any cap will throw enough fire thru the nipple and down the channel to set it off. If not, you may need to do more cleaning to ensure no crud build up or residue is damping the fire.

Last month a guy at the range was a-bitchin' and moanin' about the junk rifle he bought from a soon-to-be former longtime friend. It just wouldn't light off a charge, or if it did, there was a perceptible delay.

He blamed the seller
He blamed the rifle
He blamed that awful Pyrodex
and those ¢rappy CCI caps

He offered to dump the whole works on me for $50, but since I'm a lefthanded shooter with enough right handed rifles already, I declined. I DID make a deal with him, that if I could make it fire 100%, he would trade me his longer brass capper, for one of my shorter ones.

Cleanout screw and nipple removal, a pipecleaner dipped in some soapy water, a little scrubbing, then dryout, clean caked crud offa the nipple, then run a NYLON bristle brush down into the patent breech, and a handful of soot poured out. Mop out with a wet patch, dry with another patch, and FINALLY pry out the 2 caps squashed into the hammer recess, and it was showtime.

It was only a partial can of Pyrodex, and he had to borrow a handful of some more nasty CCI caps, but he finished off all his powder, and had a working load that gave him a big, raggedy hole in the paper out at 50 yards. He was already able to also break most of the balloons I set out at 100 yards, too.

Zero misfires.

He was happy as a fox in the henhouse when he said he couldn't wait to show off the targets to his buddy who said the gun wasn't really all that accurate.

I really like that longer capper, too. It holds about 8 more caps than my shorter ones ...

 

[Birddog6]

Drill the existing vent liner out to .070". Then slightly cone the outside of the vent liner & also slightly cone the inside of the vent liner. I have probably done over a hundred of them for dif guys & it works wonders in ignition.

Keith Lisle

PS: Your rifle has a Patent Breech. Forget the Chambers WL vent liner.

 

[Kabo1313]

Whew, this post everyone know exactly what I was talking about with all great ideas. :grin: Since my brother is a machinist, I will just him to drill the present vent hole liner to .070 with a short v shape on the outside.

The reason I asked this question is 1) We have a collector in our club and he mentioned that it was a good idea, but all of you have made great points 2) Looking on TOTW, I noticed that the THLers had two sizes of holes on each type of THL. 3) I do use 3f powder and do not want it to run out into the pan so that is a good thought to think about 4) Only 3 or sometimes 4 of the guys in our club regularly use flintlocks, most use percussion so advise from guys that have been using flintlocks for a long time is very useful. 5) I have read, in many places, the dilemma about the THL threads sticking out, on the inside of the barrel, and causing a lot of problems. That is a very good point that I do not want to have to deal with.

So, I think that last suggestion is what I will go with. I'll just take barrel to my brother he will have the skill and a proper drill/bit and tools to do it right.

Thanks guys!

 

[don hepler]

The bigger the touch hole, the more blow back into the pan, and will lose some pressure. There is a balance.

 

[Black Jack]

Replacement liners for your gun that are of larger hole diameter and already coned are also available from companies like RMC for $5-6. The current liner used by Traditions is also well coned and is available from them.

 

[rafterob]

before I start shooting it

Maybe y'all missed that part of the post. I would say start shooting it, see how it performs and then make a decision on if it needs to be enlarged. My son's rifle has a small touch hole, no liner and it goes bang every time the pan goes off. Don't fix it if it ain't broken :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Birddog6]

The vent liner is not going to stick out into the barrel, as the vent liner is going into a Patent Breech. Just use the liners that came with it, or buy a RMC liner of the proper metric... thread size.

Keith Lisle

 

[roundball]

FWIW, all my liners since the late-90's...(originally sold by T/C, now sold by RMC)...have .070" vent holes, letting me see the Goex 3F perched in the hole, no problem with it dribbling out, and ignition seems about like shooting a .30-30. I found them to be so fast & reliable that I had all breechpugs made for my current long guns to use that same vent liner. (1/4" x 28)

 

[Rifleman1776]

I think you are overthinking a problem that you only are currently imagining.
So far there is no proven problem with the current liner. You are assigning a possible problem to the liner from experience with a different gun entirely.
My advice? Shoot it. If problems arise then look for a solution.
Forgive my directness, but you cannot fix problems that do not exist sitting at the keyboard.
Go shooting and let us know about your experience after the fact.

 

[Kabo1313]

Ok, Rifleman1776, sounds like a good idea. The only reason that I brought it up is that the "collector" in our club (he has over $100,000.00 in BP guns) had given me that advice.
But, if there are no problems with the factory vent liner then there is no reason to mess with it. Also, I did fear messing with the threaded hole that the vent liner goes into because I had read a long article a while back about when enlarging a flintlock vent liner hole it is more often than not done to low and not centered correctly causing powder to flow back out into the flash pan. I think that is what some people may have been referring to earlier.

And I would shoot everyday, if I could, but being only a "guest" on our range, I can only shoot once a month when the whole club is shooting. I am an official member of the club but the range has closed their membership application process because their are so many members already and the application waiting list is already years long. :td: And, no worries about your directness...honesty is always the best policy. :wink:

 

[Kabo1313]

What does FWIW mean?

 

[roundball]

For What It's Worth

 

[FishDFly]

Are you in the Greenwood Club?

 

[FishDFly]

FWIW, I think it means for what it's worth for those who are into the new language.