Traditions lock reliability improvements?

[hanshi]

I pour a little powder in the barrel then tap the butt of the rifle on the ground, or hit the side with my palm, it seems to allow a little powder to trickle down into the breech area. I have also polished my lock, drilled the touch hole out to 1/16" and removed material on the heel of the frizzen to weaken the tension and everything has helped with the reliability of my rifle.

These two minor things can make a major difference in reliability.

 

[Flintlock Whiskey]

Howdy y'all! Pretty new to the BP world and am soaking up great information from the forums, it's all greatly appreciated!

The rifle in question:View attachment 269412

Now onto the meat and potatoes. I recently completed my first kit from Traditions and while I know it's bottom of the barrel stuff I'm having a good time with it thusfar. However, with it being a lower end (compared to the beauties I see posted here!) rifle with a tiny lock I want to improve reliability for range and hunting use.

What would you recommend I do with it with what I have, I'm not going to purchase a better lock for this rifle (lipstick on a pig you know). I'd rather put the cash into my piggybank for a genuinely nice rifle down the road.

So far I've been mulling over:

1. Weakening the frizzen spring via the c-clamp method (it's really tight and my flint is gouging horizontal lines, sometimes not fully moving the frizzen forward). The steel doesn't seem to be very hard or is experiencing excessive wear from the spring.

2. Removing material on the heel (probably incorrect terminology) of the frizzen so it can physically move forward a bit further.

3. Polishing all surfaces where friction is present as well as the pan.

4. If the above fails to produce adequate results, drill out the touch hole in tiny increments or purchase a better quality hole liner.

I'd love to hear your suggestions, I really appreciate any feedback you fine folks have for me.

Thunk-Bang!
View attachment 269413

Who is the current best vendor to get one of these kits from?

 

[awreis]

I have also started picking the vent after every shot and blowing into the touch hole to clear everything out. Also, before every time to the range, I plug the vent hole with a tooth pick and pur a little alcohol down the barrel. I then swab a little to remove all traces of oil in the barrel that will only gum up with fouling. The other day I was able to get 20 shot off with only 2 flashes in the pan. Between everything I have done, plus building a consistent loading technique/pattern, I seem to have dialed in what works for my rifle. Hopefully the same will be true for you as well.