Vent liner verses plain hole

This weekend I will drill the barrel for either my 1/4 by 28 vent liner or just a plain hole. Has anyone actually experimented by comparing the two methods for real noticable results. I like the authentic plain hole method(what size hole?) but I will use my vent liner if it yields honest, superior ignition times. This is for a Colrain .62 Jaeger barrel. Thanks in advance to those more experienced than I.

 

[Zonie]

No, I haven't conducted any tests. I also haven't seen any tests in which someone drilled a small touch hole and tried to determine ignition time and then drilled it out and installed a liner in a back to back set of tests to determine the difference.

I have read that just a touch hole without a machined hollow area inside the barrel to reduce the length of the hole results in an increased number of slow-fires or mis-fires.

To me, this is logical because a long touch hole results in the flame having to not only travel further before getting to the main charge but it being somewhat cooled by the confining walls of the hole.

In the past, machining the inside of the barrel at the touch hole location to form a pocket and reduce the touch hole length was done. Machining the inside wall of the barrel to create this pocket is not an easy task so it is not done by most modern builders.

The simple solution to this is by installing a vent liner. By doing this, if a good liner is purchased which has the entire inside of it hollowed out leaving only about 1/16 inch of vent hole length, then the most difficult task for the builder is to drill and tap the hole, install the liner and finish it flush with the barrel flat.

If you do choose to install a vent liner, check it to make sure it is not protruding inside the bore. If it is, it will tend to keep the powder from getting into the liner like it should. It will also interfere with the cleaning jag/patch.

 

[musketman]

I like a plain hole, it seems more natural...

Vent liners seem like a modern concept, at least to me it does...

When was the first vent liner?

 

[Deadeye]

JJ, There's your chance to find out and let the rest of us know. Drill the hole, test it for X no. of shots then
install the liner and see if it's better.
MM, I think the 1st liner was used when someone made a hole too large or a hole eroded til it was too large. This original 1810 musket has a touch hole about 1/8", I think from erosion, would need a liner if it were to be used again.

 

I believe Manton used platnim vent liners on some of his flint fowlers in the late 1700s(no reference in sight, I may be off a few years, but it was early on). The plain hole in the flat works fine most of the time, at first. Then the hole starts to "burn out", making a larger and larger opening. Traditionally, a feather was placed in the badly eroded hole, during loading, to stop the flow of powder onto the ground. This was so common that most guns were fitted with a feather hole at the rear of the trigger guard when they were made. When the "burnout" got intolerable the smith could either rebreech the gun and set everything back a half inch and reset the barrel loops and wedges or pins, or drill the enlarged hole smooth, install a plug and drill a fresh vent.
If I were doing the work, or paying for it, I'd go with te vent plug, and probably have it all done as part of a barrel freshing.
Even today, I've built several guns where I drilled the vent in the barrel flat with the intent of installing a liner when it "burned out".

 

[LRB]

If you want the fastest possible ignition, assuming everything else is operating properly, go with the vent liner. There is no need to test the speed difference, the speed of a vent liner is a given. I would suggest the Chambers white lightening, or a liner modified in a similar manner. Ghost is correct on the origins of liners and I would speculate a bit earlier. As far as internally coning the barrel to produce the same effect, this was done some in EU, but as yet there is no hard evidence that I know of, that the practice was ever done in the colonies. As far as I know, the little tool that Peter Alexander has been showing has never shown itself on this side of the ocean. It would appear that the Caywood type of outside coning may have been done, but a badly eroded touch hole on an original could give a similar appearance. A well tuned lock with a vent liner that gives about 1/32 of fire tunnel to the main charge is so close to the speed of a, gag, caplock, that this difference would have to be measured.

 

[charlie47]

I would certainly defer my opinion to those of you with MUCH more experience.

I've only owned two flinters, a GPR with liner. It worked great, I thought it made for easy cleaning. Then came the
Caywood Wilson Chiefs Grade. Of course you know it had no liner. I can't imagine any faster or more reliable ignition
than the Caywood. If you haven't seen the Caywood website,
there is a link on this board. Danny covers this discussion
on the site. You might be interested in what he has to say.

BTW, I did have 1 "flash in the pan", but did I say that I forget to charge with powder, well I did forget, it wasn't the Caywood.
Regards,
charlie47

 

[Randy]

I agree with Wick Ellerbe, the Chambers white Lightning liners are probably the fastest thing going. However you have the perfect opportunity to experiment and prove it to yourself. Drill a plain 1/16" hole and try it for a while. When you get frustrated with slow ignition enlarge it to 5/64" and then try 3/32' or even 7/64" . You can then install a liner and start over again.

 

[tg]

I have seen post by many veteran builders/shooters who feel that a large hole 5/64 or so does very well, rarely do you hear a complaint about the Caywood guns, liners were not the norm in the past and folks seemed to do ok without them, on my next project I am going to use a plain hole, (for the PC effect) if the ignition time is a hair slower I guess I will work on my hold and follow through...

 

Thanks folks. Yes, I see the smartest thing to do at this point would be to drill a plain hole and if that seems to suck I could drill and tap for my liner. I would prefer authenticity (I'm with you,TG) because of all the time spent on this build. I'll just have to experiment with it and I'll report back when that time comes. Now, what size hole for my swamped 31" Colrain Jaeger in .62? Thanks again! JJ

 

[Herb]

I have built 7 with liners and two with drilled holes. The Bruner shown here has a liner and my Jacob Wigle .40 (left) has a drilled hole. (Wigle worked in Westmoreland County, PA from 1811 to 1844). The other one I made is a Henry Albright .54 Lancaster. I drilled the holes with a No. 43 drill (.089), and coned them on the inside of the barrel with a round stone in a Dremel tool. I think they both ignite fast as a barrel with a liner. I started with about an .070 hole and opened the holes up to get faster ignition. From liners, I think a 1/16 inch hole is too small, don't ignite fast enough. I open them up to about .070 or so. 5/64 is .0781, that might be a good size if you don't have number drills. Loading with these drilled holes, I close the frizzen before putting powder down. Then a give a good bump with the heel of my hand on the lock side before I seat the ball. With 3F Goex, maybe 6 of 10 times the pan is primed enough to fire. But I just tried 3F Swiss, and that pan fills full every time, even without a bump, and that is too much priming powder. I don't expect to ever burn these holes larger. The original Wigle rifle is in our museum, I restored it (from a cave burial) in 1978 and again a couple of years ago, so I could copy the original pretty closely. It has a Dickert lock and an L.C. Rice barrel, which I like very much. Jack Garner of Tennessee Valley Manufacturing cut the stock from my tracing of the original.

 

[Xtramad]

In the past, machining the inside of the barrel at the touch hole location to form a pocket and reduce the touch hole length was done. Machining the inside wall of the barrel to create this pocket is not an easy task so it is not done by most modern builders.

They started couterboring the touchholes on military rifles and muskets in Scandinavia in the late 1790's. Just what kind of tool they used is hard to say. I have a modern angle drill, but even that won't fit inside a musket bore. I do have a countersink tool that will do the job by pulling it through the hole from the outside (the cutter is mounted from the inside), but did they have tools like this back then? (The stem on this tool is 3/32" and can be used in a .62 calibre bore.)

The purpose of this counterboring was also to enable the shooter to prime the pan by just tipping the rifle over on its side.

 

[LRB]

I truly admire any of you who can shoot well using a simple drilled vent. There was a time back in the 70's when I could. I cut my teeth on a .58 cal 1803 Zoli Harpers ferry. I got lucky, mine was competition accurate, and I won many friendly unofficial shoots with it. It had just a drilled hole. I also had a Jap Bess that was very accurate for what it was, also just a drilled hole. I got away from muzzleloading for 8 or 10 yrs, and when I came back to it, I found that I could no longer handle the delay. Tried and tried, but just got nowhere until I put a vent liner in the old 1803. It was like night and day for me. I still cannot shoot as well as I once could, but I keep at it regularly and do pretty good. I now shoot a custom .54 swamped barrel long rifle that came with a liner and do very well among my group of shooters, but if I get the slightest hang fire I blow the shot every time. When I hunt I take whatever rest I can get just in case she hangs, which is seldom, but here in FL the humidity can play hell with a flintlock and my range is about 10 yrds parallel to the St.Johns river.

 

[Richard Allen]

Herb, you have a lot more confidence in half cock notches than I do. I hope that confidence is never found to be misplaced.

All the flint shooters I know load with the frizzen open and the cock down, just to be safe.

Good luck,

Richard/Ga.

 

[Herb]

Richard- thanks. I never thought of that. I also load with the cock down and the frizzen open, don't know how I found that the large flash hole would self prime with the frizzen down. It is just a stunt, I won't do it any more. But what I did find from this is that the .089 hole is too big for 3F Swiss. Someone earlier talked about the feather to plug the flash hole so the powder wouldn't leak out. If I did that, I'd be period correct! I thought the idea of the feather was to leave a hole in the powder column to assure ignition, but I believe the "plug the vent" idea is better. When I get a flash in the pan (even with a liner), I probe the flash hole to open up the powder, and then it goes. And XTRAMAD said that the idea of coning the inside was to allow priming the pan by tipping the rifle to the side. Kenneth Roberts in his book "Rabble In Arms" describes militia members, maybe Captain Huff, priming their loaded muskets by giving them a shake to the side. I never tried that, would think the powder would be too packed to shake out or else would already have leaked out. Lots of good experience and ideas from you members.

 

[Richard Allen]

You're welcome! I'm relatively new to shooting a flinter, having converted from percussion only a couple of years ago. I try to avoid giving support to the "self-priming flintlock" practice or any other thing that may contribute to an accident. The anti-gun activists have more than enough support for their cause without us inadvertently helping them.

By the way, I use Goex 3f in my Early Lancaster that has a
White Lightning liner with the 1/16" touchhole and a few particles of powder get through it during loading. The floor of the firing line at our range is concrete. It took me quite a while to figure out where the powder on the floor was coming from.

Richard/Ga.

 

[Randy]

If you used a leather frizzen cover I would think you could safely load with the frizzen closed and cock half back. I believe most range officers frown on anything other than open frizzen and cock all the way down. I think the feather serves both purposes well (plugs the hole and creates a channel in the powder)