Vent pick useage?

[Cruzatte]

I keep a piece of brass wire about. I've also been known to use a round toothpick. But mostly, like Mike Brooks, I just load, prime, and fire.

Cruzatte

 

[biliff]

I use a copper wire placed in the vent before loading. I do this because I've looked in the vent and been able to see the powder granules (FFg) blocking the opening and want a bit more clearance to the main charge to avoid the "fuse" effect. Don't know how much it helps but it makes me feel better.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Don't know how much it helps? Just do it with and without the hold in the powder charge and see what the effect is! Hold the gun down away from your face, so you can look at the burning of the priming powder, and the smoke coming back out the touch hole. YOu should clearly see that picking the powder to leave a hole creates faster ignition. The human ear may not be able to hear the difference, but the eye can see the difference. Hopefully, we will have some time-lapse photographs of this when the weather warms, as Pletch is going to do this kind of testing.

 

[THORNAPPLE]

Here I agree with Mike Brooks again. :bow: I can see the charge up against the touchhole & I fill the pan pretty much level. Big flash...big fast BOOM!
The way I cone the inside of the touchhole liner it is a total waste of time to pick it!

 

[spudnut]

I don't pick or slap but I shoot a Bess that likes a lot of prime 2F 3 or 4 doesnt seem to matter when your throwing a one inch flint at it(and a long throw it is :haha: )....Mark

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Others, load normally, then hit the lockside of the gun with their hand to get powder into the vent hole.

Deacon, I think you'll find many of the folks slapping the side of the gun have firelocks with patent breeches that are prone to powder "bridging" over and not filling, and they're not actually trying to get powder into the touch-hole, just down to it. Some powder in the patent breech before bridging and you may not notice it. No powder in the breech means no shot until you drift enough in through the touch-hole to take the flash and light off the rest of the charge. I have three flinters with patent breeches. The two rifle are fussy to different degrees, even with 3F; the .50 still bridges occasionally, the .32 does often. The fowler, on the other hand, takes no special care - I feed it 2F or Cartridge and I've never had one problem with powder bridging.

Joel

 

[Stumpkiller]

I do that before I close the frizzen to level the prime in the pan. It's usually heaped up in the middle after I charge with priming powder. Mostly so I won't trap any powder in the lip and keep the frizzen from seating full down.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Stumpy, that sounds like a light tap with the finger tips or knuckles applied to a horizontal firelock, where the move-the-powder-down thing is usually more of a series of slap-up-side-the-head thumps with the palm or heel of the hand, or a minimum of a sharp rap of the knuckles, applied to either the side of a vertically-held firelock.

And I realized after it was too late to edit my previous post that it sounds like I'm still having problems with the .32 & .50. I'm not - I just have to remember to slap them around appropriately (.32 more than the .50) and they're fine. The fowler, I don't bother at all - just dump in powder, insert wads, and ram.

Joel

 

[gungho]

mabye I am to new to reply to this but I shoot a GPR 54cal I just load powder prime with 4f and shoot the only time it dosent go off is when I have taken too many shots on one flint and dont get any spark the only changes that I have made are to take the advice of people and drilled the touch hole out to 1/16th but have only shot a few hundred shots through it BUT IT'S FUN TO SHOOT YOUR GUN
Gung