Weather proofing your flash pan

[Juggernaut]

Weather proofing your flash pan. I was headed out the other morning for a hunt and noticed it was raining. I’m not a fair weather hunter I figure if the deer are in the rain I can hunt them in the rain.
These are a few tips I have learned over the last 30 years of hunting with black powder.
I weather proof one of two ways and both work just as well. I use a cows knee but you still have to remove to fire and in a rain this still can effect your priming charge.
When loading the main charge I meter the powder as usual. Then before the patch I put a small piece of cellophane “saran wrap” over the muzzle then the lubed patch followed by the ball. The cellophane is cut by the muzzle crown and is cut to the perfect diameter of the bore. Thus protecting the charge from moisture. And being made of cellulose burns away upon ignition. I found the patch can and has transferred moisture thought the cotton patch in the past hunting in these adverse conditions. Even the lube can contaminate the main charge and effect firing. The second step can be done one of two ways. The first being I charge the flash pan with my priming charge of FFFFg in the normal standard manner. After closing the frizzen on the flash pan I either take wax or shot lube and seal the frizzen to the flash pan. Wax works better since it becomes a solid and does not get messy plus the wax peels off and removes easier.Both are burned away when you fire.
I have taken an old Flinter and submerged completely in water and she still fired I did this at hunting camp to prove to some hunting colleges that it really works. This works for me you guys may want to change or alter it to suit your personal shooting habits.
Thanks I hope this helps!!!
Juggernaut

 

[Johnny Tremain]

It is known to have down right gully washers here. Ive been out in them. I have to turn my tricorn around to stop the water from pouring down when I tilt me head down.

For PC use bees wax, for not use a crayon.

Before you put the powder in. Line the outer edge/rim of your pan with a layer of wax.

Pour your powder, close it up. Ive never had a shot not go off.

 

[Juggernaut]

It is known to have down right gully washers here. Ive been out in them. I have to turn my tricorn around to stop the water from pouring down when I tilt me head down.

For PC use bees wax, for not use a crayon.

Before you put the powder in. Line the outer edge/rim of your pan with a layer of wax.

Pour your powder, close it up. Ive never had a shot not go off.

Johnny,
Yep exactly, I keep the wax in my pocket to keep it pliable.

Juggernaut

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you will mix your beeswax with motor oil, in a 50/50 mix, or a 1 part wax to 2 or 3 parts oil, you get a maluable oily wax that is more like putty, and can be used to seal around the frizzen once primed. The oil acts as a water repellant, but the wax keeps it solid enough that it does not contaminate the powder, or the wood.

I gave a variance on the formula because this has to be adjusted to expected temperatures you may hunt in. There is nothing that says you can't brew up these compounds and put them in tins in one cooking session. Then mark the cans to indicate what mix is inside, and take the one with you that is best suited for the weather conditions. some want a more oily mix for use when rain changes to sleet or snow, or when its below freezing to start the day with, but may get above freezing during the day. Use the 50/50 formula if you hunt in 60+ temperatures. Oh, you can use any oil. I mentioned motor oil, because we used to make this up using used motor oil dad would drain from the car when he changed his own oil. The oil would be allowed to sit to precipitate out as much crud as possible, then some of the oil at the top would be skimmed, and poured through some coffee filters, and then it would be used for this mix. Dad made wax bullets with the 50/50 mix to shoot wasp nest from under the gutters on the second floor roof of the house. Push a .38 casing through the mix, remove it, then put a primer in the casing, and you had a NO- NOISE round that would do the job. When the nest hit the ground, we would all go in the house for an hour to let the pests settle down. Then we would fill a bucket with water, and using the long tongs for the barbeque, we would pick up the nest and dump it in the bucket, pushing it under water to drown all the wasps. Never did get stung doing that. Amazing, still. One summer when I went to get his little pot pie alum tin with the wax mixture, I noted how soft it was, and he pushed his casing through the mix much easier. The tin had been left out in the garage, and it may have been 80 degrees or more that day. I kept an eye on it after that and realized it didn't really get very hard until you got down well under 70 degrees. By adding more oil, you can reduce the temperature at which the mix gets hard.

 

[jaguarxk120]

Why not use the wax sealing ring in a toilet? A new one of course. The wax is soft and pliable.
Used it for many different thing from driving screws into wood to lubing the hinge pin on a double shotgun. And there not too expensive at Home Depot, just the ring not the fancy one. All thats wanted is the wax ring. TF

 

[rafterob]

The original cellophane wrap was cellulose based, however modern plastic wraps are polymer based, including I believe, saran wrap. This brings visions of melted plastic goo to mind. I can't imagine a few shots when hunting would be a big deal though.An adaption of the wax-lube wads used by C&B revolver fanatics might be the trick.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

A soft medium hard tallow will also work. I take my fingernail and scrape some of the tallow from the grease hole in my squirrel gun. Roll the tallow in your fingers into a long bead. Like was mentioned earlier put this bead around your pan before you prime. After you prime when you close the frizzen it will form a gasket around the pan.
I then work in a bead where the frizzen meets the barrel and behind the frizzen at the base. For demonstrations I have poured a half a gallon of water over the lock and then fired it. It worked 200 years ago, it still works!

 

[gsptarget]

Why not use the wax sealing ring in a toilet? A new one of course. The wax is soft and pliable.
Used it for many different thing from driving screws into wood to lubing the hinge pin on a double shotgun. And there not too expensive at Home Depot, just the ring not the fancy one. All thats wanted is the wax ring. TF

I am always amazed at the inginuity of humans when confronted with a problem.
I like this answer

 

[Juggernaut]

Gettogun,

I have shot 100's of rounds in this manner not once was there any plastic residue. Also your looking at a piece of cellophane that is around .500 in dia and a few 1000th inch thick I would imagine that it is all vaporized and consumed in the flash. But I never thought of that good point.

Juggernaut

 

[scratch]

Some of those toilet seals are actually made of bees wax.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I also would not expect to find any plastic residue. The cellophane is a hydro carbon, and easily is burned up in the high temperature generated by the burning powder. Putting a pice of saran wrap between the powder and patch, at the muzzle, and then driving them down together wrapped around the RB makes a lot of sense and offers a much better seal to moisture migration. I have taped muzzles, and taped saran wrap over my muzzle, and held saran wrap over the muzzle with rubber bands, nut have never tried this trick. I will. And thank you for the idea, Juggernaut. As to sealing the touch hole, I have a couple of new things to try.

My frizzens are filed to they fit very closely to the pans when closed. I am not very sure if I want to put a wax ring there no matter how good it sounds. I would be worried about the ring changing the angles of my frizzen to the flint on striking. I will play around with it to see if my concerns are valid or not. Pouring water over the lock when the ring is in place is a decent, easy test to use to see how good a seal you can get. Thanks for that idea, too.

I am going to use wax to seal between the barrel and frizzen to see how that works. I have both paraffin wax, and beeswax, but both are rather huge chunks, and are pretty hard. I will mix some beeswax with oil and see if I can't get a maluable form that won't be a lot different than the toilet rings you use.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I make bowstring wax by mixing 1lb of beeswax with one toilet wax seal. The result is great for making bowstrings and the perfect consistency to seal a pan.

I pour the melted mix into small Dixie cups to harden.

 

[roundball]

I don't believe there are enough beehives in the country to make all the toilet rings out of beeswax that get used every year...my guess is they're some sort of synthetic