When to change touch hole liner?

[nhmoose]

I have made my own liners since around 1990. I have nevr removed one nor replaced one.

Put it back in. do not remove it you most likely will never shoot it out as I never have, and I shot 1-2K a year in competition, plinking and hunting.

You may have to drill it out a smite to ensure ignition.

Amatures should not **** with **** they do not know about try asking first before screwing it up no offence but I made lots of money from them when I owned my shop. I was polite but charged $60 minimum to fix stuff the scrwed up being very polite to them.

 

[teakmtn]

Something that I see too often is shooters using a steel vent pick. Also, it drives me crazy seeing vendors selling fancy Blacksmith made steel vent picks. No faster way to wear out your vent. You should only use brass or some material softer than the barrel steel. Just saying.

 

[M. De Land]

Something that I see too often is shooters using a steel vent pick. Also, it drives me crazy seeing vendors selling fancy Blacksmith made steel vent picks. No faster way to wear out your vent. You should only use brass or some material softer than the barrel steel. Just saying.

If a soft black iron wire pick of the same diameter and a blunt end is used no damage will occure or enlargement of the vent hole. This style of pick pushed the fouling out in a plug and doubles as a gauge to tell when erosion is happening. I like to form a flat coil on the end to form a finger purchase.
The steel, twisted square picks, sold at trade shows are the worst thing for flash hole clearing as they act just like a reamer to enlarge it.

 

[DuncNZ]

Quality stainless flash holes will last a lot of shots , not so poor quality steel ones. I have seen 1Pedersoli Mortimer shotgun and 1 rifle where the flash holes burnt out in 20 or so shots , they were not up to scratch . They were replaced with White Lightening flash holes and never had another problem , The factory flash hole on my shotgun opened up so fast the flash melted the end off the Jasper flint I was using

 

[Mad L]

My Pedersoli .50 cal Pennsylvania:
I don't have exact data but probably about 10 years, aproxamitly 1.5K rounds and I began having 'mystery' misfires. Flint good, frozen sparkling well, pan clean (no I have never 'shined' it, just clean). Only way I could get it fore was to aggressively pick the vent and over charge the pan. It would fire a few more rounds the Misfire again. Real aggravating as she Never misfires other the a worn flint or dirty frizzen.

After the second time out with the same experience (shooting roughly 20-30 round each). I was determined to find out Why?
I always pull the vent (and nipples) when I clean. So this time I looked CLOSE at the liner, comparing it to a spare i could see the hole was larger and the inside was not cleaning out 'shiny' anymore.

Replaced the liner and have not had a 'mystery' misfire again..and, as I recall, I noticed it was firing noticably Faster again.

Yes, I use a horseshoe nail pick but I am not an aggressive picker, yes I remove the every time I clean (only way to clean out those tiny areas behind it and with a Q-tip i get the breech nice and clean. I always grease the thread and ALWAYS screw it (and nipples) in with my Fingers, using a driver Only for final tightness and only Snug not torqued down. I have Never cross threaded nor stripped one this way.

 

[hanshi]

All the flintlock rifles living in my home have the ss liners drilled out to 1/16". It's possible to get a few granules through the liner and into the pan and is not a worry. The worry is a LOT of granules leaking into the pan. Unless working on the barrel or making repairs there's no need to ever remove the liner. Never remove it for normal post shooting cleaning.

 

[DuncNZ]

.Yes, I use a horseshoe nail pick but I am not an aggressive picker, yes I remove the every time I clean (only way to clean out those tiny areas behind it and with a Q-tip i get the breech nice and clean. I always grease the thread and ALWAYS screw it (and nipples) in with my Fingers, using a driver Only for final tightness and only Snug not torqued down. I have Never cross threaded nor stripped one this way.

I have been using a filed down horse shoe nail as a vent pick for many years , they are made of soft iron and don't wear the vent . I figured that they were available about further back than the first firearms and could be considered an authentic and easily available accessory .
One thing about horseshoe nails is the old used ones were a favorite material for making Damascus barrels

 

[Sidney Smith]

Unless you shoot in matches weekly where youre shooting many many rounds, , you will be able to go for years without wearing out a touch hole liner.

You're not going to wear out a touch hole with a steel pick in my opinion unless it's one of those kinds which are tapered in diameter that are bigger at the base than the touch hole. Piano wire touch hole picks will not cause any wear as they are the same diameter throughout.

 

[Mad L]

All the flintlock rifles living in my home have the ss liners drilled out to 1/16". It's possible to get a few granules through the liner and into the pan and is not a worry. The worry is a LOT of granules leaking into the pan. Unless working on the barrel or making repairs there's no need to ever remove the liner. Never remove it for normal post shooting cleaning.

I always remove my liners and nipples, find a lot of crud back in there...but then I never flush water through my barrel either, too messy and in my opinion does not clean as good as a good swab q-tip.
Never damaged one either, not it its screwed in the way any threaded item should be.
Ya, removing it and cleaning it and replacing it is more Work, but if you whistle while you do it then its actually Fun!

 

[M. De Land]

I always remove my liners and nipples, find a lot of crud back in there...but then I never flush water through my barrel either, too messy and in my opinion does not clean as good as a good swab q-tip.
Never damaged one either, not it its screwed in the way any threaded item should be.
Ya, removing it and cleaning it and replacing it is more Work, but if you whistle while you do it then its actually Fun!

This is why I advocate making the interior of the vent the same profile as the groove diameter of the barrel, timed to bottom out against an interior shoulder if barrel wall thickness allows. I also like to ream out the rifling for about a 1/2 inch ahead of the breech plug to groove diameter as this leaves no rifling, corners or pockets for fouling to build up, in or on and lets the patch turn freely against the breech plug face.
A blunt faced pick of soft wire, the same diameter as the vent pushes the plug of fouling out, will not spear the off side of the barrel wall as will a hard pointed pick and will reveal any erosive enlargement of the vent hole.
This elevates any need to remove the liner until it is eroded to the point of needing replacement. The ones I make myself are made of A-2 high chrome ,tool steel, left in the annealed state so they can be easily drilled and eazy-outed. They can also be hardened should the annealed ones I currently use prove to be short lived.
It should be realized that vent lining at construction is really a modern concept from what I can glean as original vents I have seen were simply drilled through the barrel wall and A-2 tool steel , even left annealed is much tougher than any barrel steel I know of past or present.
I'm sure history will show repairs made to eroded vents being lined in some cases but don't think it was a practice used much in the original construction.
I do believe some high end guns in history like Purdey etc. were vent lined with platinum liners and/or plating but doubt it was the norm .

 

[B P Maniac Shooter]

I've never replaced mine.
I drilled the touch holes out to 1/16" and keep on shooting.

 

[Mad L]

This is why I advocate making the interior of the vent the same profile as the groove diameter of the barrel, timed to bottom out against an interior shoulder if barrel wall thickness allows. I also like to ream out the rifling for about a 1/2 inch ahead of the breech plug to groove diameter as this leaves no rifling, corners or pockets for fouling to build up, in or on and lets the patch turn freely against the breech plug face.
A blunt faced pick of soft wire, the same diameter as the vent pushes the plug of fouling out, will not spear the off side of the barrel wall as will a hard pointed pick and will reveal any erosive enlargement of the vent hole.
This elevates any need to remove the liner until it is eroded to the point of needing replacement. The ones I make myself are made of A-2 high chrome ,tool steel, left in the annealed state so they can be easily drilled and eazy-outed. They can also be hardened should the annealed ones I currently use prove to be short lived.
It should be realized that vent lining at construction is really a modern concept from what I can glean as original vents I have seen were simply drilled through the barrel wall and A-2 tool steel , even left annealed is much tougher than any barrel steel I know of past or present.
I'm sure history will show repairs made to eroded vents being lined in some cases but don't think it was a practice used much in the original construction.
I do believe some high end guns in history like Purdey etc. were vent lined with platinum liners and/or plating but doubt it was the norm .

Wow, that's all some cool stuff!

I will continue to use what comes with the gun and replace with over the counter replacements, their cheap enough I bought a pack of three. One every 10+ years or 1+K shots is only pennies.
Plus I don't have any milling equipment....

The Pedersoli does not have any rifling that reaches the vent, but after a good cleaning I can always reach a Q-tip 'forward' of the vent (through the vent with liner removed) and pull some 'black' out. I am happy with my way of cleaning, only takes 15-20 minutes and I have never dealt with rust or other issues I read about that others have.

 

[M. De Land]

Wow, that's all some cool stuff!

I will continue to use what comes with the gun and replace with over the counter replacements, their cheap enough I bought a pack of three. One every 10+ years or 1+K shots is only pennies.
Plus I don't have any milling equipment....

The Pedersoli does not have any rifling that reaches the vent, but after a good cleaning I can always reach a Q-tip 'forward' of the vent (through the vent with liner removed) and pull some 'black' out. I am happy with my way of cleaning, only takes 15-20 minutes and I have never dealt with rust or other issues I read about that others have.

Makes sense on a production gun using what's commercially available. This stuff I was sharing is for kit guns when one has to do all this sort of thing anyway in the build. Makes life a little easier in the clean up, reliability and better function.

 

[Art Caputo]

Art,
During my my first experience with a Chambers White Lightnin' liner, I kept track of rounds fired from my 40 caliber rifle. I was using a modest charge of 40-45 gns. Goex 3f throughout the entire time. At about 3,000 rds. the rifle was "self-priming" enough that I decided to replace the liner. Of course, the decision is subjective. When is "too much" powder coming through the eroded vent ? Unfortunately, I didn't measure and record the size of the vent hole at that point but I was keeping track of the round count.
I'll also add that in conversation with Jim ( Chambers) he recommended opening my new liner to approx. .062 ( 1/16th is .0625 btw) for a guy like myself for whom 100% reliability is critical. Unless I'm doing load testing, that particular rifle is ONLY fired offhand. In Club matches, small game hunting, and Woods Walk competitions...reliability is more important than the size of the "one ragged hole" group I can get off a rest.

I agree. If the powder was coming through the flash hole excessively, I’d surely consider a liner change. I haven’t shot that many rounds through a single rifle….While most of my liners have flash holes that are 1/16” size, I have in recent years started with a #53 drill(.0595”), and have had good success in terms of ignition. My largest flash hole is in my 62cal Fowler which is 5/64”(2F), which is on the large size but doesn’t spill into the pan and gives instantaneous ignition, and good accuracy. Interestingly, my M. Kemper, Early Dickert has no liner, but Marvin coned the inside of the barrel to achieve a “White Lightning” type design. This is one if my best performing locks(speed of ignition). The flash hole is approximately 1/16”.

 

[M. De Land]

I agree. If the powder was coming through the flash hole excessively, I’d surely consider a liner change. I haven’t shot that many rounds through a single rifle….While most of my liners have flash holes that are 1/16” size, I have in recent years started with a #53 drill(.0595”), and have had good success in terms of ignition. My largest flash hole is in my 62cal Fowler which is 5/64”(2F), which is on the large size but doesn’t spill into the pan and gives instantaneous ignition, and good accuracy. Interestingly, my M. Kemper, Early Dickert has no liner, but Marvin coned the inside of the barrel to achieve a “White Lightning” type design. This is one if my best performing locks(speed of ignition). The flash hole is approximately 1/16”. View attachment 183590View attachment 183591

I think any break in the breech plug seal to the inner collar (coning in this instance) a bad idea Art as it will allow fouling migration into the V threads and corrosion eventually. The inner cone also vectors pressure outward just as a WL liner does and barrel steel is far less able to resist erosion than is a hardened stainless liner.

 

[Art Caputo]

I think any break in the breech plug seal to the inner collar (coning in this instance) a bad idea Art as it will allow fouling migration into the V threads and corrosion eventually. The inner cone also vectors pressure outward just as a WL liner does and barrel steel is far less able to resist erosion than is a hardened stainless liner.

Time will tell. I try to keep it well cleaned and lubed. Of my dozen flintlocks it’s my fastest igniter, and, most accurate….several hundred rounds fired so fat.

 

[M. De Land]

Time will tell. I try to keep it well cleaned and lubed. Of my dozen flintlocks it’s my fastest igniter, and, most accurate….several hundred rounds fired so fat.

I'd be interested in what you discover Art as I too have not shot enough flint gun to erode a vent. My comparison to nipple erosion could very well be apples and oranges as the cap brisenense must also play a part in nipple erosion which may or may not be roughly equivalent to pan flash in erosive behavior.
I have worn out quite a few nipples over 50 years and most of that in competitive shooting which racks up a lot of rounds down range. This often means 40-50 shots per match with sighters and a good deal more at territorials.
With nipple erosion the first indication is in a called shot that does not register where the break occurred then a magnified inspection of the orifice in the nipple will usually reveal an oblong, enlarged, ragged, eroded hole.

 

[hanshi]

Wear on a nipple or liner from shooting conicals seems a good deal faster than shooting only prb. Conical shooting produces higher pressures than a similar load firing prb. Higher pressures in a gun/rifle are what erodes vents and nipples, IMHO.

 

[M. De Land]

Wear on a nipple or liner from shooting conicals seems a good deal faster than shooting only prb. Conical shooting produces higher pressures than a similar load firing prb. Higher pressures in a gun/rifle are what erodes vents and nipples, IMHO.

That is absolutely true Hanshi ! I have several friends that have done quite a bit of competitive long range work with conicals and they erode regular nipples very quickly.
If I could learn how to plate them with platinum I have given some thought to providing that service but It would probably be a money looser as well as expensive to learn how !