Where to find flints in the wild?

[madbrad]

Question does anyone have any tips on finding flints in Nature what to look for ect. Either for Firestarting or as an emergency flint for your rifle. Just Curious

 

[Many Klatch]

I don't know as I ever had much luck finding flints in the field. The tribes traded flint from far and wide. There were a number of well known flint mines where people went to get flint and then chipped their own.

That being said. I have read that you can upgrade a chert stone by burying it in the dirt under a fire pit for a few days. The slow heat makes it more suitable for use in knapping arrow heads (sort of like a poorman's flint) so I imagine that it would work better in a flintlock. I haven't tried it, but it might be worth it.

 

[Norskie]

Come to the mountains, my friend. Up here near the Tennessee line I find lumps of the stuff when I dig in my garden. Must be like real estate: location, location, location.

 

[rich pierce]

I make flints from locally found flint and chert. Here in Missouri there's a lot of limestone and that's where flint is found. Tops of eroded ridges, hillsides, and creek gravel bars here are filled with flint/chert of varying quality. In a couple of hours I can pick up about 30 pounds of suitable raw material.

 

[aragorn]

There's a huge amount all over the chalk downlands of southern England, which is why the best flints come from there (Tom Fuller etc).

 

[GrayBear]

Location, location, location is right on. For all practical purposes there's close to none in most of the west. Frankly, it gives me a grin when people say I might run out of caps while they can just "pick up a rock." From pre-Revolutionary days up to the start of the Civil War the settlers depended on French and English flint as the fairly rare American flint is usually of poor quality.

GrayBear

 

[boar]

Flint is Ohio gem stone. I have five gal buckets of flint I have picked up here in the gravels. Plus I have a lot of chips I found ar sites.I have made some good gun flints. I have one piece my son found when he worked across the road at gravel pit that is big as a basketball. hate to break it.They said the flint came down with the Glaciers from Canada. Indains got a lot of flint at flint ridge by Newcomerstown, about 70 miles from here.I can go up at Big Sandy Creek on my property an pick up flint on gravel bars. Dilly

 

[oldarmy]

why doesn't someone develop Ohio Flint deposits commercilay??
If we are buying flints for $1 each from England, surley their is money to be made.
Plus there is already an existing market

 

[robinghewitt]

There's a huge amount all over the chalk downlands of southern England

Thought I saw a rock outcrop a few years ago, had to go for a closer look :shocked2:

Turned out to be something had stained the chalk brown. If it isn't chalk or flint hereabouts, a truck brought it :thumbsup:

 

[boar]

If you had big veins or cliffs like in England ,you might, Flint Ridge I think is off Limits now, I think like a Park. The flints you pick up here have alot of cracks, from freezing and thawing. We found alot of flints in a spring,The Indains would leave flints in water as they wouldn't freeze as quick, and springs were a landmark. I guess it is like coal. Big veins easy to get lots, If you had to pick up a piece here and there,nots so good. Hope this makes sense Dilly

 

[buckknife]

Around here chert can be found in about any creek that has much rocks in it or where there has been 2 to 3 inch limestone rock laid down.
My wife had to have me put some rose bushes out a couple years back.We used river rock in the big bags they have outside at walley world in the summer time around em.I noticed here awhile back that there is a considerble amount of chert rock mixed in with the rest of it.Picked out a dozen usable flints without looken too hard.Doubt if id ever noticed it if i didnt have a rock lock :haha:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Simplest way I have found for selection, are rocks that have a waxy looking surface. When looking for stone projectile points and such, squint for the glint method works for me. Look on the terrain surface toward the sun, the artifacts and suitable stones will reflect light.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I know of places here in the Arizona high country where one can fill a pickup bed with large chert nodules in about an hour.

Jasper (very suitable for rock locks) is found almost all over the western states, in Wyoming it is very prolific.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Like many others, I can't fall down without cutting myself on flint around here! Just got to go where the stuff grows!! :rotf:

 

[Mike Brooks]

I found two places locally years ago where prehistoric flint knapper worked. Tons of shards of fire hardened chirt, super hard stuff. One was along a creek bank. and the shards would wash out after a good rain. That site is under a lake now.
The other site was on the edge of a field under a huge oak tree. The oak was logged out about 15 years ago and the whole area bulldozed and a housing addition was built. These sites where about 5 miles apart. I was told about both of them by an old timer who found out I was interested in such stuff and he just passed the information along and told me to do the same...... too bad the modern world wiped it all out.

 

[aragorn]

Among the best flints in N America are those from the Onondaga outcrop, a ridge of hard limestone that runs from about Detroit along the northern shore of Lake Erie, through Buffalo and as far east as Albany. Parts of it are densely embedded with black flint, which you can see where the limestone was used for building (as in southern England, where some old walls, churches etc look as if they're built entirely of flint).

Onondaga flint was highly sought after and traded long distances by Indians, from early Palaeo-Indian times. I've got quite a collection I've found in ploughsoil at several sites about a hundred miles north of the ridge, including waste chippings and finished tools. I can only assume that Onondaga flint was also used for gunflints, but I don't know - were the best gunflints mainly imported from England in the colonial period, as they are for us today? What about during the Rev War and afterwards?

I believe the best outcrops were in the Buffalo-western NY state part of the Onondaga ridge, and I know that quite a bit of research has been done on this by archaeologists - there's probably lots on the web (for a start, Wikipedia has a good article on Onondaga, with a map of the ridge).

 

[redwing]

Wyoming chert works. I fired 35 shots today on a chert never had to knap it, they throw lots of sparks. Problem is they break like glass and you never know how many shots before they go. Some times 30 next time one or two. The good thing its every where. :thumbsup:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I have found chert & jasper (chert in drag with a prettier color) in the Red Desert area betwixt Rock Springs and Wamsutter, (still have a tee shirt that reads, "where in the H*** is Wamsutter Wyoming?) same around Rawlins and Cody.

 

[Deadeye]

It's everywhere here, just picked up this purdy piece yesterday and knocked of a flake and knapped it to fit my Fucil. Sparks good.

 

[MikeChapin]

...(still have a tee shirt that reads, "where in the H*** is Wamsutter Wyoming?)...

It's not the end of the earth but you can see it from there. :grin: