• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Priming horn or Priming flask...or?

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Sartana

32 Cal
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
12
New to blackpowder. Have been reading up on priming horns and priming flasks. Curious as to thoughts on either or. Also, I would like to keep things period (Colonial) and from what I have seen, they may not have used either as indeed, 4F and 0B were not an option. So, do you just prime from your regular powder horn (.54 cal so seems 2F is my choice). I do not hunt but will use gun for reenacting and on the range. For the latter, I am fine with priming with a finer powder. Again, curious as to thoughts and experiences. Thanks!
 
I just use the powder that's in my horn or flask to prime the pan on my rifles.
I have done this with both 2Fg and 3Fg powder and it seems to work just fine. :)

I think the people who use 4F powder to prime their pan are the ones who are looking for that "slight edge" in ignition speed. IMO, this may or may not be worth the extra effort of carrying and using 2 powder horns.

After reading all of the glowing reports about the wonders of using 4F powder to prime with, I went out and bought a pound of it. In all honesty, I couldn't tell the difference in speed between it and the 3Fg powder I had been using. It might be a bit faster than the 2Fg powder though. This leads me to believe the only good thing about using 4F powder is that it is the only powder granulation that will work in one of those special brass "priming flasks" with the little spring loaded plunger tip without plugging it up.
 
I bought 4F thinking it was required to prime with! Hopefully I can get my flinters out this summer and learn how to actually shoot them.
 
We have little to go on as to eighteenth century use, many of us prime from our horn. The only time I use a priming horn or flask if if I have fake powder in my horn. Then I throw a kicker charge down so I can shoot pyrodex in a flinter.
 
Bought a can of 4F a dozen years ago or so & later got one of those little brass pan primers out of a gun show junk box for a couple of bucks. It works great, but is low capacity. After it's empty, I just prime from my horn.
 
New to blackpowder. Have been reading up on priming horns and priming flasks. Curious as to thoughts on either or. Also, I would like to keep things period (Colonial) and from what I have seen, they may not have used either as indeed, 4F and 0B were not an option. So, do you just prime from your regular powder horn (.54 cal so seems 2F is my choice). I do not hunt but will use gun for reenacting and on the range. For the latter, I am fine with priming with a finer powder. Again, curious as to thoughts and experiences. Thanks!
New to blackpowder. Have been reading up on priming horns and priming flasks. Curious as to thoughts on either or. Also, I would like to keep things period (Colonial) and from what I have seen, they may not have used either as indeed, 4F and 0B were not an option. So, do you just prime from your regular powder horn (.54 cal so seems 2F is my choice). I do not hunt but will use gun for reenacting and on the range. For the latter, I am fine with priming with a finer powder. Again, curious as to thoughts and experiences. Thanks!
I use Swiss null B in a priming horn, all the time. Someone put me on to it about 5 years ago, when I was having ignition problems with one of my guns. No more problems! So I carry on using it
 
What I like about using the small fine granule 4fg in the pan is that upon pan ignition it throws fewer large burning granules of powder which always seem to be get flung towards my face.
What does get thrown from the pan is much smaller and burns out further away from me.

For storage of the priming powder I have two sizes fo brass powder dispensers that I use.
But the dispenser I like and use the most is a small flip up nozzle plastic bottle. The hole is big enough to flow out 4fg powder in a controlled manner. As the bottle was originally intended for a liquid it holds 4fg perfectly dry. It not HC but I can’t ignore its practicalities.
 
I've always used 4fg in the pan. Back when I started shooting black powder, I had no teacher and everything I read said to use 4fg so I did. It works and is not a hassle. I prime from a small flask and holds plenty of priming for a range session. I can go the the hunting season without refilling this little flask.

Now when my .32 caliber squirrel gun is finished I'm going to just prime from the horn since I'll be using 3fg in that gun.
 
I always primed with 4F, when I had it that is. Otherwise I prime with 3F. Although I can't really tell a difference between 4F & 3F in the pan, I do very much enjoy taking to the woods with my "deer leg bone" primer. It only works with 4F.
5ef46249-8073-452f-92b6-4aaa8c3949d2-zpsa430a117.jpg

This "primer" is only used when I get back home from the field.
DSC00386.jpg
 
4F. No problem at the range and a small primer has enough for an active morning of hunting. Easier than using the Horn too.

Also good for times the cap shooters dry load
1594075769449.png
 
Back
Top