• 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

Costs of Flints

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

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

Loyalist Dave

Cannon
Staff member
Moderator
MLF Supporter
Joined
Nov 22, 2011
Messages
15,978
Reaction score
14,037
Location
People's Republic of Maryland
Wow so last weekend was the Market Fair at Fort Frederick State Park..., the cost of flints has really boomed. $2 for 5/8 rifle flints, and more for larger.

I found one sutler who caters to reenactors who was still selling them at $1.50, which was great for my muskets, but since he doesn't stock rifle sized flints, not too good for my rifles.

LD
 
Oh my, I thought flint shooters just picked up rocks lying on the ground.
Michael :surrender:
 
I still have a small hoard of various size flints. I generally use them until there's no way to keep them in the cock. Then I keep the stubs just in case. If I ever find a way to affix a couple of "stubs" together, I'll do it and shoot it some more.
 
Wow.... And to think they got too expensive for me when they hit $6/dozen.

Every so often I get into country with good flints and I bring along my trusty old rock hammer. Find a big nodule, knock one end off to create a flat "table," then start working your way around the edge knocking off long flakes. Takes a little practice, but when you're surrounded by flint, not a big deal.

Last visit I ended up with a 1-gallon bucket of those long flakes of assorted widths. Took not much more than an hour. Now at home I just snap off pieces the right size for particular guns.

No, they're not those sweet black English flints. No, they're not those sweet amber French flints.
But they work. And they were free.

Gonna be driving right past that place in a few weeks. The rock hammer is still under the truck seat. Even though I don't need any more at the moment, I'm betting I stop for an hour to fill another bucket.
 
I just could not resist poking fun at,dyed in the wool, flint shooters.

I think the last flints I bought were in the 1.50 range also, and they were the really small ones for pistols.

Michael
 
I bought 2 dozen 3/4” black English a couple of months ago for $40 delivered (asked for and received flat tops). Put one in before leaving for a shoot, fired 3 aggs (one a 5 target agg) + 20 or so practice.

So +- 80 shots so far and the flint is still looking good. $40/24=$1.67 so $0.02 or less per shot and still going strong. Way better than $8-$10 a can for caps. As some folks say your mileage may vary. And my next one may shatter on 4th shot.

There’s plenty of chert around here and I’ve picked up promising pieces and worried some down to fit a lock and fired it. I’m just not at all productive yet.
 
I just got my latest order of flints in yesterday! They cost me $32.00 a dozen and are English Black with flat tops 1" X 1 1/8". The problem is that when I go slumming at the range and shoot a caplock they only cost me $7.25 a hundred. :doh:
 
This thread reminds of the days, long gone now, where sutlers would allow you to pick through their flints and discard bad ones on to the ground. Now, most must be mail ordered and what is received is not as good as what we used to toss on the ground.
 
Too true my friend. You have to be careful of whom you order from. I used to get Pierce flints but as he no longer sells them I have been getting mine from Neolithics. That being said, I am sure that there are numerous flint sellers that have a quality product but that is where I get mine from.
 
Actually, sometimes I do pick up rocks from the ground and make gun flints out of them.
Where I live the chert rocks are almost everywhere, in nuisance quantities, in fact.
They are usually not very pretty, but the white chert and light blue flint spark as good as the English product, and the price is right.
I am not very good at it yet, and have about an 80% discard rate, but since I can bust out several good ones in 20 minutes or so, I don't care.
I still have a pretty good hoard of English flints, and dip into it every once in a while.
 
You're fortunate to live in a place loaded up with chert. Rich Pierce lives over there and used to be a well known and well respected source for beautiful WHITE Burlington Chert gun flints. :bow: I was able to get some from him before he stopped offering them and found they work real well. :thumbsup:
Down here in my part of Florida, there aren't many actual ROCKS to even try to work with. :shake: Lottsa Coquina, which ain't nothing more than little shells aggregated together. I've considered ordering up a few good Spalls of flint to learn how to knap my own, :hmm: but figure if I did that, then worked real hard at it for a day or two...I might be able to get one or two flints out of a $20.00 spall. :surrender:
 
my area is blessed with black & grey "zebra" flint everywhere you look......
it may be only a mid grade flint but with careful knapping works as well as English flint .
 
I'm currently using an ugly flint that I "knapped" from local flint in my Traditions 36 caliber. So far I've shot it more than 20 shots and it is still going strong. We have the stuff everywhere here, but you have to choose the right looking rock. Most of the stone here is simple limestone and is soft. I have a bucket of chunks of flint(chert) in the garage that I pick up when I find a good looking prospect when on hikes.
 
Cost of "Flints" has gone up like everything else we consumers buy. I recall getting gasoline @ $0.17/9/gallon in the 1970. A First Class Stamp was $.03 in the 1950's. The U.S.P.S use to deliver mail twice daily to residences in the early 1950's in Florida.

But part of the scoring cost of "Flints" has to do with flint napping being a lost skill, and few people making a living out of napping flints.

Recall 20 + years ago Vernon Davis who would come to PHX for the N***A Winter/Wester Shoot bringing thousand and thousand of "Flints" sorted by size in big wood boxes you could sit by, and sort out what you want to purchase.

There were good Black Flint that cost between $4.00- $7.00/Dozen. This year there were a few "Flints" for sale because Tip Curtis was there. Price were sky high.

It a supply & demand thing. IDEA start a Flint Napping Business, and get rich..........LOL :doh:
 
That is interesting. I live less than a 100 miles SE of you. We have a lot of chert/flint but it is soft and wuthuless for knapping. But, about 75 miles south of me there are large deposits of quality chert/flint that makes good gun flints. I have never knapped a decent gun flint. But sure have made a lot of crumbles and cut fingers. :(
 
I bought a bunch of flints from Rich back in the day. They lasted so long that it wasn't till about January of this year I tried to order some more and found that he wasn't selling them anymore. :doh:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top