Pedersoli KY flint - sow's ear/silk purse?

I think composing this missive has pretty much helped me make up my mind, but here goes.

I wanted a flintlock pistol for target shooting 'competition'. I got a good (?) deal on a Pedersoli flintlock Kentucky Pistol in .45.

Pro: I like the looks, it hangs well in my hand and the barrel looks promising.

Con: The lock is not inletted deeply enough. There is about a 1/16" gap between the lock and the barrel so a lot of the prime ends up burning in the action. It's strange to put it back in the pistol stand after firing and see smoke coming out around the trigger instead of out of the barrel!

The trigger is sort of heavy at about 8 1/2 pounds and variable by at least 1/2 pound.

The ante-chamber (patent breech?) is giving me fits. I thought I had mastered cleaning and maintaining the ante-chamber on my Investarms Hawken, but this one is defying me. Powder bridges at the ante-chamber and doesn't reach the vent. When this happens I can stick my vent pick in and wiggle it around without feeling any powder.

The lock is hard on flints. I'm lucky to get three consecutive shots out of a flint before it needs dressed or replaced. An experienced shooter thinks this may be because the frizzen spring is unnecessarily heavy as well as the mainspring.

So...

I could probably re-inlet the lock. At 1/16" I suppose I would also have to reduce the exterior width of the stock, too and then have to refinish it. Ugh! I didn't intend to buy a kit.

Maybe I could fit a single-set trigger to this pistol? I haven't found a drop-in replacement but I did handle another identical Pedersoli pistol with a nice set trigger so something must be adaptable. But again, I intended to buy a pistol, not build one.

On the other hand, maybe the correct approach would be to rework the lock, polish it, thin the frizzen spring and mainspring. I wouldn't want to attempt this unless I had replacements already in hand. Looking into replacement parts I find these springs may be relatively expensive. Maybe an RPL lock? I haven't found one listed specifically for this pistol but maybe one is adaptable?

Stock work, trigger work, lock work and I'd still be stuck with that problematical ante-chamber. Maybe I could adapt my loading procedure to include swabbing the ante-chamber at each shot. Maybe I could relieve, smooth, cone the ante-chamber?

It's starting to seem like I am endeavoring to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Maybe I should see what I can get for this pistol, add the money that would be spent on a trigger, springs, or replacement lock and buy a custom pistol? I don't know. I hate to see any gun left an orphan that could benefit from some TLC, but I've already lost out on having a reliable pistol to compete with this season and I don't have a lot of time on my hands to putz with it.

Am I missing some simpler/cheaper solutions or exaggerating the necessary effort to straighten this pistol out?

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Cut my losses and kick it to the curb or persevere and enjoy a sense of accomplishment when (if) I straighten it out?

Yep, you got a kit gun.
All the details you want to address could be done in a day if you are the handy type. I would make a shim of brass to deal with the gap from the lock to barrel. That cuts the stock work out. A bit of tuneing of the lock’s sear and general polishing of the enteral parts can yield a good trigger pull. The anti chamber is the hard part. Are you up to pulling the breech?

As Phil said, a metal spacer could be made to fill the gap between the lock and the barrel flat.
It could be super-glued to the lock after thoroughly cleaning off any oil on the surfaces.

If the barrel has a vent plug installed you could remove it and inspect the hole that connects the vent area with the breech.
There may be a burr in there or possibly the connecting hole wasn't drilled deep enough to provide a open path?
I seem to recall, a few Pedersoli guns connecting hole just barely broke thru into the breech chamber essentially blocking off the connection.

IMO, swabbing the breech chamber would not do much to improve it. In fact, the added moisture in the area could cause the powder to form a dam making the situation worse. You don't have any oil in that area do you? It should be bone dry. Oil and black powder makes a real good dam.

The trigger pull could possibly be improved by reducing the width of the lock's sear spring.
I've found that tapering the sear spring from the bend down to the end that presses on the sear will often lighten the trigger pull a lot.
Just remember, the sear spring must have enough strength to positively engage the sear with the tumbler notches so don't over-do this.

That's why you stay away from flint guns made by Pedersoli. There is no good deal with their crappy quality which was not improved to an acceptable standard in 35+ years. A flint gun needs a flint breach and the lock needs properly balanced springs.
They just slap a badly made flintlock onto their percussion guns.
Here is how that barrel looks inside: http://pedersolilancaster.rsengineering.de/#!album-0-14 http://pedersolilancaster.rsengineering.de/#!album-0-15

previous post about their flint rifles:
Pedersoli: Percussion yes.
Flint: never, ever again. Nearly made me quit ML, because it was so unreliable.Usually fired the first shot, but then maybe every third, forth or sometimes never.. A few years later I gave it another shot with ML, reading more about the technology and ordered a custom rifle built from quality parts. Fires every time, unless you dump a bucket of water in the pan!!!
These production guns do not have the correct flint breech (which is a total joke, because it is as easy to install as the patent breech they have and the lock is a flint eater.
If you want a good ML percussion gun, get a Traditions "second" assembly hawken kit for $229.
If you want a good flint gun, stay away from production guns,period.
Think about getting a gun in the white by Tip Curtis and finish it yourself. You'll be glad you did.
Take a look how I converted the Pedersoli piece of junk into a functional flint gun. The lock will be replaced next. I just have to fit the lockplate. In the following picture you'll see that this in not a correct breech and thus not reliable for flint ignition. After a flint breech was installed the gun is very reliable and shoots real good every time, unless th lock doesn't spark becasue he flint broke off.
This is what you would buy in the barrel department: http://pedersolilancaster.rsengineering.de/#0.14 http://pedersolilancaster.rsengineering.de/#0.15

Go figure. If you already spent your money, then congratulations on buying a $150 piece of Sh.., because this is probably the production price....
Figure also, why reputable manufacturers offer exchange locks etc. for cheaply put together production guns.

Somehow, I can't figure out how In Over My Head would use a Hawken rifle for the pistol he wants. :hmm:

Getting back to Pedersoli Pistols, this drawing is of the breech on the Pedersoli, .50 caliber, Queen Anne pistol.

The original was similar to the drawing on the left except originally it had a 1/16" vent hole that barely broke into the breech cavity.

I ended up adding a home made vent which greatly improved the reliability.

Queen Anne Breech on Flickr

In Over My Head said:

The ante-chamber (patent breech?) is giving me fits. I thought I had mastered cleaning and maintaining the ante-chamber on my Investarms Hawken, but this one is defying me. Powder bridges at the ante-chamber and doesn't reach the vent. When this happens I can stick my vent pick in and wiggle it around without feeling any powder.
...
Stock work, trigger work, lock work and I'd still be stuck with that problematical ante-chamber. Maybe I could adapt my loading procedure to include swabbing the ante-chamber at each shot. Maybe I could relieve, smooth, cone the ante-chamber?

...
Am I missing some simpler/cheaper solutions or exaggerating the necessary effort to straighten this pistol out?

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Cut my losses and kick it to the curb or persevere and enjoy a sense of accomplishment when (if) I straighten it out?

Click to expand...

The reference to the Hawken was in regards to the pattent breech on the rifle.

I need to use one of Zonie's pictures to illustrate the CVA/ Traditions breech.



The CVA/Traditions breech is usually about 5/16" in diameter. That's really too small for a flint ante chamber without a really good "large internal diameter" touch hole liner. The solution is to open the chamber, and cone it to the barrel diameter. Even then, a wipe with a 30 caliber brush may still be needed to keep the antechamber clear of the fouling that will block the path of fire from the pan to the charge.

For now, brush the pre-chamber with a 30 caliber brush. While a talented machinist can remove the drum, then the breech, open the touch hole and get everything replaced any warranty is voided. Therefore I don't recommend going in to modify the chamber.

Also you may be able to use the no wipe between shots method. After you shoot, load the powder, load the patched ball, and use a damp patch on the jag on the loading rod to push the ball down and wipe fouling from the bore.

Hi, I also have a Pedersoli flintlock pistol. Mine is the Kentucky in .54. My barrel was constructed the same as yours. My issue was I could not get the gun to discharge after 3 shots as the fouling plugged it up. Had to take the barrel off and totally flush it before it would shoot again. Three more shots and plugged again.

Based on some advice from a member on this board I drilled out a little wall in there and no more plugs. You just need to measure and get the right size bit that won't mess up the rifling and carefully drill it out by hand. Goes off every time now. The lock needed to be tuned and so I sent it to Brad Emig at Cabin Creek and had it tuned. She shoots like a champ now. Very reliable and accurate. I did nothing to my trigger pull.

Good Luck,

Dave

I want to thank everyone for the replies. I want to see a variety of responses before I hop back into the thread. Everything so far is very helpful and thought provoking.

Okay. I've been mulling this over, discussing it with friends and I made a couple of phone calls.

Everything can be readily addressed except, maybe, the darned patent breech. So that seems like the most important area of inquiry remaining to be solved.

If I understand what I am seeing in tecum-tha's photo http://pedersolilancaster.rsengineering.de/#0.15 the face of the darned breech plug is coned! Anything in the way of wiping the bore or perhaps even loading is going to tend to move fouling across the face of the plug towards the ante-chamber.

I could be wrong because I am just peering down a long, narrow hole by the light of a fishing bobber, but the face of my Hawkens seem to be flat, perpendicular to the bore. So if I do the Dutch Schultz thing and pass a >lightly< moistened patch down the bore between shots to keep bore condition consistent, some fouling may be pressed against the face of the breechplug but it will only be compressed when the jag bottoms out, there will not be a tendency for the fouling to move towards the ante-chamber which might be happening with that coned breech plug face.

So, adapt? Come up with a highly customized two step wiping jag that wipes the ante-chamber at the same time as the bore? Maybe. But it seems likely to wind up packing fouling into the ante-chamber.

Modify the breech plug? If the breech plug is removed, how difficult is it to re-install the breech plug perfectly enough for the vent liner to thread properly in the barrel wall and the plug? Doable? If so I see two possible modifications. If I am correct that the cone is the problem perhaps that could be milled back to a flat?

Is it necessary that the length of the plug remain unaltered so that the threads are sealed off by pressing against an abutment in the barrel? (I suspect so.) Then the result will be like a stepped ante-chamber, but maybe with less tendency to force fouling into the ante-chamber.

Or maybe the ante-chamber can be enlarged in diameter so it is not so easily blocked? I wonder how much unthreaded wall thickness needs to remain?

If I cannot devise a likely solution to this blocking of the ante-chamber, the remaining solutions are pointless. But here they are.

The gap between lock and barrel: Phil's idea of fitting a spacer to the edge of the lock seems very doable. I consider that problem satisfactorily addressed by that suggestion. I had wondered about solving the gap that way but knew it would be the wrong solution in some quarters. It seems to me like a good, pragmatic solution.

Flint bashing: I think there is too much wrong with this lock for me to address by my own, inexperienced self. L&R does not make a drop-in replacement lock for this pistol. 58 caliber mentioned having his lock tuned by Brad Emig. L&R said they had heard good things about Emig but that they were more familiar with recommending Michael Lea. In any event, it seems there are craftsmen available who could tune this lock to get better flint life and probably lighten up the trigger pull in the process, too.

The unanswered question is: Is this lock worthy of the investment? In another thread a poster stated that he had a Pedersoli flint lock reworked to function very nicely but that poor materials caused it to wear prematurely so that it was loose and sloppy within about 500 shots. He did not, however, mention his procedures for cleaning and lubricating his lock. Does anyone care to share an opinion on this? Is the Pedersoli lock worthy of rebuilding?

Heavy trigger pull: I suspect tuning the lock may improve the trigger pull. Tim at RE Davis said they do not have a single set trigger for this pistol. He was not familiar enough with it to determine if one of their non-specific items could be fitted to it. We are continuing this inquiry by sending him pictures and measurements of the Pedersoli trigger.

So that is the status of my questions at this time:

What about modifying the breech plug to ameliorate the fouling problems?

Is the lock worthy of paying to have it tuned?

Is there anywhere else I should inquire regarding a single set replacement trigger?

If the clogging ante-chamber can be resolved I'd rather keep trying to work with this sow's ear than kick it down the road. Every gun deserves a chance in life!

I think your overthinking this thing.

Have you tried to shoot it yet?
If so, how many "flashes in the pan" without ignition of the main powder charge did it produce?

The "anti-chamber" which is actually just a under bore size area which I call a powder chamber is almost always large enough to prevent any powder hanging up on its mouth. I mean, after all, even if it is only 3/16" in diameter the powder is only about 1/32" across. It's darn hard to plug up the mouth of a large hole with tiny bits of powder.

My advice is, first remove the barrel.

Hold the breech under water in a bucket.

Run a correct sized jag with a cleaning patch on it up and down the bore, pumping water thru the vent hole. (If the vent hole is open, a massive amount of water will be sucked into and blown out of the vent hole. If this happens, you don't have anything to worry about.)

Dry the bore and the barrel and using a clean patch with only enough oil on it to dampen it, wipe the bore to protect it from rust.

Take the gun to the shooting range, load it and fire it.
I suspect it will work better than you think it will.

You do need to use real black powder.
NONE of the synthetic black powders will work well in any flintlock gun.

Zonie,

I may be overthinking it, but I have had the barrel thoroughly clean and within three shots the powder I load doesn't make it into the ante-chamber.

I've had the vent liner out and could plainly see the small caliber patched loop twisting in the ante-chamber. Three shots later I got the priming charge to flash multiple times with no ignition of the barrel. No powder could be felt with the vent pick. Removing the lock so I could remove the vent liner, no powder was visible. (Yes, I had loaded powder.) I dispensed priming powder through the open vent, replaced the liner and lock and got ignition with the next shot (or one of the next shots if I had to work on the flint again) with all the recoil of a proper charge.

This pistol has never fired more than three shots in a row for me in several trips to the range and to the line at Friendhsip. No spark, no spark, flash no boom, flash no boom.

There is so much going wrong with this thing it was all I could do to get 4 or 5 shots off in a 30 minute relay.

Typical trip to the range is about an hour struggle to fire five or six shots with about twenty pulls of the trigger.

Cleaning, I pull the barrel and remove the vent liner, immerse the butt end in a container of warm water with a little Dawn and pump it in and out a good number of times. Repeat with another patch. Dry with as many patches on the bore jag as it takes to get them to come out clean and dry. Put patches on the small caliber patch loop and clean the ante-chamber with as many patches as it takes to get them to come out clean and dry. Then chase water out of any corners, pores or whatever by pouring in a little Heet and sloshing that around with my fingers over the vent hole and muzzle. Finally treat it for storage with patches on the bore jag and patch loop wet with either Sheath or WD-40 Specialist Corrosion Protect. Next time I go to the range I patch out the oil with Heet and dry patches.

I really believe this breech plug needs to be modified in some way, either flat facing it or enlarging the ante-chamber or something. I am reluctant to put money and effort into the other problems when I am being plagued by the ante-chamber clogging up.

Now in all honesty, I am in over my head with all this muzzleloading stuff. But I've been struggling with this pistol and some knowledgeable people have been helping me and its function remains very unsatisfactory.

Wow.......a few months ago I grabbed one of Dixies "Closeout" Pedersoli Ky .50 pistols w/the steel nosecap......I tap the butt on a tabletop or loading stand a couple times every time I charge powder (old habit) and so far it's gone boom every time i've pulled the trigger except once from a clogged vent.

probably 125 shots fired thru it before I had to replace the stock flint, and I narrowed the frizzen spg. 1/16" rounded the frizzen toe a touch, and polished the contact points just for giggles.

I shoot this pistol every week and the round count on flint #2 is climbing fast w/no visible wear or damage.

what powder grain size do you shoot?

Redstick Lee, I charge with 3F.

Let's note that this pistol dates to be about twenty years old. Maybe Pedersoli didn't do these so well back then? It was like new when I got it.

The gap between lock and barrel: Phil's idea of fitting a spacer to the edge of the lock seems very doable. I consider that problem satisfactorily addressed by that suggestion. I had wondered about solving the gap that way but knew it would be the wrong solution in some quarters.

Click to expand...

In years past when El Cheapo imports were flooding the game, I saw many of those 'gappy' lock fits. Not a big deal, IMHO. Easily corrected. CAVEAT: I am not a gunsmith, just a tinkerer. But, I fixed a number of rifles with your situation. I would use an old screwdriver and heat the end with a propane torch then pound about 1/4" of the end to a 90 degree angle then plunge into cold water to harden. Very unscientific and never tempered. Then I would grind an edge to that and proceed to use as a bottom scraper to fully inlet the lock. Took a little time and several try fits but it worked. If the lock screws were then too long I just ground them down. Yes, the hard trigger pull can be corrected with careful filing and stoning. Takes time as reassembly and testing must be done repeatedly. Once you file or grind off you can't put the metal back on.

I have to do the same thing with a Traditions Shenandoah 32 flint rifle. After 2 or 3 shots it will flash in the pan about 2 out of three shots if I don't give it a light thump on the butt plate. When I thump it and/or slap it on the off side from the lock it will fire. If I do the bump and run it is generally dependable although it still has an occasional flash in the pan. I am not a fan of the patent style breeches on a flinter.

If you swab between shots as Dutch recommends try this: Pour your powder charge in first THEN run that lightly dampened patch down gently, and back up once.

I was doing this when I was wiping between shots, and found it completely eliminates any misfires due to crud in the fire hole, when using quality powder such as real black or (at the time) Pyrodex.

that's just an old habit I developed shooting terrible BP guns(rifles, pistols,shotguns,and revolver cylinders) w/my Dad & favorite Uncle in the early '70s.....add powder, bang on something & slap a time or 2 to seat the powder charge where it needs to be......finish loading.
I bet nearly everyone here does it, whether consciously or not.

I bet nearly everyone here does it, whether consciously or not.[/quote]

I probably do. Wife says I'm always doing shtuff w/o thinking :idunno:

Oddly its a habit I only recently started. When I started going cheap on powder (Black MZ is

I am reminded that another one of our members had a thread describing much the same problem with the patent breech of his Pedersoli flint KY pistol. As I recall, he met with much skepticism about needing to rework his ante-chamber but he did put a drill bit into it by some means and removed a burr or etc. that was restricting the ante-chamber. This remedial action has rendered his pistol reliable.

In reviewing his experience I note that my breech does have a tendency to snatch the patch out of the small-caliber patch loop I am using to clean the ante-chamber. Note that I am not saying it pulls the patch off of a jag, it pulls the patch out of a patch loop.

I believe I will try something like that and see how much it helps. I won't aim to remove much material, just enough to make sure the ante-chamber walls are smooth and the ante-chamber is unobstructed.

I think I should have spent more on my first pistol, but after hashing over the problems with this one I do believe its problems can be corrected.

Rifleman1776, You corrected the gap the right way. Maybe I will do it that way and feel better about it when it's done. I just don't know what other work will be needed after sinking the lock that much more deeply into the stock.