PA hunter to the range

[n8dawg6]

took my recently acquired t/c PA hunter

to the range yesterday. good experience, but there is some work to be done on the rifle. did all of my shooting w/ a target load of 50 g. 2f swiss powder, .015 eastern maine cotton patching, hoppes no. 9 blackpowder patch lube/solvent. surprisingly this load hit almost directly to the sights @ 50 yds right off the bat. i was able to roll an aluminum can at that range with almost every shot. the longer sight radius on this rifle is definitely a confidence-builder as compared to my lyman deerstalker flintlock (which is nevertheless a nice rifle ...) also, the hoppe's patch lube works much better than i expected. provided you get the patch a little damp, there is no need to swab between shots with this lube. just keep loading and firing ...

anyway now the bad news. first of all, the patches were completely obliterated. frankly, this has happened every other time i have used swiss powder w/ patched balls. it is very, very good powder, clean burning and strong. but i think it needs a really thick patch (say .018 pillow ticking minimum, and i suspect .020 fabric might be necessary).

second, the trigger on this rifle is terrible ... no creep to speak of, but very stiff. i followed advice on a previous post and filed down the sear cross bar. this helped some, however, it still has a REALLY stiff pull. i pulled the lock off and worked the cross bar manually ... it seems to me that there are a couple of problems. (1) there is a tremendous amount of mainspring tension. i assume this is necessary for a flintlock mechanism for reliability's sake. (2) there seems to be an unnecessary amount of sear engagement at full cock. (3) the trigger return spring is unnecessarily heavy. its a hard trigger pull even with the hammer at rest! anyway ... i have no idea what to do about it, gunsmiths around here don't know anything about flintlocks ...

third problem is that after about 20 shots the frizzen stopped sparking. this was starting from a new flint, so i guess it is possible that the flint was dulled ... but i tried another flint and it didn't work either. here's what the frizzen looks like:

note that there are high scrapes and low scrapes on the frizzen. the low scrapes where there when i first got the rifle (w/ original hammer). sent the frizzen back to t/c and they replaced it with a new hammer, which made the high scrapes as shown. i BELIEVE that this is the NEW-style T/C frizzen, as it is solid black, not case-hardened.

i suppose my question is, is this frizzen done for? if so, what type of replacement do i need?

thanks in advance

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Don't think the frizzen is done for but it sure looks like you have too abrupt an angle on the flint. If you have the new TC lock the geometry should be OK. If not, get the new lock and don't mess with the old one. TC will replace the whole lock if you have the old one.

If it's the new TC lock, looks like you just need to adjust the depth of the flint and perhaps mount the flint with the bevel up instead of down. When you have the lock at half cock, the flint should be within about 1/8" of the frizzen and it should strike the frizzen with about 55°-60° of angle. That will make a shaving strike on the frizzen; give a lot of sparks; and give you good flint life.

From the marks on your frizzen, I would guess that you are smashing the flint edge after just a couple of strikes now. Adjust that angle and she'll work great.

If you find you need to move the flint back and the leather wrapping your flint is already up against the screw on the back of the cock, cut a whole in the center of the leather. Then the leather will go around the screw instead of butting up against it. That will usually let you slide the flint back an extra 1/8" or so.

Hope this helps,
Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[Swampman]

20 shots with one flint is a lot. Inexpensive flintlocks can be very frustrating. I'd send the lock back to T/C with a letter explaining the problem. The PA Hunter is a cool gun.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Any gunsmith worthy of the name should certainly be able to adjust the trigger pull for you, the sear to tumbler engagement is nothing unique to flintlocks. On my own PA Hunter I greatly increased flint life by grinding the frizzen spring to about half its original width.

 

[chapmans]

It looks like you are using a "sawn" flint, imo you will have better luck if you use Black English flints, most of the flintlock shooters I know use them. As for your trigger be careful what you do to it, and the sear, because you may void the warranty. The problem is it's a single trigger designed for hunting instead of target shooting. It is possible to get a good trigger by changing the geometry of the trigger and the sear to get more leverage on the sear by moving where the sear hits the trigger forward.

 

[n8dawg6]

thanks for the responses. let me just add a note here that, despite the sawn flint showing up in the picture, i have been using english flints with it. sawn flint came back with the lock from t/c when i had it re-fitted with the improved hammer.

 

[Toomuch_36]

Adding to what Longball58 said about the sawed flints you would be much further ahead by using the natural black english flints. The sawed agate flints are much too hard and will dig the manure out of your frizzen in no time at all, especially if you do a lot of range shooting. From the looks of your frizzen the flint is "studdering" down the face of the frizzen instead of scraping, most likely a combination of a poor striking angle and a too hard flint. The damage to the frizzen apears slight and could be fixed by resurfacing and re-hardening the face.

Shoot Flint
..........
Toomuch