paulvallandigham
Passed On
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2006
- Messages
- 17,538
- Reaction score
- 80
Yes. My friend, Don Latter first showed me this using an Amber flint he bought at Friendship, and wanted to try out. He was keeping count on how many strikes he got from it, because it cost him about 4 times what he paid for good English flints. He used a rawhide leather wrap, that he had dried in his vice after wetting it, so it was absolutely compressed as much as possible, and wrapped the flint with it. He mounted it in the cock, tightened down the cockscrew, and made five strikes and then tightened the cock again. Then we turned out the lights, waited 10 minutes for our pupils to dialate, and then held the gun up so we could bo look at the sparks from the side of the gun. He tripped the trigger and we got 5-7 sparks that were orange in color, and died after bouncing one time in the empty pan. Then we wrapped the same amber flint with lead, checked the edge with a magnifying glass for any steel chips that might interfere with ignition, mounted the flint again, and turned out the lights again for another 10 minutes. This time, the same flint gave us dozens of sparks- more like a shower, that were white hot, and bounced twice in the pan before dying.
I have since tested my Cochran lock on my .50 cal. rifle with English flints, doing the same testing procedure. Again, the sparks are white hot, and bounce twice before going out.
Swampman: The edge of the flint is knapped with each strike, and I don't have to knapp the flint separately. I got that idea from Don, and we both studied an article published in the Dixie Black Powder Annual magazine more than 20 years ago, written by Buzz Fawcett, about tuning flintlocks. He in turn had studied with a gun maker in Minnesota, who showed him how to tune a lock. He also mentioned the benefit of not having to knapp the flint when the geometry is correct. I still have my copy of the article, but can't tell you the year. I called Dixie to see if they could help me, and they don't have back editions, either. I called Buzz, and he didn't even have a copy of the article. I sent him a copy of mine.
That is a scientific as I can get without laboratory equipment available to me. Now that I have told you how to test this, try it please.
I am not arguing with Swampman about what he does. I don't like what he insists on telling the rest of us is correct, when I know better. I still like his advice, and I bet we would be just fine together on the range or in the field. I wrote this to give all of you the option of deciding what works best for you. After over 1000 strikes, my cock would either have broken down by now, or using a lead wrap is not going to break it, period. I do suspect that some of the materials sold to us are not well made, and castings can run the range from very good to simply awful!
hen it comes to heat treating, we still have people in the industry who thing that hardening and tempering are the same thing. If a frizzen or cock is hardened, and not tempered, you are going to have problems. Same with springs. And I did learn that lesson the hard way! If you have never broken a file by dropping it accidentally on a cement floor, you have not worked in a shop very long. Look at the broken end of the file. You can see the crystalline structure with the naked eye. If a cock were to break because it was hardened but not tempered, the break would appear the same as the end of that file. That's when you call the seller, or manufacturer and demand that they make good on it. 12 percent of an ounce more weight is not going to break a properly hardened and tempered cock! And it does not slow down the fall of the cock, as I have already explained, no matter what Swampman wants to believe! We are talking about steel here, gentlemen, not plastic. That extra weight keeps the flint from bouncing on the face of the frizzen, and helps to drive the edge of the flint into the frizzen and scrape- not gouge- of bits of steel to send into the pan.
I have since tested my Cochran lock on my .50 cal. rifle with English flints, doing the same testing procedure. Again, the sparks are white hot, and bounce twice before going out.
Swampman: The edge of the flint is knapped with each strike, and I don't have to knapp the flint separately. I got that idea from Don, and we both studied an article published in the Dixie Black Powder Annual magazine more than 20 years ago, written by Buzz Fawcett, about tuning flintlocks. He in turn had studied with a gun maker in Minnesota, who showed him how to tune a lock. He also mentioned the benefit of not having to knapp the flint when the geometry is correct. I still have my copy of the article, but can't tell you the year. I called Dixie to see if they could help me, and they don't have back editions, either. I called Buzz, and he didn't even have a copy of the article. I sent him a copy of mine.
That is a scientific as I can get without laboratory equipment available to me. Now that I have told you how to test this, try it please.
I am not arguing with Swampman about what he does. I don't like what he insists on telling the rest of us is correct, when I know better. I still like his advice, and I bet we would be just fine together on the range or in the field. I wrote this to give all of you the option of deciding what works best for you. After over 1000 strikes, my cock would either have broken down by now, or using a lead wrap is not going to break it, period. I do suspect that some of the materials sold to us are not well made, and castings can run the range from very good to simply awful!
hen it comes to heat treating, we still have people in the industry who thing that hardening and tempering are the same thing. If a frizzen or cock is hardened, and not tempered, you are going to have problems. Same with springs. And I did learn that lesson the hard way! If you have never broken a file by dropping it accidentally on a cement floor, you have not worked in a shop very long. Look at the broken end of the file. You can see the crystalline structure with the naked eye. If a cock were to break because it was hardened but not tempered, the break would appear the same as the end of that file. That's when you call the seller, or manufacturer and demand that they make good on it. 12 percent of an ounce more weight is not going to break a properly hardened and tempered cock! And it does not slow down the fall of the cock, as I have already explained, no matter what Swampman wants to believe! We are talking about steel here, gentlemen, not plastic. That extra weight keeps the flint from bouncing on the face of the frizzen, and helps to drive the edge of the flint into the frizzen and scrape- not gouge- of bits of steel to send into the pan.