New flintlock break-in?

Hello all,

I just bought a new Lyman Deerstalker yesterday and am very excited to shoot it. But I got to wondering if there is anything I should do to it before I shoot it? I do have some flintlock experience,but I know Dad and I didn't do anything special to our first flintlock before we shot it. Our first one was Traditions Buckskinner. I hope this Lyman will be better the Traditions has been nothing but problems since day one.

I know not to clean with regular gun cleaner (Hoppe's and such) but should I clean it with Hoppe's now to get rid of any grease or oil left over from shipping or the manufacturing process?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the Forum.

All of the guns Lyman sells come with protection in the bore that is VERY difficult to remove.

Until you get it out of the bore the guns accuracy will range from poor to very poor.

I don't know what this stuff really is but my advice is to buy a can of disk brake or throttle body cleaner, take the gun outside along with a bunch of cleaning patches, a jag and a cleaning rod and give it several good cleanings.

Then protect the bore with a light coating of gun oil or better yet, some Birchwood Casey Barricade.

Usually the rifling grooves are left quite sharp and they can cut the patch on a patched ball load.

Covering the jag with a light layer of steel wool and running it up and down the bore 50+ times will dull the sharp edges making the problem go away.
The other option is shooting 100 rounds of patched roundballs thru the gun.

Also, it's a good idea to visually check the edges of the rifling where it meets the crown at the muzzle.

These edges are also sharp and the steel wool won't do much to fix them.

My method of making these corners dull is to use a piece of 220 grit, black, wet/dry silicone carbide sandpaper and my thumb.

Tear off a 1" X 1" square and push it down into the mouth of the muzzle.
Then, rotating your thumb back and forth while turning the barrel will round off and polish the sharp edges so they will never be a problem.

Of course, this removes the bluing at the mouth of the bore and if you want it blued, a good "cold blue" like Birchwood Casey Perma Blue will restore the color.

I know your going to have fun with your new gun. :grin:

Show us pictures of your patches after you shoot it.

Are you using roundball and patch, lead mini balls, or slugs?

More than likely I'll be shooting a patched round ball. May experiment with conicals though.

ridgerunner85 said:

More than likely I'll be shooting a patched round ball. May experiment with conicals though.

Click to expand...

Lyman's take a little shooting to smooth up the bore and get their best accuracy. But once that happens, hang onto your hat. My wife's 54 cal Deerstalker is one of the most accurate production rifles I've ever been around.

The protective grease in the bore must be removed and it can be removed with something as simple as charcoal lighter fluid on several patches. Once you have all of the grease out of the bore, take a loose fitting cleaning jag and use a patch made of 3M Scotch Bright, the green scrubbing pads used for scrubbing pots and pans. Put some oil such as 3 in 1 on the patch and run it up and down the bore using full length strokes. About 100 strokes should remove much of the sharp edges from the rifling. Change patches from time to time as needed. I have found that a Scotch Bright patch is good for about 20 strokes. The effect is the same as shooting several hundred rounds through the barrel.

In my experience the biggest part of breaking in a flintlock is breaking in the shooter. Each one has its own "personality" and it's up to the shooter to figure it out. And that's a whole lot of fun!

Enjoy.

I just got done cleaning up from my first trip to the range with my Deerstalker. What a great gun! This gun definitely shoots better than I do. From a bench I kept the majority of the shots in 2 1/2" circle at 50 yds., had a few fliers which was more than likely me. This suits me just fine for the first time out.

I did have a few misfires which was remedied with more pan powder. A few times though I got no sparks at, which is kinda frustrating. One particular spell took me maybe 10
trigger pulls before it went off. The flint seemed to be moving in the cock no matter how tight I got it. I cleaned the flint and frizzen and then was able to get the gun to go off. Was this fluke or do the flint and frizzen need cleaned periodically? How much of a space do you leave between the flint and frizzen.


Another thing I noticed was that I could not get my the hammer to return to halfcock after having it at full cock. I had to gently let it down to the frizzen then pull it back to halfcock. I don't like that, are all Deerstalkers like that?

I didn't care for the ramrod, any idea on aftermarket ones?

Aftermarket ramrods are available from a number of sources; get only hickory ones. I recommend getting a stainless steel or brass range rod to save wear and tear on the wood rod. Make sure you mount the flint in the cock jaws with leather; that should keep the flint from moving. Keep the flint sharp and install it so that it's only barely off the frizzen when it's at half cock. It's common, in my experience, for the cock to have to go down past half cock and then be pulled back to the half cock notch. Flints can be mounted bevel up or bevel down; some guns like it one way and some the other way.

ridgerunner85 said:

Another thing I noticed was that I could not get my the hammer to return to halfcock after having it at full cock. I had to gently let it down to the frizzen then pull it back to halfcock. I don't like that, are all Deerstalkers like that?

Click to expand...

Does that gun have a set trigger? If so that is the reason the cock has to go all the way down from full cock, if it didn't you would pull the trigger and the cock would stop at half cock.

On a gun that doesn't have a set trigger the cock doesn't stop at half cock when you pull the trigger because you are still pulling the trigger as the cock is falling.

ridgerunner85 said:

...


Another thing I noticed was that I could not get my the hammer to return to halfcock after having it at full cock. I had to gently let it down to the frizzen then pull it back to halfcock. I don't like that, are all Deerstalkers like that?

I didn't care for the ramrod, any idea on aftermarket ones?

Click to expand...

As Flintlock Bob says, guns with set triggers all do that.

The lock has a very little part in it called a "fly".
This fly is located at the half cock notch and its job is to keep the nose of the sear from dropping into the half cock notch as the tumbler rotates from the full cock position to the fired position.

This little fly rotates out of the way when the lock is being moved from the fired position to the half cock position so the sear can enter the half cock notch only when your raising the hammer (cock) from the fired position.


All shooters, when shooting a gun with a set trigger installed must remember this and never count on the half cock "safety" when they lower the hammer (cock) from the full cock position by hand.

There has been a number of cases where people forgot about this and slowly lowered the hammer (cock) from the full cock position.

The nose of the sear can hang up on the fly rather than jumping over it (and the half cock notch) when the hammer (cock) is lowered slowly.

The thing about this is, the sear is not really in the half cock notch. It is just hanging up on the fly.

In this position, the slightest bump or jar on the gun can cause the nose of the sear to finally jump over the fly.
If this happens, the gun can fire.

Have fun with your new gun. It sounds like a winner.

No, the gun doesn't have a set trigger. It's something I'll have to be careful of and will get used to, taking the hammer past halfcock and then back.

I can't wait for my next range session with it. Any more advice would be greatly appreciated.

Flintlock Bob said:

On a gun that doesn't have a set trigger the cock doesn't stop at half cock when you pull the trigger because you are still pulling the trigger as the cock is falling.

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While it is true that single trigger guns non set trigger, such as the Lyman Deerstalker, don't require the fly in the tumbler, Lyman would rather have one production line for their locks and that means that all locks will have a fly in the tumbler. You can see this in the Lyman products description of the lock on their website. Lyman Flint Lock Parts List

Personally, I think that there is little harm in having the fly once you know the process of lowering the cock from full cock to past half cock and then back to half cock.

ridgerunner85 said:

Another thing I noticed was that I could not get my the hammer to return to halfcock after having it at full cock. I had to gently let it down to the frizzen then pull it back to halfcock. I don't like that, are all Deerstalkers like that?

Click to expand...

To the best of my knowledge, all Lyman locks have a fly in the tumbler. This is an absolutely necessary part when the gun has a set trigger. But, it is a bit superfluous part when your gun does not have a set trigger. While I do not recommend it, you can remove the fly from the tumbler and then your gun will be able to be let down into the half cock position directly from the full cock position. Having said that, let me reiterate that I do not recommend doing this because you could likely void the warranty on your lock. Let me also emphasize that if your gun has a set trigger, you must not remove the fly. For such guns that have a set trigger, the fly is an absolute necessity.

I have a flint pistol with a single trigger and a small Siler lock. It would fail to fire too often so I investigated. In this case the fly was causing the cock to catch momentarily at the half cock which made the strike much too light. The fly was removed and all life was good after that.

Thank you for all the help with the fly. I currently don't have any plans to take it out or modify anything. I'll learn to live with it as it is. 🙂 Unless it becomes a problem with the hammer hitting the frizzen hard enough.

I read somewhere that the flint that comes with the Deerstalker is too hard and will shorten the life of the frizzen. Is this true?

I turned the flint bevel side up (opposite the way it was from the factory) and am now getting a shower of sparks like I've never seen before.

BrownBear said:

ridgerunner85 said:

More than likely I'll be shooting a patched round ball. May experiment with conicals though.

Click to expand...

Lyman's take a little shooting to smooth up the bore and get their best accuracy. But once that happens, hang onto your hat. My wife's 54 cal Deerstalker is one of the most accurate production rifles I've ever been around.

Click to expand...

Intereting you mentioned Derstalker and accuracy in the same sentence.

Several years ago, Lyman quit listing the lefthanded .54 cal flint in their catalog. An on-line dealer had one, so I grabbed it. It was easy to break in & was amazingly accurate - so much so that I installed the Rear Peep and front Globe sights on it.
A couple of old goobers at my range were yukking it up about my "piece of junk, bottom of the line quality, and historically incorrect Deerstalker". They thought the target sights particularly hilarious: "like putting Cadillac Hubcaps on a Vega". I told them to watch the line of grapefruit set out on the 100 yard berm. The one guy couldn't even see that far & the other one was able to count correctly.
3 shots later, there were 3 less grapefruit, and I invited them to bring over whatever junk they were shooting and feel free to finish off the other ones, since I still have about 1/2 bag of grapefruit left.

One fired his Weatherby a couple of times, missed both, then said that his ammo was too expensive to waste on shooting at fruit. The other guy couldn't see that far.

Apparently Deerstalkers have potential for great accuracy. They do use the same barrels as the other Investarms rifle models, and it doesn't look like the shorter barrel length hinders accuracy up to 100 yards, at all.

if the fly (flye?) is the problem, you might want to take it out and give it a polish ... be super careful if you do this however ... it is a wee tiny part which will gladly go suborbital if given the slightest opportunity, and you will never never never find it again ... it will be with the un- mated socks in the nether world

(i actually have a spare, which will prevent such things from happening, should i ever get the motivation to polish its mate)