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flinters of the old school

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There was a YouTube video of a fella fireing his flintlock, upside down, without any prime in his pan. He claimed he had just drilled out his touch hole to 1/16 and he thought it was self priming... it was kind of cool to watch, however, I can’t find it now.
 
A good sparking gun will light up the main charge with an empty pan. Tried this a few years back with a couple of guns with 1/16” and 5/64” touch holes. Didn’t take more than a handful of attempts before the ‘ah ha’ moment with each gun. When carrying or storing and not intending to shoot, always suggest a plugged vent hole and a hammer stall. Like wearing a belt even if you are using suspenders. Difference is, you may look silly if your pants drop or you reveal plumbers crack, but with a flintlock you may put a hole in something or someone that really doesn’t need it.
Never trust a man that wears suspenders and a belt. 'Cause he's too worried about his pants falling down. I don't presently own a frizzen stall but I do use a cow's knee over my lock. I've never seen a flintlock fire without priming the pan, I guess because I usually stick a feather in my hat-no, touch hole-and only prime after I remove the feather. That way I don't need no vent hole sticker thingy as my feather does the job (even though I do have a vent hole sticker thingy on my antler short starter).
 
I've seen a gun fire with no priming in the pan. It was my TVM smoothbore. I had a failure to fire, so I stepped aside to dump the priming in the pan and I cautiously knapped the flint. I stepped to the side of the firing line and I pointed the gun in a safe direction downrange. Decided to see If I had any sparks. I sure did have some sparks. The next 30 milliseconds seemed to take forever. I noticed an orange glow in the pan that seemed to continue to grow ever so slowly. A jet of flame leisurely sprouted at the touch hole. I sort of remember the boom, felt some recoil as the gun recoiled in my hands and realized the gun had fired. Now if I knap the flint with the flint in the lock, I don't test for spark.
 
Native Americans are not the most... informed ... when it comes to science. To such primitive peoples, a large touchhole would seem a benefit.

To us modern advanced white peoples, we know a 1/16th touchhole is ideal for accuracy and reliability.
 
Native Americans were not schooled in our science, but they knew what worked. They were often more discriminating in their firearms purchases than their "Euro-American" counterparts.

No one back then had the advantage of drawing on the experimentation of a Larry Pletcher, with his high speed photography, to show exactly what happens after the tricker is pulled. Larger touch holes were common in military muskets of the time, as was the drill of bouncing the buttstock against the ground to shake charge powder into the pan for a more rapid reload.

As Larry has said, given a scenario where a reliable, fast shot might mean the difference between life and death (a deer or yours), the advantages of a larger touch hole far outweigh any minimal loss of velocity,
or greater side blast from the vent.

Richard/Grumpa
 
Well we have chronographs and ballistic tables and numbers up the whazo. Back in the old days scientific minded white shooters believed a lot of myths. Unscientificly minded used all sorts of rules of thumb in loading and shooting.
Indians and white folks that depended on their guns might pull off some tricks that made their guns fit their use better, even if it wouldn’t cross in to the line of ‘best practice’ today.
 
I too, Know for a FACT that a flinter will fire with no priming.

I seriously doubt any Indians and very few White men ever thought about the size of the touch hole. There may be some exceptions of course, and gun makers may have experimented.

I suppose its possible that as the touch hole burned thru and became larger, that they would notice the Weapon would self prime. This may or may not have been a good thing.

In the Weapon i use for reenactments, the touch hole is larger to allow it to self prime. Not sure how this affects shooting live, but i have noticed really no difference.
 
Now I have to try this.

The touch hole on my 200+/- year old coach gun seems to have a fairly large touch hole such that a toothpick fits loosely in it.

Next time I take it shooting, instead of loading the pan, I will just lightly smack the side first as I have noticed that a little 3F will fall out into the pan. It will save me a step in the loading process. ;-)
 
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