Are we doing a disservice to new flint shooters?

Why 4:00 o'clock?

If you concentrate on anticipation of the flash, you pull down with the trigger finger and push to the right with the left hand and arm.

Experiment a little with it with an unloaded gun. The flash tends to make people pull their face away from the stock, which is why the 4:00 o'clock hits for a righty, 8:00 o'clock for a lefty. Go back and see where it's aiming after you have pulled your face away.

Concentrate on the sights only. Never mind the flash and smoke. Follow through on the sight picture.

That is #1

New flint shooters are going to look at the flash it happens to every new flint shooter say don't look at it will not help period

I've had and shot muzzle loading rifles since the 80's. I didn't shoot them a lot and they were all cap locks. I finally got a flint lock and wondered about the flash and smoke and all that so I took it out in the back yard and just put powder in the pan and shot. I found it wasn't a really big deal but concentrating on the sites was. I was just curious but not troubled. My rifle is a right handed one, and I shoot off my left side due to a bad right eye. Makes no difference. I guess we should let sleeping dogs lie.

nhmoose said:

Concentrate on the sights only. Never mind the flash and smoke. Follow through on the sight picture.

That is #1

New flint shooters are going to look at the flash it happens to every new flint shooter say don't look at it will not help period

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With all due respect, I think you're wrong. We've already heard from a few posters here who report not being conscious of the flash. I know I never really noticed it.
I think if we leave the instruction at, "Concentrate on the sights only," and not mention the rest we can start them off better. Shooting a m.l. rifle is really no different than shooting any other open sighted rifle.

You can end your statement with, "period," like you're the final authority one something all you want, but there is clearly evidence to the contrary.

Brokennock said:

it seems the1st thing everyone starts going on about is ignoring the pan flash and all the ways to go about not letting it effect the shooter. So, in essence, the 1st thing everyone makes a big fuss about is the #1 thing we don't want the shooter to notice or think about. Before they've even had an issue with it. This doesn't make sense to me...

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The first time I fired a flintlock was many moons ago at the Beaumont, Texas gun club. A gentleman (?!) handed me a loaded home-grown 20 guage flinter with a short modern shotgun barrel and a huge lock on it. When I fired it off, the flash and smoke was like putting one's head next to the tailpipe of a backfiring '56 Pontiac. I flinched so badly that the .62 round ball, traveling at an elevated angle divergent to the range, probably wound up somewhere west of the Brazos river. After that shocking introduction, the pan flash on my subsequently acquired flint guns has never bothered me, that I can recall. I was grateful to be allowed to shoot the guy's bear killer, even though there was enough powder in the pan to fry the hide off a corn fed 'coon. All these years and a few flintlocks later, the only rock lock I now own is a home grown .62 caliber smoothbore 'canoe gun' with a 20 inch barrel, eerily similar to the psychotic pyrotechnic device that began this humble shooter's unwary sojourn into the fiery underworld of lurking flinchlocks, heh heh! Geo.

Even though it has been over 45 years since the first time I shot a flintlock, I remember wondering if the pan flash would be a bother and I asked about it. This was after three or four years of shooting percussion rifles, BTW. I was informed that as long as I concentrated on the sights, at most it would be in my peripheral vision and it would not affect me. That turned out to be absolutely true. When talking to the public about flintlocks, I always get a question about whether the pan flash affects one when shooting and I tell them the same thing. While it may only be one person who asks, it is easy to see after the question comes up, that it is on the mind of many people.

From my experience as an instructor of new shooters, I believe it is best to inform new flintlock shooters of this and do so in a calm and deliberate manner, so they won't be worrying about the pan flash. Once I have informed them of this, I go right into the facts that they must use a natural point of aim, use perfect sight alignment, gently press the trigger and allow the rifle/gun to go off when it will - while still maintaining perfect sight alignment. By informing them and not making a huge deal of the pan flash, plus reinforcing what they need to concentrate on, it makes it a much better experience for new shooters.

Gus

Good Lor

Treestalker said:

The first time I fired a flintlock was many moons ago at the Beaumont, Texas gun club. A gentleman (?!) handed me a loaded home-grown 20 guage flinter with a short modern shotgun barrel and a huge lock on it. When I fired it off, the flash and smoke was like putting one's head next to the tailpipe of a backfiring '56 Pontiac. I flinched so badly that the .62 round ball, traveling at an elevated angle divergent to the range, probably wound up somewhere west of the Brazos river. After that shocking introduction, the pan flash on my subsequently acquired flint guns has never bothered me, that I can recall. I was grateful to be allowed to shoot the guy's bear killer, even though there was enough powder in the pan to fry the hide off a corn fed 'coon. All these years and a few flintlocks later, the only rock lock I now own is a home grown .62 caliber smoothbore 'canoe gun' with a 20 inch barrel, eerily similar to the psychotic pyrotechnic device that began this humble shooter's unwary sojourn into the fiery underworld of lurking flinchlocks, heh heh! Geo.

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Good Lord, another fine example of how not to start off a new shooter. Glad you got past it. Some folks would grin, laugh, and ask for more, many would have been completely put off by that experience. In over 20 years training pistol wielders, 18 of them on a public range, I've seen a lot of folks introduce non-shooters to firearms in ways that either make the person not want to shoot again or cause them to have flaws in the way they shoot that take intense intervention to correct.

I bet you don't fill the pan as much as that guy did. Ha ha...

Artificer, once again, concentration on shooting fundamentals saves the day.

I think it has more to do with teaching new flintlock shooters to get used to any delay that might be involved, than with the pan flash itself. Most people, especially those who've never fired a flintlock expect instantaneous ignition. Yes with a tuned flintlock that delay will be very short to imperceptible. But not everyone has a perfectly tuned quality flintlock. What if the newbie doesn't have a ton of cash so buys one of the lower end units, one that more likely than not will have a slower lock by comparison? In the latter case the reason to teach them to ignore the pan flash, is a valid point. There will most likely be a perceptible delay in flash and ignition, so by having them concentrate on the sights,will in turn get them used to holding through any delay that may exhibit itself.

Artificer, once again, concentration on shooting fundamentals saves the day.

Exactly correct.

Tell them why they should discount what they don't need to worry about and concentrate on what they do need to concentrate on. Works every time as long as they are listening and will follow such advice.

Gus

BTW, when teaching new shooters, at first I have them dry fire a couple of times where only the flint strikes the steel/frizzen. Then I have them dry fire once or twice with only powder in the pan. Of course I'm watching them for anything they are doing wrong. Then, finally fire a live load/s, while still critiquing the shot/s afterward.

Gus

A while back a CF shooter at the club I belong to wanted to take some photos of a flintlock being fired. After he got over the shock of seeing the ‘fireball’ in my face, the thing that he couldn’t get over was that in none of the photographs of the firing sequence were my eyes closed. I was shooting a 58 cal RB over 90 grains of fff Swiss.

Interesting to note that he had shot the gun (believe I loaded it with 50 grains of powder for him) a few times and he did quite well. BEFORE he took the photographs. Once he saw the ‘fireball’ in the photographs he told me I was crazy and had no interest in shooting it again. He thought there was no was it could be safe. Maybe, if hadn’t seen the photo of the fireball, just maybe, he could have been a convert....

SDSmif, That's unfortunate about the new shooter. Sometimes the 'JuJu' is much worse than the actual bite. Maybe someone will eventually try him again on a more compatible caliber and charge but if not, the world will perhaps gain another cap lock shooter and that's always a good thing!

Treestalker said:

SDSmif, That's unfortunate about the new shooter. Sometimes the 'JuJu' is much worse than the actual bite. Maybe someone will eventually try him again on a more compatible caliber and charge but if not, the world will perhaps gain another cap lock shooter and that's always a good thing!

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I’ve seen the guy a couple of times since and he still talks about ‘surviving’ his adventure with the flintlock. Unfortunate part is that he was getting in to it and didn’t have a concern until he saw the photographs. Doubt it would have made a difference if he was just sparking off the powder in the pan. He is a CMP M1 Garand shooter so he is is used to the thump from high power rifles. It was all about the flash from the flint pan. 50 grains of powder under a 58 cal RB in that gun is pretty easy on the shooter.

Note to self. No more high speed photographs of flintlocks with new shooters around.

SDSmlf said:

I’ve seen the guy a couple of times since and he still talks about ‘surviving’ his adventure with the flintlock. Unfortunate part is that he was getting in to it and didn’t have a concern until he saw the photographs. Doubt it would have made a difference if he was just sparking off the powder in the pan. He is a CMP M1 Garand shooter so he is is used to the thump from high power rifles. It was all about the flash from the flint pan. 50 grains of powder under a 58 cal RB in that gun is pretty easy on the shooter.

Note to self. No more high speed photographs of flintlocks with new shooters around.

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Did he try and take any photos from other angles to see actually what happened with the ignition ? Maybe he would have better understood the physics of the firing procedure and not freaked out ?

Agree with OP

Brokennock said:

Do we really need to make a fuss about the flash and put it in the shooter's head?

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Point with the photographs was that the guy had no issue with the pan flash until he saw it in the photos. Once that got in his head, he couldn’t stop thinking about it and was done.

SamTex1949 said:

Did he try and take any photos from other angles to see actually what happened with the ignition ?

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Doubt different angle would have changed anything. Best example I could give would be trying to get someone who is afraid of snakes to hold or handle one. This guy was not going to put his face near that ‘fireball’. Honestly, I was more than surprised. Many first time flint shooters will shoot until you take the gun away from them.

SDSmlf said:

I’ve seen the guy a couple of times since and he still talks about ‘surviving’ his adventure with the flintlock. Unfortunate part is that he was getting in to it and didn’t have a concern until he saw the photographs. Doubt it would have made a difference if he was just sparking off the powder in the pan. He is a CMP M1 Garand shooter so he is is used to the thump from high power rifles. It was all about the flash from the flint pan. 50 grains of powder under a 58 cal RB in that gun is pretty easy on the shooter.

Note to self. No more high speed photographs of flintlocks with new shooters around.

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You think he was "really getting into it"? Sounds to me like maybe he really wasn't all that interested, but didn't want to hurt your feelings, then used the photographs as his excuse to bow out of things without making an insult. People do funny things when it comes to getting out of situations they really don't want to be in.

Sidney Smith said:

You think he was "really getting into it"? Sounds to me like maybe he really wasn't all that interested, but didn't want to hurt your feelings, then used the photographs as his excuse to bow out of things without making an insult. People do funny things when it comes to getting out of situations they really don't want to be in.

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Of course I don’t know what the guy was thinking. Can only comment on what he was saying and how he was acting. He said something about always wanting to shoot flintlocks and asked if I would let him try (he had seen me let others try in the past). I took him through the loading and firing process. He seemed excited after shooting a number of times, and wanted pictures to show buddies. I ‘assumed’ that next he would what me to take photos of him shooting, but we never got that far. Photography session was not my idea.

At the end of the day, it is just another datapoint that lines up with the OP’s idea that pan flash gets into newer shooters heads, and we may not want to make a big deal about it to new shooters.