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Touch hole liner life ?

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I am wondering how many shots it takes to enlarge an insert? Im shooting 100 gr fff under a prb in 58 calibre. Will it be hundreds or thousands of shots? Im just curious as i read on this forum about changing a liner when its worn, & this is my first flintlock.
 
Normally just shooting liners will last 10,000 shots if made of ampco or stainless steel. Picking with anything rough or harder than brass will wear them out. I use barrel steel liners Jim Chambers sells as I can’t abide the huge shiny disc on the side of a barrel when I’ve worked so hard to make an authentic looking rifle. These are good for maybe 2500 shots. Unless it’s my main range gun, that is many years.
 
I'm getting pretty far along on my iron furniture Southern Mtn. rifle from TOTW. Got it all together with the exception of the butt and toe plate I will start tomorrow. So far no major mistakes but wish I had been a bit more careful with some inletting on the trigger plate end and side plate hemisphere. Lots of little stuff to learn on a flinter that one does not encounter with cartridge guns but as a kit was relatively simple to assemble with the aid of the pictured instruction sheet a full 4x6 feet big. I need the pictures along with the instructions particularly in the stock profiling to get a handle on what they are trying to describe for detail like fore end cap stock melding with the proper cross sectional shapes that are accurate to the style. The other major advantage to buying the instructions is for the sequence of of parts fitting, which was a tremendous help to me.
This is my first flint kit gun and am enjoying the change of pace in gun making from cartridge arms.
I don't care for WL liners so made and installed my own constructed of A-2 tool steel which is basically a stainless steel with a lot of chrome in it. Curious how long it will last as I did not harden it. I did contour the internal surface to match the barrel ID radius but decided against reaming out the rifling just ahead of the breech plug as I initially planned on. The reason is because I have been know to dry ball on occasion when BS'ing while loading and decided a patched ball against the breech plug with no rifle to hold it still while trying to screw a ball retriever into it would not be very practical.
I'll get some pictures up and show some of the boner's I made on this kit while learning a new style of gun making.
 
That's a good reason to leave the rifling in place all the way to the bottom. And, a good reason to get your vent liner as close to the breech as possible. If you use a 1/4" vent liner, the hole will be 1/8" forward of the back of it.

In larger calibers, like a 50 cal, that means it's 1/4" from the bottom of the ball to the ogive. If you get your vent liner tight to the breech plug, you should have some space to fish some powder in that little nook when you dry ball.

Obviously, the further you put the liner from the plug the less room you will have. In larger calibers you have more margin for error than the smaller ones, like a 32. There is just no way you could ever get the liner tight enough that you could engineer in a space below the ball ogive in that case. I shoot a 38 mostly (and am yet to dry ball it) but think it unlikely I'll have an alternative to pulling the ball once I finally DO dry ball it.

If you grind out the rifling down there, with that small amount of powder you fish in through the vent, the burning gas may escape through the patch or around the ball (as well as through the vent) and not expel it.

Honestly, I can't see many benefits to reaming out the rifling in the first place. It will be harder to keep it all clean at the end of a shooting session, and the amount of reaming wouldn't be enough to gain you the efficiency in combustion that a bottle necked cartridge has.

One other way to increase it though would be to dish out your breech plug to direct the pressure forward, like a shaped charge works. You'll get higher velocities with the same powder charge that way. The down side is that cleaning the plug face will be just that much trickier. I don't think the trade-off is worth the effort personally, but to each their own.
 
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I sure agree there’s nothing good that can come from removing rifling at the breech. I’ve never seen it done intentionally.
 
When I install a vent liner and it protrudes in to the bore, I use a round file to remove the sharp edge that could catch a patch. Though powder is generally above the top edge of the liner when it's loaded (and thus shouldn't affect ignition) a cleaning patch on a jag certainly could snag there.

The small amount of rifling that gets buggered up by the file is of little consequence, as, there is plenty left between there and the muzzle.

With a RB, initial engagement with the rifling (after ignition) isn't the same as the freebore with a cartridge gun's rifle bullet, that a cockeyed rifling "catch" of it could screw up accuracy.
 
If the vent liner is sticking out inside the barrel, it can effect ignition.
On one of the rifles I built, I forgot to shorten the vent liner so it was sticking out of the inner wall of the barrel into the bore.
At the shooting range, I had many "flashes in the pan" causing the gun to fire only every second or third refilling of the pan.
After I found the problem and shortened the vent liner so it was basically flush with the bore, that gun would fire first time, every time without a problem.
 
If the vent liner is sticking out inside the barrel, it can effect ignition.
On one of the rifles I built, I forgot to shorten the vent liner so it was sticking out of the inner wall of the barrel into the bore.
At the shooting range, I had many "flashes in the pan" causing the gun to fire only every second or third refilling of the pan.
After I found the problem and shortened the vent liner so it was basically flush with the bore, that gun would fire first time, every time without a problem.
I agree that not having the vent liner protrude into the bore is the correct way to go, but curious what you believe the reason the liner sticking into the bore caused main charge ignition problems? The main issue I have seen with the vent liner sticking into the bore is the rag catcher condition it creates, but never noticed any ignition problems.
 
Total speculation here;
1.) Knocking off the protruding edge would shorten the cone on the inside, and put it closer to the main charge. If he pricked the vent before shooting, It might have been that he knocked a bunch of powder away, and the pan fire had to jump through the hole further.
2.) The lip above the liner might have shielded the powder from filling in to the cavity of the liner. A vertical chamber wall area wouldn't upset the powder filling in the same way. This might have been particularly apparent with smallish charges that don't fill up a lot of the bore.
3.) It may have created a condition where moisture was trapped more easily if the shooter swabbed between shots, thus contaminating the main charge.

That's about all I can think of.
 
I'm getting pretty far along on my iron furniture Southern Mtn. rifle from TOTW. Got it all together with the exception of the butt and toe plate I will start tomorrow. So far no major mistakes but wish I had been a bit more careful with some inletting on the trigger plate end and side plate hemisphere. Lots of little stuff to learn on a flinter that one does not encounter with cartridge guns but as a kit was relatively simple to assemble with the aid of the pictured instruction sheet a full 4x6 feet big. I need the pictures along with the instructions particularly in the stock profiling to get a handle on what they are trying to describe for detail like fore end cap stock melding with the proper cross sectional shapes that are accurate to the style. The other major advantage to buying the instructions is for the sequence of of parts fitting, which was a tremendous help to me.
This is my first flint kit gun and am enjoying the change of pace in gun making from cartridge arms.
I don't care for WL liners so made and installed my own constructed of A-2 tool steel which is basically a stainless steel with a lot of chrome in it. Curious how long it will last as I did not harden it. I did contour the internal surface to match the barrel ID radius but decided against reaming out the rifling just ahead of the breech plug as I initially planned on. The reason is because I have been know to dry ball on occasion when BS'ing while loading and decided a patched ball against the breech plug with no rifle to hold it still while trying to screw a ball retriever into it would not be very practical.
I'll get some pictures up and show some of the boner's I made on this kit while learning a new style of gun making.

I'm not sure about A-2 for this application, especially in a soft condition. I think I would try heat treating it low on the C scale, it doesn't need to be file hard. What I have considered is D-2, if memory serves it should be tough enough to last without being hardened. Of course hardening D-2 will make it really tough and I think resistant to gas cutting. A big problem though with D-2 is that it often warps a little after hardening and the stuff is so tough it would be hard to correct it.
About 30 years ago I made several liners for a GPR out of stainless steel, 6X47 MM threads if I remember right. I never had a problem with burning the hole larger. My problem was the design created a liner that gave unacceptable ignition. So I modified it a little and they worked fine. A few years later when I built my first rifle I noticed my modified liners were almost identical to the inside of the WL liners.
After installing a few of the WL's and doing a lot of shooting I'm convinced the WL liner's just work the best for me.
Interesting idea about using A-2 for a liner. Hope it works out for you.
 
I'm getting pretty far along on my iron furniture Southern Mtn. rifle from TOTW. Got it all together with the exception of the butt and toe plate I will start tomorrow. So far no major mistakes but wish I had been a bit more careful with some inletting on the trigger plate end and side plate hemisphere. Lots of little stuff to learn on a flinter that one does not encounter with cartridge guns but as a kit was relatively simple to assemble with the aid of the pictured instruction sheet a full 4x6 feet big. I need the pictures along with the instructions particularly in the stock profiling to get a handle on what they are trying to describe for detail like fore end cap stock melding with the proper cross sectional shapes that are accurate to the style. The other major advantage to buying the instructions is for the sequence of of parts fitting, which was a tremendous help to me.
This is my first flint kit gun and am enjoying the change of pace in gun making from cartridge arms.
I don't care for WL liners so made and installed my own constructed of A-2 tool steel which is basically a stainless steel with a lot of chrome in it. Curious how long it will last as I did not harden it. I did contour the internal surface to match the barrel ID radius but decided against reaming out the rifling just ahead of the breech plug as I initially planned on. The reason is because I have been know to dry ball on occasion when BS'ing while loading and decided a patched ball against the breech plug with no rifle to hold it still while trying to screw a ball retriever into it would not be very practical.
I'll get some pictures up and show some of the boner's I made on this kit while learning a new style of gun making.
 

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A shot of the liner and placement.
The boner I was referring to in the earlier post was the wide chisel cut I mistakenly made on the side plate hemisphere. Doesn't look so bad looking straight on but the shot is at a slight angle to show what not to do. Had my head up my butt for a second with that chisel cut!
 
Yeah, I was pleased with how well that turned out,thanks. I got a tip from another forum I'm posting the build pictures on , how to fix my boner chisel cut. The suggestion I had not thought of was to heat up the side plate and forge out the steel a bit to fill out the gap I made on the right side of the hemisphere. As the design calls for leaving it a bit proud any way I thought it a good fix tip.
 
I'm not sure about A-2 for this application, especially in a soft condition. I think I would try heat treating it low on the C scale, it doesn't need to be file hard. What I have considered is D-2, if memory serves it should be tough enough to last without being hardened. Of course hardening D-2 will make it really tough and I think resistant to gas cutting. A big problem though with D-2 is that it often warps a little after hardening and the stuff is so tough it would be hard to correct it.
About 30 years ago I made several liners for a GPR out of stainless steel, 6X47 MM threads if I remember right. I never had a problem with burning the hole larger. My problem was the design created a liner that gave unacceptable ignition. So I modified it a little and they worked fine. A few years later when I built my first rifle I noticed my modified liners were almost identical to the inside of the WL liners.
After installing a few of the WL's and doing a lot of shooting I'm convinced the WL liner's just work the best for me.
Interesting idea about using A-2 for a liner. Hope it works out for you.
I use A-2 a lot for gun parts like sears and triggers because it can be hardened so well without warping much. It does have a high chrome content which should resist erosion and corrosion well. I thought about making it hard but decided I wanted to leave it soft for ease of removal if it didn't work out well. I can easily make another if it doesn't work out as planned. I know for sure it is tougher than barrel wall steel and that's all the originals used until they burned out and had to be lined.
 
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