Flintlock guns with no vent liners

[Leadball loader]

The challenge of shooting flintlocks without modern vent liners has kept me occupied for the last year. It has shown me just how skilled the old time shooters had to be.
I hope to get good enough to be consistently able to hold my target and I’ve got a ways to go.
The only solution from what I read here is practice practice practice. Fun filled future for my retirement years.

 

[Cruzatte]

Interesting. Keep us posted. My Caywood fusil has no vent liner. And it isn't supposed to.

 

[tenngun]

I’m happy with the way my NWG shoots sans liner

 

[Leadball loader]

I’m happy the fusil De Chasse I shoot has no liner. I feel that if I’m going to shoot a traditional gun it should be as close to the way they had to shoot in the era the gun was used.
I see many kits advertising vent liners as a part speeding ignition time.
Learning to follow through and holding sight picture is proving to take some work on my part. I’m making progress slowly maybe due to my age.

 

[stubshaft]

Some of my flints have them some don't. Truth be told, I don't even notice whether or not the rifle I am shooting has one in it or not.

I just focus on the front sight/target until it is blocked off (hopefully) by a cloud of smoke.

 

[Cruzatte]

I’m happy the fusil De Chasse I shoot has no liner. I feel that if I’m going to shoot a traditional gun it should be as close to the way they had to shoot in the era the gun was used.

That's the spirit! I just completed an order for the remaining parts to a fusil de chasse from Track of the Wolf. I do not plan to put a vent liner in the barrel, but will countersink the touch hole drilled into the side of the barrel, just like my Caywood gun.

 

[rich pierce]

I’m fine without a liner in a smoothbore. In a rifle I use internal coning or a vent liner made of barrel steel. I know it’s cheating but at least I’m not staring at a large stainless steel liner. That seems like using an aluminum trigger guard to me.

 

[Rifleman1776]

The challenge of shooting flintlocks without modern vent liners has kept me occupied for the last year.

Interesting statement. A flinty, smooth or otherwise, will shoot just fine if the touch hole is properly placed and sized. What is your problem with your smoothie?

 

[Leadball loader]

The problem is consistency for me! The gun does what it should and I have a lot of practice to do before I can repeat accurate shots. I’m gaining each session.

 

[rafterob]

I'll say the one flinter I have with no liner now shoots just as consistently as the one that does. I discovered early on I needed to pick the non lined hole each time to assure good ignition.

 

[Tom Compton]

Waiting on a tap for my White Lightning liner to install in the NWTG.

 

[Stumpkiller]

My Kit Ravenshear Light Infantry Fusil had no liner.

Kit considered them a repair item.

 

[smoothshooter]

You can drill it out to a larger size from the outside, but don't enlarge it all the way through.
That is entirely historically correct.

 

[smoothshooter]

Danny Caywood has always been adamantly opposed to vent liners in any guns, supposedly for safety reasons. But I have to say That even though it has certainly happened, I personally never seen or heard if a single case.
Why would a vent liner be any more likely to blow out than a breech plug? Some of those, original and modern, are held in by only a couple of threads, and corroded to boot.

Much more common is to have a barrel split because someone cut a sight dovetail or stock pin tennon too deep into the barrel wall.
I know Danny Caywood personally, and consider him to be an intelligent, ethical, thoughtful, and conscientious man.
But I never understood his obsession against vent liners considering all the other things that can go wrong with a muzzleloader when shooting.

 

[smoothshooter]

A lot of the problem has to do with how far the flash has to travel down a vent to get to the main charge.
A thinner barrel wall will have a shorter vent channel than a thick one.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Has anyone timed the difference :hmm:

I have guns with liners and without, I can flinch just as well with both :haha:

B.

 

[Maven]

I'll bet Larry Pletcher ("Pletch") can answer this definitively.

 

[smoothshooter]

I generally have them installed on a new gun if I am having one custom-built so as to avoid a potential problem with slow ignition from the git-go.
Easier to have it done then while the gun is being built rather than having to send the gun off later, if needed, to someone who can install the liner correctly, and waiting for weeks/months to get it back.

 

[smoothshooter]

You can drill it out to a larger size from the outside, but don't enlarge it all the way through.
That is entirely historically correct.

 

[Cruzatte]

A lot of the problem has to do with how far the flash has to travel down a [bend] to get to the main charge.
A thinner barrel wall will have a shorter vent channel than a thick one.

If installed correctly, there shouldn't be a bend between the outer surface of the liner and the interior of the barrel. And aren't all liners coned on the inside, anyway? If my assumptions are correct, there's no real advantage to installing a vent liner.