Flints and frizzens

I had my brand spanking new GPR (.54 flinter) at the range today and had one heck of a time geting her to go bang. I used English flints and they shattered after about 3 or 4 drops. I then went to German and had better luck but still there was one string of 12 (I counted) in which either the prime flashed and the gun did not fire or there was simply no sparks thrown. I could not help noticing that the flints are striking the frizzen only about a half an inch from the heel and there is a great deal of chatter on the frizzen face. I am wondering if I need to get a frizzen that has more of a rearward bend to it to catch the flint earlier on the down stroke or a longer flint -- or whatever? Also, this is odd I think, as the frizzen face got rougher the gun fired more regurally. Is this part of a break in process? Lastly - lock time was extremely long.

 

Several questions:

1) Did you have the English flints bevel side up, or down? I've found that if I try to put them in bevel side up in my GPR, I have the exact same problem you do, it doesn't scrape enough frizzen to throw lots of sparks, so I put mine in bevel down. I get scraping on about 2/3 of the face of the frizzen, and lots of sparks that way, and I get a lot more than 10-12 shots out of my flints too. I seem to remember having some chatter on mine when I first got it too (man, that was a long time ago... 15 years or so!), but that will go away the more you shoot it.

2) I had ignition problems too and ended up drilling out my touch hole liner, which helped greatly. Also, don't fill the pan with primer. I fill mine 1/3 to 1/2, and try to keep it all in the far side of the pan away from the touch hole.

3) Regarding lock time being slow, did you take the lock off the gun and give it a good cleaning? They usually coat stuff with a pretty heavy grease out of the factory, that could have been slowing your lock down. Take it off the rifle and blast it with some Break Free or Gun Scrubber, then just give it a drop of 3-in-1 oil on the moving parts, and you'll probably see your lock time improve.

 

[elmonk]

Chet,

Don't mess with the friizen.

With my GPR locks the flint strikes the face of the frizzen about 5/8 of an inch above the bottom of the frizzen.

The factory vent hole in the Lyman rifles is a bit small. I drill mine out a little larger.

If the flint is striking low on the frizzen it could indicate that the flints are just a bit short for that lock. I have run into that at times.
You may add another piece of leather under the piece that wraps around the flint. A bit of leather can be used to space the flint away from the lock jaw screw to make it protrude a little more from the jaws that hold it.

If you are using sawn flints the black English ones will sometimes shatter or loose chunks rather quickly.
The German sawn flints work a bit better.

When you use a square edge sawn flint in these locks they will leave chatter marks on the face of the frizzen.
If you use a knapped natural flint it will rough the frizzen face with vertical grooves. The sawn flints will then work far better for awhile.
I found it necessary to alternate between sawn flints and knapped flints to keep the face of the frizzen somewhat roughened.

 

[Rebel]

You should be using a 3/4" flint in the GPR. You want it to just barely miss the frizzen at half cock. If you can't get this with the flint bevel up, try it bevel down. If you still can't maybe you need a longer flint. You want one as wide as the frizzen face and long enough to set close to the frizzen. Also you need to drill the vent liner out to 1/16" and try that. If it is still slow you can go to 5/64". Also, you are using real black powder and not one of the substitutes aren't you? If not, you need to get some real powder. Check to see that the vent hole is in the center of the pan, not too far front or back, and a line going across the pan should go through the center of the vent hole. A litle high is ok, but you don't want the hole too low. Alos. polishing up the inside of the lock will help speed a lot. Hope this helps.