How you fill your pan makes no difference ...

[Walkaheap]

I'll admit I sometimes give the wrist a little bump to settle the prime in the pan. Other times I forget to do that. Doesn't seem to matter at all if I have a sharp rock correctly installed.
Walkaheap

 

[Grenadier1758]

I do some of the rituals surrounding the preparation of the pan before firing just to get into the focused mindset of shooting. However, when shooting the King's Musket, all that ritual really doesn't matter. Rob is right.

 

[Rifleman1776]

All those methods will make a good lock/gun go bang. But, for fastest ignition, I believe a small line of 4Fg in the bottom of the pan gives best results. However, for hunting I ain't that fussy. Dump, close pan, check frequently and shoot when the opportunity presents itself.

EDIT: I must add: I have found that with a good lock you can get ignition, maybe 80% of the time, without any primer. My Rev. period longrifle and my Dave Persons built Little Fella are good examples.

 

[Cruzatte]

Let's try another one , shorter one . Ah , cool ....this one of upside down shooting is going to work , cool. Maybe someone can shorten the other one for me so I can post it , if not I'll just have to try and make a new , short VDO

After I had finished the woods walk, the score keeper wondered if it were true that a flintlock could be fired upside down. "I've never done it," I said.

"Give it a try," says he. So I did. And yup, they go off.

It isn't the flame from the flash, it's the heat generated by the ignition of the priming powder, that sets off the main charge.

 

[Terrier]

The only peculiar thing I've run into with priming my Kibler SMR is the little spring loaded tip on my priming flask tends to get gunked up and clogged if I press it directly into the pan itself. The fouling on the pan surface tends to get a little goopy in the local high humidity. Being new to flinters, I had to sort things out...

I figured out if I touch the flask tip to the bottom of the frizzen, the flask tip stays clean, the powder falls into the pan and things reliably go bang at that point. And it doesn't take much in the SMR. Seems like "filling the pan" would make an unnecessarily large flash.

 

[Cruzatte]

The only peculiar thing I've run into with priming my Kibler SMR is the little spring loaded tip on my priming flask tends to get gunked up and clogged if I press it directly into the pan itself. The fouling on the pan surface tends to get a little goopy in the local high humidity. Being new to flinters, I had to sort things out...

I figured out if I touch the flask tip to the bottom of the frizzen, the flask tip stays clean, the powder falls into the pan and things reliably go bang at that point. And it doesn't take much in the SMR. Seems like "filling the pan" would make an unnecessarily large flash.

Years ago I had the same experience with those priming flask push valves. I finally gave up the struggle & learned to pour enough out of a conventionally designed priming horn. And yes, sometimes I get sloppy and spill too much into the pan. No matter; I just brush the excess out, close the frizzen & fire.

I agree with you about the amount of priming powder. Dumping too much into the pan does distract me. Priming the pan reminds me of the old Brylcreem ad, "A little dab'll do ya." Boy, did I date myself there!

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

With a properly placed touch hole it doesn't matter how much prime goes in the pan.

 

[Terrier]

. Priming the pan reminds me of the old Brylcreem ad, "A little dab'll do ya." Boy, did I date myself there!

I remember using "School" on my hair when I was little. Same kinda stuff, but more of a white liquid in a big bottle that looked like it could've held liquor in another life...

 

[Cruzatte]

With a properly placed touch hole it doesn't matter how much prime goes in the pan.

I suppose that's so. OTH, why dump in more than is necessary?

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

I suppose that's so. OTH, why dump in more than is necessary?

My point is it doesn't matter, put in a lot or a little, it will make no difference if your TH is located properly.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

Flints are a waste of money.

Handgonnes just need a hot wire (reusable) and you’re good to go!

 

[Shawrco]

I use a cows knee to cover the lock in bad weather, ie rain/snow.

@Doc, how do you get the cow to stand still that long? And I guess she follows you around too? Well trained cow!

 

[kaotikross]

I've been shooting for over three decades and never thought about trying it upside down. Learn something new every day on here.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

I’ve tried shooting my flintlock upside down but then everything falls out of my pockets and stuff.

A good BSer friend told me years ago " A good flintlock will shoot upsidedown underwater"
Larry

 

[appalichian hunter]

4f primer here using a plunger type dispenser throws a line not to big, use this on all my flinters never had a problem, From .62 to .32 cals. Thinking hard on a Kibler when I get back from a Wyoming hunt, even though I am a left-handed shooter, looks like Jim will never offer a left-handed gun, will just have to bite the bullet. The sirens are singing to me. But I heard where there may be a Hawken being thought about in the future, now one of those say in .54 or .58 percussion. would be nice.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

I hear so many times you have to fill the pan , half way , push the powder away , or sometimes , toward the pan , use 4 F , dont put too much in , part it down the middle , make a void near the T.H. etc. etc. this or that .... You should be able to just dump powder in the pan and close the frizzen thats it . If you over fill it too much and the frizzen wont close , sure , knock some out so it'll close completely but thats it . If you have to do some sortta voodoo for your flintlock to go off or if you aren't getting fast ignition ....something is wrong with your lock , your Touch hole , or both .

It all depends on the lock and the pan that goes along with it. I have two longrifles with totally different locks. One is a Traditions Pennsylvania Longrifle, which was my first one that I got back in ~2004. It, like all the Traditions flintlocks I've come across, has a small lock on it, actually what would be called a pistol lock. It aligns pretty well with the touch hole, which is not common with the Traditions flintlocks. Notice how small that pan is. It is barely wider that the flashguard liner. I used this rifle for years and once I figured out the best way to fill the pan, it would go off first time every time. I had to modify this lock to accept a flashguard because I used it extensively in reenactments. Got a kit from Mike Lea and he told me over the phone how to heat and use a tap on the lock to make it work - great guy with easy instructions and I got it right on the first try!

To make this lock work work reliably, I'd fill it about 1/2-full, close the frizzen and then, holding onto the wrist of the stock, give it a quick snap-twist of the wrist to the right. If you lifted the frizzen at that point you'd see that the powder was banked a bit to the right of the lock leaving an open space in between the powder and the touch hole, allowing the flash to quickly get into the touch hole channel without the need to burn through more powder to get there. If I did that, it would consistently go off, first time every time.

If I didn't do the quick snap, or it I filled the pan full, it would often still go off, but with the dreaded "shhhhhhh-BOOM". If I filled it as described above, it was very reliable, which was important to me not only for hunting, for reenactments. In reenactments the standard rule is if your gun misfires 3 times in a row, you need to become a casualty at the next incoming volley. And after driving hours to get to the location, the last thing you need to do is become a casualty on the ground 5-minutes after the reenactments starts, laying there for the next half hour or so as the battle goes on about you. So, I figured out what was needed to make this lock perform reliably. This is all with 3Fg powder, which I also used as the main charge.

My other rifle is an Early Lancaster rifle by a private builder that could also be called a York style because it is so slender and long. It has an L&R Queen Anne lock on it which works no matter what you do to it. The pan is about 3-times the size of the one on my Traditions and it doesn't matter if you fill it half-way, all the way, bank it to the right, or just dump too much powder into it and close the pan knocking excess powder off the side. It ALWAYS goes off and I have never had a "Shhhhhhhh-Boom" with it. It always just goes "BOOM". It's a well designed and dependable lock. You can see the difference in the size of the pan between the L&R Queen Anne lock below and the pistol-sized Traditions Italian lock above. And again I use 3Fg for both the prime and main charge on both rifles.

Another thing that, in my opinion, is a big advantage is that the flash channel goes right into the main charge at the breech with my Early Lancaster rifle. So if you do get a "clogged vent", you can pick it clear easily. That doesn't always do the trick on the Traditions rifle because it uses a patent breech. The flash channel on it goes in to behind the normal breech location and then makes a 90° turn up to go into the middle of the back of the breech.

It's supposed to give a faster and more evenly ignited ignition. In my experience it is just more complex with more things to go wrong and harder to fix in the field. If you have a clogged vent with a standard breech you can pick it with a brass pick very easily to clear it because it opens directly into the main charge at the back wall of the breech. Not so with the patent breech. If you get a flash in the pan, you can try to pick it and that sometimes work. At other times it just makes it worse as picking it pushed the clog right to that 90° bend and using a patch on your ramrod to try to clear, won't reach the junk at the bottom of that antechamber. The picking that you did from the vent just pushed that clog of non-flammable material into a spot between you and the powder in the antechamber.

The best way to fix this is when you clean your rifle at the end of a day of shooting. I always cleaned this by removing the lock; putting a round toothpick or a small twig in the vent and then pouring some water or cleaning solution (I've used MAP for the last 20 some years) down the barrel to leave a couple of inches in the bottom. Then I'd lean it up against something so that liquid could soak the breech and hopefully the antechamber, and then clean and oil my lock. Before I'd mount the lock back to my rifle I'd take a wet patch and move it down the barrel until I felt some resistance from trying to compress the liquid. At that point, I'd aim the vent well away from anything I don't want to get stained; pull the toothpick or twig out; and ram that ramrod down forcefully. That will shoot out about a 6-foot stream of the blackest, ugliest, gunk you ever saw. And that stuff stains, so again, make sure you point it well away from any tent, clothing, or other people.

That works well when cleaning any of the many variations of the patent breech. Many folks have an extra cleaning rod with a brush about the size of a .22 to clean out that anti-chamber. Not a problem using that at a range, but there's still no easy way to carry that with you hunting or reenacting. Some folks will actually have a a gunsmith drill out that antechamber to a larger size so there's less chance of a clog, but you still have the same problem with the need of a second rod to clean it out. If the antechamber isn't too long though, you might be able to just use a brass brush on the end of your ramrod (presuming it's tapped for threads on the end) and use that. I never tried that because I was meticulous about using the above method to clean my Traditions longrifle every day I used it.

One of the hard lessons I learned though after cleaning my Traditions was to be sure I only lightly oiled the bore of my rifle. Put enough oil on a cleaning patch to make a circle just a little larger than the bore, but don't saturate the entire patch. If you use too much oil and end up with a small pool in the antechamber, it will hang out there and soak the bottom of a fresh charge of powder you put in it. If you're lucky you can keep flashing the pan repeatedly in hopes it might dissolve the oil enough to ignite the powder, but if it doesn't you may have to pull the ball and dump the powder. Clearing that problem is best and most safely done with a Co2 discharger. If you have to pull the ball to dump the powder and re-clean the bore with that hydraulic force, be sure you put the cock in the half-cock position AND put a leather hammer-stall on the frizzen. Things that stubbornly refuse to work when you want it too can suddenly go off easily if you don't take the proper precautions. So, be safe!

 

[Rob M.]

Wow ....Ok , all done .

 

[Flintlock Whiskey]

some sortta voodoo for your flintlock to go off

I usually put a few drops of the blood of a chicken sacrificed by a Bantu medicine man by the light of a full moon in the pan BEFORE priming it. Guaranteed results.

 

[Rob M.]

I've been shooting for over three decades and never thought about trying it upside down. Learn something new every day on here.

Just a good test is all , to make sure its working to its best ability . If it shoots upside down , everything is working correctly .

 

[Rob M.]

I usually put a few drops of the blood of a chicken sacrificed by a Bantu medicine man by the light of a full moon in the pan BEFORE priming it. Guaranteed results.

LOL !!! Perfect !!! After reading many of these responses I do believe that is the best procedure. Ive had folks see me shoot one of my trade guns or have shot one of my guns and they always are surprised at the fast ignition . Ive helped some flintlock owners fix their forearms to get fast ignition . I was only trying to make sure that folks have fast and reliable ignition on their flintlocks but it seems they aren't concerned , dont know any better or love their ritual of priming and hoping for the best . Oh well ...was just trying to pass on some tricks and advice handed down to me from builders over the years , not trying to tell folks what to do or sound like a know it all . I'll certainly never be helpful again on here . Eye of gnewt does wonders with smooth bores ! I can get 2" groups at 200 yards , off hand , if I use it