Lead or Leather

[Art Caputo]

I have played with frizzen spring weight and and found that some degree of spring tension is needed for a good shower of sparks. I think the idea of the weight measured to open the frizzen being 1/3 the weight of drawing the hammer to full cock makes good sense.

 

[Zonie]

This frizzen spring thing is off topic but, in my opinion, the frizzen or feather spring has two jobs.
First, it is there to keep the pan cover closed over the priming in the pan.
Second, it is there to keep the frizzen from rebounding and snapping back on top of the cock after firing.

It is not there to create resistance to the flint as it falls and strikes the face of the frizzen.

 

[oldwood]

50 years of leather in flint jaws for me. Can't keep flint tight in most locks using lead. oldwood

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

I used to own a .45 flintlock that had a frizzen spring so weak that it would not keep the frizzen closed. It sparked well and shot well, as long as the powder did not fall out of the pan! I had a new "better" spring made as I intended to hunt with it, but it did not shoot any differently.

ADK Bigfoot

 

[GregLaRoche]

I shot a French 1777 musket. I thought I would look at a picture I took of the same model. Now when I look at it, it has a piece of lead holding the flint in place, I guess if I want to be period correct, I should use lead.

 

[Col. Batguano]

This frizzen spring thing is off topic but, in my opinion, the frizzen or feather spring has two jobs.
First, it is there to keep the pan cover closed over the priming in the pan.
Second, it is there to keep the frizzen from rebounding and snapping back on top of the cock after firing.

It is not there to create resistance to the flint as it falls and strikes the face of the frizzen.

Sounds like a science experiment is in order. Have you experimented with the lock to see if the VOLUME of sparks is the same both with, and without the frizzen / feather spring installed? If there is no spring the frizzen will flip up as fast as it can, and provide a minimum of resistance. Intuitively that would tell me the flint can't dig as deeply, so the flints must be very very sharp.

 

[Griz44Mag]

Just because I am curious......
I removed the "feather spring" (which I did not know it was named) in my Pedersoli Pennsylvania and sparked it a couple of times.
It still sparked, maybe not quite as much as it does with the spring though, and the frizzen did not slap down on the cock afterward.
GIVEN HOWEVER - that was done without the recoil of an actual shot being fired where the dynamics of recoil would be in play.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

I have slow motion video of a Chambers round face lock, fired without a frizzen spring. Worked fine. The frizzen rebounded stopping just above the flint. When Jim saw it he said that he worked very hard to get the unstrung frizzen to stop just above the flint.
REGARDS, PLETCH

 

[ekettenburg]

I have used lead often when used in conjunction with flints that are somewhat 'wonky' i.e. not as perfect with parallel top/bottom bearing surfaces as many that are now obtainable. Also lead works very well with spalls in musket sized locks. I have something like a 100 lb + roll of sheet lead that was my grandfather's, used for roofing, and it's @ 1/16" thick. I cut a small piece of that and then hammer it out to 1/32 or less, very thin. This has worked well for me personally, better than leather after a few strikes/retightenings. Once it's been retightened a couple of times, it seems to grab like glue and never moves.

If the lead is thin enough, I don't buy into the idea that somehow it's adding mass or damaging a lock or whatever. The idea here is simply to grip the flint in between two pieces of metal. If the lock is well made, whatever works will work.