I'm slowly crawling my way into the flintlock world with a T/C Hawken I got for cheap on GB. It was in wretched shape, but I love fixing stuff like this. The last hurdle before actually loading and firing the beast was a frizzen that wouldn't stay fully open on firing. Searching this forum an experimenting I discovered that I had the dreaded rebounding frizzen problem. The general consensus to solve the problem was either toss out the cheap T/C lock or tune it up by fiddling with springs. I saw this as an ever widening spiral of trials of spring strength, hammer weight, and frizzen weight. Instead, I scrupulously cleaned and polished bearing surfaces to no avail. Weakening the frizzen spring seemed difficult and counter-productive as a strong frizzen spring promotes stronger flint contact. T/C springs are heavy. The frizzen bounces back from elastic contact of its toe with the top of the spring. Simply holding my finger in the frizzen's path damped out energy and allowed the cam-over action of the toe to latch the frizzen forward while still producing a healthy spark. I affixed a small patch of neoprene to the contact area of the frizzen spring where the toe touched down. Voila! Strong spark and no more rebound. Purists would rightly decry glueing on an elastomer to a flintlock frizzen spring, but T/C Hawkens are hardly period correct with coil spring mainsprings, adjustable read sights and polished brass metalwork. The neoprene is black and barely visible, a victory for modern ingenuity.
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Modern Solution to Frizzen Rebound
- Thread starter TrophyGuy
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While there are other solutions to the problem, congrats on finding your own solution. Might be all you need.
What is assumed to be the frizzen not fully opening, is generally it rebounds too fast for the you to see. It can be tested by placing your thumb in front of the frizzen, to where it just touches. Cock the lock, fire the lock, and see if the frizzen contacts your thumb. Most of the time it will.
