Well, today was my first day shooting a flintlock. Took my new gun out for the first time and put about 50 rounds through it. I have posted pictures of this gun under the thread “Opinions on this Flintlock.
First off let me say thanks for all the great posts put up be members of this forum. After all the reading I had no problems loading it up and making it go bang right off the bat. I also tried knapping the flint and a few other things I learned reading this forum. Thanks to all of you.
Per the other thread, well Spencer, whatever lock it is, it seems to go bang pretty good. Had it out today for the first time and am very happy with the ignition results.
I started with 20 grains of 3F powder as prime and main, with a .310 Hornady swaged ball, .015 Butch’s standard centerfire cleaning patches with only spit for lube. Fired the first 6 with 20 grains, the next ten with 25, 5 with 30 and the rest with 35. Point of impact moved up with each increase in load but stayed slightly right of the bull.
First thing I noticed is that at the lower loads the patches looked fine. Once I got to 30 grains and above there were larger and larger holes in the patches. Other thing I found is that loading the ball was never a problem but as I shot the gun developed a hard carbon ring right near the bottom of the barrel. Tried using the scraper to remove it, was a lot of work and only worked to a certain extent. What I found when I was cleaning up just before leaving is that a real wet patch or two on the cleaning jag pushes right through this ring no problem. Learning for next time, get ring, wet a patch and clean it out, no problemo.
Next thing I learned is the first flint, 7/8” square, shot well for the first 25 or so rounds. After the first failure to fire, I knapped the flint and we were back to good. This flint was fairly thin and I found that every 4 or 5 shots I had to retighten the cock screw. This flint was also a hair too long as the frizzen didn’t completely close on half cock till after I had knapped it a bit. After the second failure to fire I put in a 5/8” by slightly longer than 5/8” flint that was thicker. The jaws got a much better purchase on this one and I never need to tighten the cock screw again. I also installed this one with the bevel facing down towards the frizzen whereas the first one was facing up. Don’t know if this makes a difference but the flint seemed to be the right distance from the frizzen on half cock when mounted this way.
This seems to be a good lock. I was intentionally trying different combinations of location and amount of primer in the pan. Unless I got real scotch with the amount of primer, ignition was almost instant, no matter where in the pan I put the prime, or whether the flash hole was covered or not.
It has been a VERY long time since these 55 year old eyes have shot anything that wasn’t scoped or aperture sighted. I was very surprised that the old timmy v-notch and bladed front sights seemed to work pretty good for me. Out of the 50 shots, most of the groups looked similar to this, just at different points on the target. I don’t intend to do anything with the sights till I land on a load I am happy with.
All rounds were shot benched and the picture is the last of the 50 rounds. The groups had opened up some by this time, many of the earlier ones had at least two touching, but in overall size not a whole bunch larger. The coin in picture is exactly an inch, and it will JUST cover the three holes, so no screaming hell at 50 yards. I don’t really know what these type of guns are supposed to be capable of at 50 yards but this definitely isn’t in the class of the other guns I shoot, so I would like any tips available on how to tighten these up some. Is the hole in the patches part of the issue with the group sizes. Thanks for all your help so far and all the good info to come.
First off let me say thanks for all the great posts put up be members of this forum. After all the reading I had no problems loading it up and making it go bang right off the bat. I also tried knapping the flint and a few other things I learned reading this forum. Thanks to all of you.
Per the other thread, well Spencer, whatever lock it is, it seems to go bang pretty good. Had it out today for the first time and am very happy with the ignition results.
I started with 20 grains of 3F powder as prime and main, with a .310 Hornady swaged ball, .015 Butch’s standard centerfire cleaning patches with only spit for lube. Fired the first 6 with 20 grains, the next ten with 25, 5 with 30 and the rest with 35. Point of impact moved up with each increase in load but stayed slightly right of the bull.
First thing I noticed is that at the lower loads the patches looked fine. Once I got to 30 grains and above there were larger and larger holes in the patches. Other thing I found is that loading the ball was never a problem but as I shot the gun developed a hard carbon ring right near the bottom of the barrel. Tried using the scraper to remove it, was a lot of work and only worked to a certain extent. What I found when I was cleaning up just before leaving is that a real wet patch or two on the cleaning jag pushes right through this ring no problem. Learning for next time, get ring, wet a patch and clean it out, no problemo.
Next thing I learned is the first flint, 7/8” square, shot well for the first 25 or so rounds. After the first failure to fire, I knapped the flint and we were back to good. This flint was fairly thin and I found that every 4 or 5 shots I had to retighten the cock screw. This flint was also a hair too long as the frizzen didn’t completely close on half cock till after I had knapped it a bit. After the second failure to fire I put in a 5/8” by slightly longer than 5/8” flint that was thicker. The jaws got a much better purchase on this one and I never need to tighten the cock screw again. I also installed this one with the bevel facing down towards the frizzen whereas the first one was facing up. Don’t know if this makes a difference but the flint seemed to be the right distance from the frizzen on half cock when mounted this way.
This seems to be a good lock. I was intentionally trying different combinations of location and amount of primer in the pan. Unless I got real scotch with the amount of primer, ignition was almost instant, no matter where in the pan I put the prime, or whether the flash hole was covered or not.
It has been a VERY long time since these 55 year old eyes have shot anything that wasn’t scoped or aperture sighted. I was very surprised that the old timmy v-notch and bladed front sights seemed to work pretty good for me. Out of the 50 shots, most of the groups looked similar to this, just at different points on the target. I don’t intend to do anything with the sights till I land on a load I am happy with.
All rounds were shot benched and the picture is the last of the 50 rounds. The groups had opened up some by this time, many of the earlier ones had at least two touching, but in overall size not a whole bunch larger. The coin in picture is exactly an inch, and it will JUST cover the three holes, so no screaming hell at 50 yards. I don’t really know what these type of guns are supposed to be capable of at 50 yards but this definitely isn’t in the class of the other guns I shoot, so I would like any tips available on how to tighten these up some. Is the hole in the patches part of the issue with the group sizes. Thanks for all your help so far and all the good info to come.
