Touch hole liners

[Rollover Jack]

Mr. Wild...

I look at it from a different viewpoint. My liner is removable and I do so every time that I clean the barrel. However, you may not have a hooked breech to set the breech end into a pail of water. I can clean the fire channel and inspect it easily. You may not have a "patent breech" negating the inspection that I insist on doing. But if you ever dryball :cursing: , removing the vent liner will make it easy to trickle powder behind the ball and fire it out. This may be harder to do if not removed on a regular basis, using anti-seize on the threads, or even possible if it is a permanent installation. :2

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

 

[mikee51848]

I've never dry-balled, but I have had damp powder in the breech, and having the liner did allow me to clear the barrel quicker. :hmm:

 

[sproulman]

i read article that said you should not keep removing your liner all time as thread holes will enlarge.

he suggested that you use plumbers teflon tape on the liner to keep this from happening.

dont know if that could happen over time doing it to clean.

 

[Dave K]

This has been dicussed many times about removing the vent for cleaning. So there are many opinions that works for the people who have these guns. My vents are really not removeable. Once they are removed, they are thrown away. I take them out for cleaning as much as a gun that does not have a removeable vent. That means I never take them out. There is no purpose for me to do so. When I dryball, I just tamp in some powder through the vent and fire it out. No problem at all.

 

[Dphar]

i read article that said you should not keep removing your liner all time as thread holes will enlarge.

he suggested that you use plumbers teflon tape on the liner to keep this from happening.

dont know if that could happen over time doing it to clean.

I don't make or install removable liners.
Teflon tape...Jeez...

Dan

 

[Rollover Jack]

sproulman...

Interesting -- I will let the forum know should the threads in the barrel enlarge, at least I will be watching for it now. I am sticking with anti-seize grease for now, or if in the field, at least some kind of lubricant, perhaps patch lube, anything to avoid dry threads. I fear that teflon tape would tend to shred and leave pieces in that critical flash channel. :cursing: Don't think it would burn away.

On another note, if the threads were to enlarge, I would look at that as evidence that I was shooting and cleaning the gun a lot. A "Good Thing" as someone said before. Is this twisted logic, or what? :rotf:

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

i read article that said you should not keep removing your liner all time as thread holes will enlarge.

he suggested that you use plumbers teflon tape on the liner to keep this from happening.

dont know if that could happen over time doing it to clean.

I don't make or install removable liners.
Teflon tape...Jeez...

Dan

Now Dan "If they'da had it, they'da used it!" Dan :haha:

 

[tg]

"There is no purpose for me to do so. When I dryball, I just tamp in some powder through the vent and fire it out. No problem at all."

Much to simple for many to grasp Dave :shake:

 

[sproulman]

sproulman...

Interesting -- I will let the forum know should the threads in the barrel enlarge, at least I will be watching for it now. I am sticking with anti-seize grease for now, or if in the field, at least some kind of lubricant, perhaps patch lube, anything to avoid dry threads. I fear that teflon tape would tend to shred and leave pieces in that critical flash channel. :cursing: Don't think it would burn away.

On another note, if the threads were to enlarge, I would look at that as evidence that I was shooting and cleaning the gun a lot. A "Good Thing" as someone said before. Is this twisted logic, or what? :rotf:

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

i read that a few years ago on muzzleloader repair post.

he also talked about removing screws in your wood all time that it enlarges the holes and makes things loose but i cant remember what he suggested to use on that but i did remember the plumbers teflon tape on the vent liner.

but he did say it will enlarge and make liner loose.......

 

[Dphar]

sproulman...

Interesting -- I will let the forum know should the threads in the barrel enlarge, at least I will be watching for it now. I am sticking with anti-seize grease for now, or if in the field, at least some kind of lubricant, perhaps patch lube, anything to avoid dry threads. I fear that teflon tape would tend to shred and leave pieces in that critical flash channel. :cursing: Don't think it would burn away.

On another note, if the threads were to enlarge, I would look at that as evidence that I was shooting and cleaning the gun a lot. A "Good Thing" as someone said before. Is this twisted logic, or what? :rotf:

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

Your first clue may be gas cutting past the threads.
BTDT....
About 1978.

Dan

 

[Birddog6]

I've never dry-balled, but I have had damp powder in the breech, and having the liner did allow me to clear the barrel quicker. :hmm:

Yet.......... You haven't dry balled Yet........ You will, if you shoot much. Not a If, it is a When. :rotf:

 

[Dave K]

What is really funny to me, is I had NEVER dryballed until I got a computer and read about it. Then the "hex" was set upon me and I have done it more than I want to remember.

 

[ronrryan]

90 % of the time I have dryballed it is from being distracted during the loading sequence, usually by answering a question about the flintlock. The rest of the time it is just my old head inserted into the wrong spot. Good smoke, Ron in FL

 

[Stophel]

I drill a plain touch hole. Quit using liners some time ago. I wondered how they managed to survive 200 years ago with just a plain hole when I heard so many people say "I tried a plain hole, and it just wouldn't fire". Well the problem is, these moderns were drilling a tiny 1/16" hole. That just ain't gonna work (well, maybe if you have a small rifle with a skinny breech with thin walls). I guess they're afraid their charge will run out the hole (it won't). 5/64" usually works fine. You can go larger. I cone all of them now on the inside, only because it's easy to do, so why not, but I can tell absolutely ZERO difference between a plain 5/64" hole, and a coned one (or with a white lightning liner, for that matter).

The vast majority of "ignition time" is the speed of the lock. How fast the cock falls and strikes the frizzen.

If your plain touch hole is not giving you reliable ignition, drill it bigger! Simple. Supposedly up to about 3/32" when "they" say that accuracy can begin to suffer.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

And with today's barrel steels, the vents just don't seem to burn out either. I don't have a lined vent on my flint rifles and even the oldest hasn't burnt out yet. I'll give it another 100 years just to be sure.

 

[Stophel]

200 years ago, when one eroded too large, they just plugged the hole with a bit of iron, and redrilled the hole (or cut off the breech, rethreaded it, and moved the barrel back and drilled a new hole....).

"bushed"

I believe it was Eric Kettenburg that said that "gun 43" has a small (MUCH smaller than a white lightning) gold bushing (you can see it in the photos...I just presumed it was from barrel reconversion), and he thinks that it is original to the barrel. If so, this is the ONLY use of a gold liner that I know of on an American gun.

 

[paulvallandigham]

What kind of tool do you use to cone those vent holes " from the inside??"

And, ignition speed is how fast the lock throws sparks into the pan, NOT how fast the hammer hits the frizzen. Flint is able to cut steel at much lesser speeds than most believe. If the flint strikes the frizzen at a 60 degree angle, it scrapes steel from the frizzen in its downward arc, and Throws those sparks into the pan. The frizzen has to be under light tension, so that it pops open, and gets out of the way of the sparks, for this to happen. That requires the flint to strike the frizzen about 2/3 of the distance UP from the bottom of the frizzen, so that by the time the flint has reached 1/3 of the distance from the bottom, the frizzen pops back and open. A properly tuned lock will not show flint scrapes on the bottom 1/4-3/8" of the frizzen.

You can get all kinds of flintlocks to shoot, but if you want fast ignition, these are the matters of concern.

 

[Stophel]

What kind of tool do you use to cone those vent holes " from the inside??"

The aforementioned home made nail tool.

Simple, and amazingly effective.

Oh, and you need to use the head of the nail. If you just hammer out part of the shank, you won't have enough metal. And when filing the cutting bevels, be mindful of the direction that the cutter will be turning. You can lubricate the cutter with oil. It cuts surprisingly easily. It is also very easy to snap the shank off the cutter. Be careful with it, and it will last a long time. Of course it literally takes only about 10 minutes to make one, so breaking one is no huge loss.

It will make a cone about 1/8" or so at the base of the cone. My only old gun in original flint condition (a German light fowling gun about 1720) is similarly coned, and though the gun has been well-used, it was not abused, and the touch hole is none the worse for wear (the lock is pretty well wore out though!).

 

[paulvallandigham]

Thank you for the diagram and answer. I don't think this will work in my .36 caliber gun, as the barrel is too small in diameter to get such a tool bit into it and turned around enough to put the shank through the vent hole. Maybe on a .54 or large barrel. And it maybe that my fingers are too darn fat for this kind of work, altho I was already thinking about using needle nose pliers to put the bit in the barrel.

Do you really find that a case-hardened bit from cold rolled nails will cut a steel barrel?? I find it hard to believe that the edge would stand up long enough for that kind of work.

The whole reason for using a touch hole liner is that they are simpler and cheaper( labor included) to install. Is there any reason not to make that coning tool with a parabolic curve to replicate the advantages( I know. There is still a lively debate over whether his liner is any better than any other.) of the Chamber's White Lightning liners??? I am thinking that there are some router bits already made that look much like your tool( or could be turned down to look like it), and wonder if they would work in this context, too.

 

[Stophel]

One could easily cut any shape they wanted out of sheet steel.

Yes, it cuts very nicely. Surprisingly so, but barrel steel is pretty soft....unless you have a 4140 Ed Rayl barrel... When I first made one, I was amazed at how easily it cuts. No chatter even though I know it's not perfectly even on both sides.

Yes, a small caliber barrel would be difficult to get the gizmo inside of.

I have seen a reverse countersink tool somewhere that would work wonderfully, but the smallest shank size they do is 3/32", I think, which is generally too big. It has a countersink that you put inside, then from the outside, you insert the shank, which hooks into the countersink somehow. One may be able to turn the shank down to get it through the hole...I don't remember exactly how they were constructed. I forget who had them too, maybe McMaster-Carr???