touch hole liners

[jerrywh]

I never took an original one apart but from much mental study and installing several myself I have come to this conclusion. Gold is too soft for a liner like the ones we have today. I don't think it would ever stand the pressure and the heat without blowing the insert out. The same goes for platinum except platinum would stand the heat. I would be afraid that platinum would not hold the pressure if made like the ones we have now. So I think that an over sized touch hole was made that was cone shaped on the inside. Then a small gold or platinum tube was placed in the hole and riveted in. gold or platinum was then inserted over the outside as you described. In a case like that there would be a very small amount of pressure exerted on the gold or platinum liner.
Platinum is much harder to work than gold. I don't know what the tensile strength of it is when hardened. Pure gold hardens but it also anneals at 500°F so it would never be hard. I have done a lot of gold touchholes and gold lined pans.

 

[Zonie]

Platinum
Tensile strength: 18,000-21,000 psi annealed, 34,000 psi cold worked (gold = 19,000 annealed, 32,000 cold worked)

Yield strength: 2,000-5,500 psi annealed, 27,000 psi cold worked (gold = nil annealed, 30,000 cold worked)

Melting Point: 3217*F (gold = 1945*F)

Cost: Totally Outrageous (gold= equally outrageous)

 

[smoothy]

I hope that my comments on this subject has not made me a trespasser. I looked at the forum's rules to make sure I haven't broken any. Don't believe I have.
Rule 14: posts are "available to the public"
Rule 29: "We welcome debate, but personal attacks will not be tolerated" (both points well taken)
If my opinions offended anyone, I humbly apologize. That was not my intention. But I do have an opinion.

 

[jerrywh]

Thanks Zonie , That's good info.

 

[rich pierce]

I hope that my comments on this subject has not made me a trespasser. ....If my opinions offended anyone, I humbly apologize. That was not my intention. But I do have an opinion.

No harm done or intended as far as I can see. Presenting the facts that a flintlock rifle can be fired w/o a liner, that this was the most common practice in the colonial and federal period, and still works today is hardly an attack on anyone.

 

[tg]

"But I do have an opinion."

I would say that this is much more than an opinion as it is pretty much backed up by factual detail from the past and is a valid part of any description of original flintlock guns, calling all things that a particular poster does not like to hear and calling these things "attacks" when they asked about "information" about a particular gun is a bit over the top and this is how these things start off out most of the time, defending something that has not been attacked

 

[jamesthomas]

What makes you say that if you don't have a liner you have flashes in the pan or you lose accuracy? My rifle without a liner is just as fast as one with a liner and if I take care of it such as running a soft pipe cleaner through it every 15 shots or so I don't have any FIP's. Also if you keep the pan clean and take care of your flint you can help avoid FIP's. But again most people already do this.Humidity will cause your pan to gunk up if you use 4f as prime. And as for accuracy I and alot of folks are not as good our rifles can shoot,with or without liners.(Eyes not as good as they used to be and other factors).

 

[tg]

Some people just cannot accept the fact that using a flintlock set up the way the originals were is a valid, dependable, usefull gun, I will never have another liner in a gun and do not feel handicapped in the slightest way, that is due to my experience with several unlined guns, they provide accuracy band performance that is close enough to guns I have had with liners that I cannot tell any difference, a hole a bit larger tha 1/16 may be needed and a bit more powder to bring back the velocity, I can only say that one could try a gun without a liner and make their own choice rather than take anyones word/many words in some cases it is not a real difficult concept if one is interested in trying a gun set up like the vast majority of original colonial rifles and smoothbores, there is really no higher ground here, each will find that a gun with no liner is or is not to their requirements/liking, a liner can always be installed later if one feels the need, as with many things, just do not let the talking heads sway you if interested in giving a historic method a try.

 

[jerrywh]

I often wonder how many original American longrifles were coned on the inside of the touch hole.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

I don't want my response to be looked at taking sides. I have timed straight vents of all sizes, internal cones, external cones, counter-bored cones, again all sizes. When timing them I used every step possible to remove ALL fouling that could effect the numbers. I used methods that a shooter cannot do in the field, and unlikely to do off the bench.

I believe that the most overlooked variable here is NOT the vent style, but the shooter - or more correctly how the shooter manages his vent, flint edge, etc. Vents need to be cared for as much as the flint edge. With a squeaky clean vent and a good,sharp flint, the shooter won't much care what the stye of vent is. If the vent is fouled, flint dull, etc, the best vent won't help much.

In test situations, we have seen bigger variations caused by flint edge changes than vent styles. In order to detect a change we did the following before we could tell anything about vent styles:

2 patches in the bore
brush in the pan
pipe cleaner in the vent
compressed air through the vent
a pick after the load was added

With all this done after every trial, we felt that we could then draw conclusions about the vent style.


In hunting dangerous game, it would seem smart to everything to insure good ignition. One of the faster vents I timed was one sent to me by Dan Phariss. It had a straight 1/16" hole, counter-bored on the inside to over .100 IIRC. That seemed like a vent for a bear hunt. But, even with this vent, clean is the biggest factor.

I kind of hesitated to write this. I try to see this from a science side. If I wanted to get one idea across, it would not be the vent type, but to keep what you like squeaky clean. (This hits me over the head countless times in testing.) How the shooter manages his gun is the bigger variable.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[tg]

"I often wonder how many original American longrifles were coned on the inside of the touch hole."

We will likely never know the technology was available tool was made for doing this but there is likely no way of knowing how many were, same for an external cone, with a proper sized hole the internal cone may not have seemed needed by most, they may have used a tool with a hand brace like we use today but I would like to see a reference of it before taking that leap, I do not see where the coning of the inside of the hole could be such an "infraction" That it would compare with the use of liners now being done as far as being "out of place"

Pletch I do not see you as taking sides, I would just like to see the topic delt with with some honesty as to the usage in the past and potential quite good accuracy and dependability many people slam the plain hole who have never tried one or did not work out a hole size or possibly other issues before condeming the plain hole, rather than trying to argue them into the history all ML's by their limeted use in some guns/areas and all the "you gotta have one to make your gun work right" BS

 

[smoothy]

This is a good debate and nobody has to draw lines. So here goes my two pennies:
Locktime.....Why are we concerned about milliseconds? There may be good reason, and I'm open to hear it. But locktime? Were our ancestors concerned about it? Was much time, effort, research put into it? Did it make a difference in a hunting or life/death situation? Milliseconds? Could they even measure it? Could they notice improvement any more than we can? This was a time before cartridges that have comparatively very good "locktime". As I've read in other posts, we may be looking at what we have today and comparing it to the past.
Reliability, I can't argue. Not saying that I'm not happy with my linerless flintlock reliability.
Accuracy. What? I need to know more about this. I don't see it being better with a liner. Gotta see it for myself. But I'm not going to install a liner in anything of mine to prove it to myself.

 

[hoochiepapa]

The cemeteries are full of those that died for your right to express your opinion.
Nuff sed.

 

[ebiggs1]

If I sat you down behind the shooting bench and I loaded your gun with out you knowing what prime I used you would mostly likely tell me whether it was 4f and 2f. Consistently! I don't know how sensitive you are to shooting conditions so you may not be so correct between 4f and 3f.
If it actually makes any difference in your shooting ability, I don't know. Probably not but why not use the fastest since it is so easy to do? If you are content and successful with what you are doing know, nobody is forcing you to change. Certainly am not implying that but the facts are the facts.

I have no linerless guns, so I have no opinion.

 

[jerrywh]

Gary Brumsfield has shown a photo of an original inside coning tool. DAVE RACE has made a copy of it and used it .

 

[smoothy]

I am not so much as offering an opinion as I am asking "why". It is not a rhetorical question as much as it is I want to know the reasoning behind liners and getting away from the traditional way of shooting flintlocks.
As far as your "nuf sed" comment, let me say that it struck me wrong. I can't lay my finger on it, but it has to do with my son who is still in Iraq and will be coming home soon, as early as August but probably later as they are tying things up. And the cemetery part....

 

[smoothy]

As I mentioned in an earlier post on this subject, this forum welcomes debate. And it can be fun as long as is doesn't get out of hand and too personal. But it appears that we are coming to a conclusion that we have our own opinions and not debating much.
But if somebody wants to debate this subject, like Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone told one of the Cowboys:
I'm your huckleberry..... :wink:

 

[jerrywh]

Everybody seems to keep ignoring the fact that the best guns were made in Europe and England And the best of the best had touch whole liners. There was a reason for this. They were more reliable. Why do we asuume that they were so much more ignorant than we are back then. Back then millions of flintlocks were in use. Now there are only a few thousand flintlock users. I doubt if we today have any flintlocks that are faster than a good manton shotgun was on average shot after shot. My fellow gun fans, just remember the world was a lot bigger than the 13 colonies.

 

[smoothy]

The best of the European guns very well may have had liners. Forgive me if I'm a bit more narrow minded. To me that doesn't mean a gun fashioned after an American made gunsmith is justified having a stainless steel liner. Or a trade gun. The only thing that justifies it is that the owner is willing to deviate from authenticity and have a more enjoyable time shooting. And I'm not knocking that. Nor the manufacturers of modern day liners.
The only point I'm trying to make is that a regular straight hole vent can be done. It takes more effort to make it work. And it could very well lead to ignition issues. No different for us then back when.

 

[hoochiepapa]

If I offended, I am truly sorry. That was not my intent, nor is it ever. :v