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touch hole location opinion

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bjarard

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touchhole_location.jpg

Question...as you can see my touchhole ended up being lower than the optimal placement (sunset). I did do two test fires and it it went bang right away. BTW...I don't care if it whoosh-bangs...its a military musket used 90% of the time for re-enactiments...with some unit live shoots. My concern is there any problems in the future with this location causing misfires. Should I install a liner slightly higher up...or is the opinion there shouldn't be any issues. I'd rather not have to drill into the barrel again. TIA!

PS...the plug face is approximate...it may be a little closer.
 
View attachment 265700
Question...as you can see my touchhole ended up being lower than the optimal placement (sunset). I did do two test fires and it it went bang right away. BTW...I don't care if it whoosh-bangs...its a military musket used 90% of the time for re-enactiments...with some unit live shoots. My concern is there any problems in the future with this location causing misfires. Should I install a liner slightly higher up...or is the opinion there shouldn't be any issues. I'd rather not have to drill into the barrel again. TIA!

PS...the plug face is approximate...it may be a little closer.
I am with Springer, leave it alone. Just make sure you experiment on what prime placement & depth it likes best. I have one flinter that likes the prime against the TH.
Larry
 
Just fine. Much has been made of this and Larry Pletcher's fine work has shown it to be not as important as you would think. Low in the pan was found to be very slightly faster than even with the top of the pan. I continually get questions about the lower touch hole location in our kits. If you've ever heard our mountain rifles go off, it should answer any questions. Old beliefs die hard sometimes.
 
I raised and bedded the back third of the barrel on my Kibler SMR, just until even with the wood at the tang. It was about 1/32" lift. Top of FH is even with top of pan. It is the fastest gun I own.

My 24 gauge Chief's gun has a .072" FH with no liner. Center even with the top of the pan, but the FH is drilled so the bit kissed the breech face. It is NOT particularly fast and much prefers the powder banked against the FH, otherwise its a flash in pan about half the time.
 
Well , its up to you but weird story . My first few guns I drilled the THs and they ended up.in this position a lot of times . Ive since learned to do it correctly , the ignition was so fast I was convinced that this position was faster than the top of the pan location . SO .... Try it a bunch of times and see if you have problems ... It is the lowest point advisable for T.H. position and that is only for locks with deep pans . A Queen Anne lock , or similar shallow pan lock , I would flat out say " plug and redrill it ..." with an R.E. Davis Old English I'd say shoot it a bunch , it may be just fine . Just my opinion , observation ....
 
You may run in to issues of the whoosh-bang more frequently if you put lots of priming powder in the pan which creates something of a fuse effect because the TH is buried under the priming powder. A way to deal with that is to file your pan just a little bit deeper. That would let you use the same amount of powder. But, as others have said, if it still works, it may not be worth the aggravation of moving it.

My suspicion is the culprit that made it turn out this way was that the drill bit "walked" on you when you were drilling it. (Out of curiosity, did you use a drill press or a hand drill?). I always start with a very small hole (like 1/32") when I start these with the bit choked up VERY short and close to the chuck which gives it less opportunity to walk on me. Then, one more intermediate size that I can nuance the hole a little bit away from the direction any walking occurred. It won't fix it the whole way, but it can get it fixed some. Then the final size hole, again with a little bit of corrective action (if needed). To have this level of bit / hole control though you really need an x-y axis vice on your drill press though.

The other hole that's something of a "pucker factor" hole is centering the tang bolt. If it's off center slightly it won't affect performance, but it will always bug you since it's right in front of your nose every time you mount the gun.
 
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