Post by: shootrj2003 on November 18, 2010, 12:40:48 AM
Post by: greyhunter on November 18, 2010, 07:50:31 AM
Post by: Captchee on November 18, 2010, 08:21:30 AM
in another thread it was mentioned that you should be able to see or feel powder in the touch hole .
i agree and often times ill take alittle priming powder and push it into the flash hole . then close the frizzen and roll the rifle over so as to slide whats left in the pan away from the flash hole .
myself with my rifles i dont find the powder needs to be way across the pan . just not to close to the flash hole or over it
Post by: Firewalker on November 18, 2010, 08:57:25 AM
Or...drill that vent a bit larger and run a fuse in there!
Post by: Captchee on November 18, 2010, 09:07:29 AM
Quote from: "Firewalker"
Generally one push from the primer flask does it. It doesn't look like enough, but it is.
Or...drill that vent a bit larger and run a fuse in there!
yep . BUT keep in mind , the bigger the flash hole is on a flintlock , the more pressure exscapes during ignition . this effects your patern .
so if you re drill to a larger size , you may need to work a load for that change .
Post by: Gordon H.Kemp on November 18, 2010, 09:52:39 AM
Post by: mark davidson on November 18, 2010, 10:09:02 AM
Post by: biliff on November 18, 2010, 10:54:22 AM
Post by: Kermit on November 18, 2010, 11:16:38 AM
First, do you prime with 4f or 3f or 2f or something else, like pulverizing your own powder from coarser stuff?
Second, those little valve things come in two sizes that I know of. Are you using one that drops 3 grains or 1 grain?
I've got 5 flinters, all with different locks, different liners, one direct drilled. I use both Pierce white and Fuller black flints. While I sometimes try other powders for priming, ALL my guns work just fine with "2 pushes" from a 1 grain valve. Vent picked and clear. Final movement before shouldering the gun is to smartly tip the gun lock side downward (to the right for me cuz I'm shooting right-locked guns) to move the powder away from the vent.
Works for me. And maybe I'm just too lazy to experiment to see if there's a way to get faster ignition. For me, quick and reliable is what counts, and that is what I'm getting. I'm satisfied, so I'm keeping my routine. You should use what works for you.
I guess all this leads to: use what works. As has been said, "Your mileage may vary..."
Post by: Loyalist Dave on November 18, 2010, 12:11:46 PM
Quote
Im fairly new too but I read a bunch of very scientific tests on flinters and the results proved to me at least that banking the powder away from the touch hole was actually slower
The tests that I know of, gave results using their method of ignition, that the location of the prime resulted in fractions of a second slower ignition when banked away from the touch hole, but in the test where I am familiar, I wasn't too sure the testing method was as good as it needed to be to conclude on a lock that uses a frizzen that the results would be the same.
The tests I saw tried to create a uniform ignition system to eliminate the variable of the flint striking the frizzen, but they also eliminated the surface of the frizzen as it pivots above the detonating prime, and the surface of the underside of the frizzen is always there, shot after shot, but the gap between it and the pan might be variable depending on when that hot sparks causes the ignition.
Now, I do know explosives, and the movement of hot gases from a deflagrating substance IS influenced when it is confined between two surfaces as opposed to the test which merely set off the prime in a pan. This is not a complaint, but simply a wish that a more flintock like mechanism was used to do the tests, for it has been demonstrated that the prime actually deflagrates as the pan is opened, in most cases not after the pan has reached its final position. I just wonder where the banking "myth" came from for all myths have a basis for the belief.
LD
Post by: mark davidson on November 18, 2010, 12:17:44 PM
Post by: mark davidson on November 18, 2010, 12:19:58 PM
I had typed my last post before I got to read yours. We may be talking about the same test; I am not sure. You may well be right about the absence of the frizzen.
Post by: Capt. Jas. on November 18, 2010, 12:24:35 PM
http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured- ... post-2.php (http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured-articles/post-2.php)
http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured- ... part-2.php (http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured-articles/initial-pan-experiments-part-2.php)
Post by: Gordon H.Kemp on November 18, 2010, 12:40:06 PM
Post by: shootrj2003 on November 18, 2010, 01:28:54 PM
Well,It did not quite fill a forum but it definately is an interesting conversation and just goes to show the difference between our choice of firearms and modern ones,traditionals definately have more of their own personality!
I prime with a homemade primer made from the base of an antler drilled out then a push valve installed,it unscrews to fill it.I grind my own powder from 3f in small amounts in a wooden mortar.,very gently a pinch at a time till I have a plastic film canister 1/2 full,it lasts a long time.1 push gives me a an official pinch and I try to rock her to the right before I shoot to put the prime to the outside of the pan,this works for me.
Post by: Firewalker on November 18, 2010, 02:21:01 PM
On a gun rest, on a bench, not moving, one squirt from one of those brass push valves works in my 2 rifles, two in my trade gun.
BTW I was kidding about drilling it out and using a fuse.
As Capt. said, enlarging the vent is most often counterproductive.
Post by: mark davidson on November 18, 2010, 02:29:14 PM
Post by: Gordon H.Kemp on November 18, 2010, 02:38:48 PM
Post by: greyhunter on November 18, 2010, 03:02:44 PM
Post by: shootrj2003 on November 18, 2010, 04:52:25 PM
I had got one a them ,I figured to dry snap it to make sure i'd get spark,before i loaded it never did get none so I give to a flatlander -traded for a good knife-he never did catch on,last i seen he was smilin' an'waving bye!I
I picked that mortar up at a yard sale for 10 Cents like new.
Post by: Captchee on November 18, 2010, 06:26:37 PM
if banking it works for you go for it .
if a fullpan works , 2 thumbs up
id spitting in the pan and dusting it works , ha more power to ya
if its not broke , dont try and fix it
Post by: Quartermaster James on November 18, 2010, 08:16:57 PM
Close the frizzen/pancover, and give her a knock to level her out. Pan's by no means full.
When, into a day of shooting, I get a hangfire or flash-in-the-pan then I pick the vent hole and all is fine again.
What I've learned is that it's a spark from the prime jumping through the flash hole that fires the gun, not building a fuse to the flash hole out of primer.
That said, I second what Captchee wrote.
Post by: Firewalker on November 18, 2010, 08:33:40 PM
Quote from: "greyhunter"
Well, now two pushes on my primer tip is not quite half the pan. If I use my small priming horn, it overflows the pan then I gotta brush some out, an if a buck is coming at me I don't have a clue how many pushes I do, but it's a lot. The main thing is, ta holt yer damn sight piture til the dern thing goes boom! I don't know how many grains I use, I don't count the little critters. I use 4f if I have it, otherwise 3f goes poof too. Some here use 2f. Just be sure it and the pan are dry. An if that's too complicated fer ya I hear they have a newfangled riffle that you just push a brass shell up the riffles butt, close the butt and pull the trigger, amazing..... :lol:
Post by: Kermit on November 19, 2010, 10:30:09 AM
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/ind ... ic=13223.0 (http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=13223.0)
Think of these. They go "bang." Gravity being what it is, the prime is pretty much going to be anywhere but against the vent--unless you shoot it in a pretty unusual position!
Post by: Uncle Russ on November 19, 2010, 11:36:34 AM
Quote from: "Captchee"
here is my oppenion on the test .pFFFFTttttttt LOL
if banking it works for you go for it .
if a fullpan works , 2 thumbs up
id spitting in the pan and dusting it works , ha more power to ya
if its not broke , dont try and fix it :)
When I lived on the "other side of the mountain" ...it seems that in this state exactly which side of the mountain you're living on has importance....anyway, when I lived in Shelton, WA there was this old guy named Doc Grass. I think his real last name may have been Pendergrass and he was indeed a real doctor, but having spent years in California... I think you get the picture.
However, rumor has it that is exactly how he picked up the handle of "Grass" but you know how rumors go.
This fella was an oldtimer, for sure, being well into his eighties but still very active and still very much the shooter.
He was always at the range, he was extremely knowledgeable, very well spoken, very polite, and did something that makes everyone call you a liar if you repeat it.
He was a Flinter shooter and he owned q bunch of 'em, most he built and sold, but many he held on to for himself.
All really super nice guns.
When he was on the line shooting, after each firing, he would wipe the pan with a small rag he kept hanging outside his shooting bag, load the ball, open the frizzen, lick his thumb, wipe the pan with that same thumb he just licked, pour in a charge and then dump it out on the ground, then close the frizzen and shoot again!
Always, when questioned about this, his simply reply was "you don't need a lot of powder in the pan, and if you're shooting right then and there the powder stays just where it should and doesn't get wet".........
I have tried this time and again, and I just can't get it right.
I get as many, if not more, misfires as actual shots, and to me it is just an unneeded aggravation with no real benefits. as the object is to have a sure-fire rifle each and every time.
I have often thought it must have something to do with the design and shape of the pan he prefers, and none of my flinters have that design....but what would that design be, and what would I know?
So, there is the story of "spittin in the pan"....a strange story at best, but one that myself and many others have witnessed on many many occasions.
As a side note; I'm not absolutely sure of this, but I think Beaverman, and quite possibly Puffer and Sir Michael know this guy as he used to sell a lot of his guns at the Monroe Show every year.
I'm almost positive that Beaverman knows the guy I'm talking about and when he gets back on the forum again perhaps he can give us the straight skinny on this weird story.
Uncle Russ...
Post by: Kermit on November 19, 2010, 01:13:15 PM
Post by: Uncle Russ on November 19, 2010, 01:58:19 PM
Quote from: "Kermit"
Russ--in your trials, did you control for the composition of the spit? Might have had something to do with his choice of smoking herbs. :rotf
You may well be onto something there..I never gave it much thought, since my only choice of poison is Red man.
Uncle Russ...
Post by: Dphariss on November 22, 2010, 12:45:48 AM
Quote from: "shootrj2003"
There is a post in caplocks about nipple charging and the subject came up about pan priming,I had stated that I had a problem with hangfires in my blue ridge .36 and found out that upon using only a pinch of priming powder my hangfire problem has disappeared and I have good,consistant ignition now ,another poster stated that that subject could fill a forum,Please,I am not trying to step on toes here but the subject was compelling enough to ask ''What have others experienced as as priming a pan is concerned,does your flint gobble or just sip?
If there is a hang fire problem with a full pan there is something wrong that you have not found yet.
I have shot flintlock for over 40 years and have never been able to see a change in speed related to powder in the pan unless it was flashes in the pan from not using enough. I have seen at least one instance in which a rifle I had shot extensively and really liked a lot was purchased by a "minimal primer" type and he had chronic flashes. But "knowing" that a thin layer was best he attacked the vent liner and hogged it out. All he had to do was fill the pan...
If you are shooting on the range it does not matter much. Unless they call a miss fire or flash in the pan a score shot. Then a miss fire is a little more irritating since it really hammers the score.
Hunting I fill the pan, on the range maybe 2/3 to 1/2. Hunting I might really need it to go off.
Actual timing has shown that powder piled on or near the vent is actually faster than away from the vent.
So folks who bank away from the vent or use just a thin layer in the pan cause its faster are likely kidding themselves. Light priming is also less reliable. Area of the pan covered with powder for the sparks to fall in. More fire, more heat, more heat more reliable ignition. This may not be THAT apparent in use but its simple physics.
See http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured- ... post-2.php (http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured-articles/post-2.php)
Finding and reading all the articles on vent/pan/lock timing is very enlightening.
Electronic timing is more accurate than timing by ear.
Dan
Post by: Mustang on November 29, 2010, 10:50:05 PM
I have read all Larry Pletcher's tests and done some of my own. I guess this is why I use a half pan full and level in the pan. I also use 4f.
Post by: Trois Castors on November 30, 2010, 06:56:57 AM
of my Flintlocks only works with a full pan (preferably 4f)
Post by: Ironhand on November 30, 2010, 09:27:42 AM
While information about grain volume of prime or pushes on a primer may be useful it is only helpful in context. We need to know not only the amount of the prime but the size of the lock.
5 pushes on my primer will give about 1/2 pan in my trade gun lock but will pretty much overfill the little lock on my 32 rifle. I suspect that same volume would give very different results in these 2 very different locks
Post by: mark davidson on November 30, 2010, 10:18:30 AM
Post by: Riley/MN on November 30, 2010, 10:41:59 AM
As you can see, there is just too many variables for a test result to be totally relevant to You, Your gun, Your powder, Your lock, etc......
You may get to a good starting point using the results, but you will still have to see what works best for you & your situation, IMO.
Post by: Gordon H.Kemp on November 30, 2010, 11:03:37 AM
Quote from: "mark davidson"
Captchee or anybody else...I just got to ask (respectfully of course)...why the "pfffft" or disdain for the scientific test results? The tests seemed to be imperical and irrefutable and one of the most exhaustive and conclusive tests on our passionate sport ever done! When I was very new here, those tests answered conclusively to me at least many, many questions that I needed answered to get me started and quickly to a proficient point in my flintlock journey. I found the test results to be very valid in my own crude experimentation. Now it seems like those results and that data is by some or many being kinda blown off as invalid or irrelevant. Is there a better test? Does someone else have better data or more conclusive evidence of what works best? If so I am all ears.
Mark , I think the tests were very enlightning , they confirmed some things I had suspected all along . The only thing I would see that MIGHT make a difference in the degree of accy. of the tests would be the influence of the size depth and shape of the the pan , the frizzen spring tension , etc. and of corse the size and location of the TH . As I said the tests certainly indicated to me , that if the design of the fireing channel is correct , there is no need to "bank" the prime away from the TH. and , to me , it indicates that its not important that a person use a certain number of pumps on their pan primer . But , like many such things in muzzleloading , its a personal opinion that one pump or several works best in their gun. So for the most part , I think there is little argument that the test arn"t valid , just that there might be other varibles that would have an effect on the results .
Post by: Dphariss on November 30, 2010, 11:06:39 AM
Quote from: "Riley/MN"
I'm not captchee, so not answering for him, but I think any test done gives you test results relevant to that gun, that powder, that lock, etc.....
As you can see, there is just too many variables for a test result to be totally relevant to You, Your gun, Your powder, Your lock, etc......
You may get to a good starting point using the results, but you will still have to see what works best for you & your situation, IMO.
Larry has tested just about every lock on the market in one way or another. High speed photography is just part of it and will give not only lock times but what actually occurs when the lock fires like the frizzen rebound breaking flints.
He found, for example, that a modified small Siler was the second fastest and the fastest was an original Manton.
He found that FFFF lights faster and builds HEAT faster than FF of FFF. This is a no brainer SINCE THE GRAINS ARE SMALLER and BP is a SURFACE BURNING propellant. Finer the grains the faster they burn 5 grains of FFFF has about 4 times the surface area of 5 grains of FF. But some folks want to believe what they want to believe regardless.
Larry has tested a number of different breeches and vents as well. I sent him parts that allowed testing 4-5 different vents and three different breech designs. Flat, cupped and Nock antechambered.
So someone assuming that his gun is somehow special and the tests are not valid for his gun is almost surely flawed thinking. Most of the variables have been covered. This testing has been going on for YEARS. Its not a weekend in the garage thing and its ongoing.
Dan
Post by: Riley/MN on November 30, 2010, 11:13:03 AM
Of course everything I say about flintlocks is speculation, as I am not a flintlock shooter yet.....
Post by: greyhunter on November 30, 2010, 04:49:00 PM
Post by: Captchee on November 30, 2010, 05:34:23 PM
Ok so here is why I say PFFFFT to the tests .
While I have no doubt that those test show what they show . But one thing I learned many years ago while testing weapons for the US Army is that tests that are done in a controlled environment often times mean diddle when actually applied to a true field environment
Same thing with mathematical equations.
What works out good on paper many times is screwed up when actually applied practically.
Again this doesn’t always hold true but often is .
But its one of the reasons for field testing .
Case in point . Back in ?? 1985 my PLT tested the M249.
We tested a batch of 20 . Of the 20 none met 100% of the standards FN stated they would .
Now that wasn’t to say they did not perform. They did and in fact our change recommendations were very small .
However they did exist and the gun was sent back for modification and as such it did not enter service until 1987 .
What im getting at here is to often companies or people test 1 , 2 or 100 of a given anything . Then claim their findings to be 100% true all the time . Yet when you put that item into actual use it may or may not be true as often as they thought it would
While what Dan says maybe be true about larry’s test . The case is that one can test 10 different locks of the same type and very few will be the same.
Even if they are all tuned exactly the same the can and often do react differently .
a spring may be just alittle diffrent . a frizzen just alittle diffrent . sear engagment just alittle diffrent . a polishing job just alittle diffrent
Now when you put that lock on a rifle and pack it out into the woods . Submitting the gun to YOUR parameters. Things act differently then when they were tested in a controlled environment.
This is why its always best for people to do what works best for them . The tests are fine , learn from them . But if you find that your own experience doesn’t match what the tests show , one should not be suprised or dumbfounded .
You have to learn what works best for your given rifle .
Its just like Greyhunter is saying . Every engine manufacture builds their engines to a given standard . But when that engine gets out in the real world , one may get 25 mpg and the next 19. Yet both were built to the same standards . Not to mention the engineers designs , mathematics, quality control and yes even testing , says that they all should do exactly the same thing . They should tune to the exact same settings and produce the exact same results . Yet in fact they don’t .
Lets not forget that those folks are also testing 1000’s of the very same item . Yet very few end up being 100% the same each one is in some way unique in and of itself .
Here is another example
I hear all the time
= slow twist rates and deep rifling will not shoot conical worth beans . Testing proves it
= a RB will drop X amount at 200 yards . The mathematics prove it
= pans should be primed full , the test prove it
Yet My main rifle , I have owned for 20 years . It was built back in the early 1970s .
Is a 54 cal C profile hand made iron barrel in a 1 in 70 twist with round bottom rifling .
I burn around 25-30lbs of powder a year through that rifle .
It likes 80 grains of 3F , pillow ticking patches cut at the muzzle and lubed with spit
The rifle is zeroed at 100 yards . At 250 I hold 18 inchs high and it will drop the ball true .
I also know from my own test that the barrel does not throw a ball to a rainbow trajectory . I also know that if I bank the powder to the out side or fill the pan she will be slower in the ignition then if I just put alittle prime in the pan and keep it away from the touchhole
I can also tell you , That rifle will hold a 8 inch group using 435 grain Branard Mini at 100 yards off hand . .
She is a good rifle . I know her well .
So when someone tells me . Ha I read a test that said if you do X its faster . To that I say . I have tried X and I find what I do is faster in this rifle .
Now that’s my 2 cents .
So if you want to go by the tests . No mater who does them . Fine , more power to you. it may very well work good for you .
But in the end its nothing more then saying ; this is what works for me your findings may differ . ;)
Post by: Gordon H.Kemp on November 30, 2010, 06:22:20 PM