Vent-Hole Picking????

[Stormrider51]

I don't know if picking is necessary on a gun equipped with a vent liner.  But back in the days before vent liners, when the vent was just a deep small diameter hole leading from pan to charge, it paid to pick after loading.  Powder from the main charge could fill the vent and delay ignition of the main charge slightly as the powder in the vent burned like a fuse.  This was especially likely to happen when smaller grained powder like FFFg was used.  Picking cleared a channel for the flame front of the pan charge to reach the main charge directly.  The delay caused by "fuse effect" might seem trifling but I can testify that it can be long enough to have cost me 2nd place in a shooting match back in the late 60's.  I always pick.  It's just one more bit of insurance.

John

[Longhunter]

All it takes is one flash in the pan when you've got a big buck in your sights... :lol

[rickevans]

"Touch Hole Pickers" sounds like a new show on the History Channel...or a southern Blue Grass band....

[Caddo]

Well I said I had never had a flash in the pan when I had picked. Can't say that anymore as it happened to me today. How can you have a flash when you loaded proper picked the vent and could feel the powder when you opened up the vent to the powder? Boy was I surprised as my rifle never does this when I do everything right. Sure glad I didn't have a nice buck in front of me  Goes to show you just never know for sure, thats why I like these old guns so much.

[Stormrider51]

Well I said I had never had a flash in the pan when I had picked. Can't say that anymore as it happened to me today. How can you have a flash when you loaded proper picked the vent and could feel the powder when you opened up the vent to the powder? Boy was I surprised as my rifle never does this when I do everything right. Sure glad I didn't have a nice buck in front of me  Goes to show you just never know for sure, thats why I like these old guns so much.

The mystery to me has always been why flinters work so well in the first place.  The likelihood of flame from the pan making it down the vent hole to ignite the main charge has always seemed a little miraculous.  And yet flintlocks worked well enough to dominate firearms design for more than 100 years.  But, while some stuck with the flinter after the introduction of the caplock, most made the switch within a few years.  We have the luxury to engage in nostalgia today.  I'm sure it was different when a flash in the pan could mean getting killed or going hungry.  Come to think of it, maybe we aren't that much different today.  I hunt with a flinter because there is a grocery store right down the street and coming home empty handed doesn't mean a hungry family, but I have a 12 gauge pump riot shotgun and a semi-auto pistol for self-defense.  I do prefer to shoot the flinter though!

John

[Caddo]

I have not shot a caplock gun for years. How often does a missfire happen with them. I know when I used them it happened more then you would think it would. Had to keep that nipple clean. I couldnt say now because everyone I shoot with uses flintlocks.

[Longhunter]

When I was a cap gun shooter many years ago, I had problems from time to time with the gun going pop instead of boom. This usually happened when it had been loaded for a day or two and drew moisture that kept it from firing. I even greased around the cap but still had problems. On a flinter when the vent is clear and you get a flash it's usually because it got dampness into the breech. I push a little 4FFFF through the vent with my pick and that takes care of it. If my life depended on my gun going off, I'll take a flintlock over a percussion...but that's just me..

[Stormrider51]

I have not shot a caplock gun for years. How often does a missfire happen with them. I know when I used them it happened more then you would think it would. Had to keep that nipple clean. I couldnt say now because everyone I shoot with uses flintlocks.

I did an evaluation of a Made in India Enfield a few weeks back so it hasn't been that long for me.  No misfires although there were other problems with the gun.  Otherwise, I don't remember many misfires in years past except for those that would happen when I forgot to clear the nipple of oil by popping a couple of caps before loading the first shot of the day.  That sort of absent mindedness cost me a nice deer one morning.  While I understand that doing so is frowned on nowadays, I would always fire a shot, half-cock, remove any cap debris from the nipple, and then blow down the barrel.  A jet of smoke told me I had a clear nipple for the next shot.

I've never seen anything in writing about how reliable the original percussion caps were.  It may be that they weren't as good as what we have today.  Regardless, people switched over to them.  I suspect it may have had more to do with greater all-weather reliability than anything else.  I've never had a misfire from a percussion that I could directly attribute to wet weather.  I can't say that about a flintlock.  I don't remember leaving one loaded overnight though.  Black powder being what it is the old saw about "Keep yer powder dry" applies to either system.

John

John

[Hanshi]

Often I'll shoot a flinter 40 or 50 rounds and not experience a fitp.  And that's without picking the vent.  That's one big advantage of modern vent liners.  I usually never pick the vent until I do have a fitp.  While I have them occasionally at the range, a fitp (for me, at least) is often the result of swabbing the bore which is why I never do unless problems are experienced.  Of course lock/gun quality affect this.

I'm one of those who blow down the barrel after each shot.  That one act seems to clear the touch hole and keep the fouling moist.  The thing I consider most important, especially when firing many shots, is to wipe the frizzen face and the flint edge.

[James Kelly]

My Caywood .45 Southern Mountain Rifle with vent funneled from the outside does require picking each shot. Like the idea of leaving the copper wire in the vent whilst loading, haven't tried that but think I will.

I use FFFg mainly so I can use the same powder for priming. Yeah, I know FFFFg, and for sure Null B, is a lot faster. Just too lazy to carry the extra horn.

Kinda think 18th century guys, except French military, rarely used separate powder for priming.

Have heard people used a feather to clean the vent in the old days. Have a Kentucky made Kentucky, converted to percussion, that still has the brass tube under the cheekpiece, presumably for a feather.