Accuracy and lock time?

[jtwodogs]

Is the lock time on a flintlock ie: Time of actual ignition, as fast as a caplock?

The reason I am asking is accuracy, obviously, I hope,(I have seen a lot of pre-conceived ideas shot down lately). That a faster lock time equates to a more accurate shot. (Less waddle time while the ball is in the barrel).

So what are you gentleman's experiences in this area. Are flintlocks by in large as accurate as caplocks if loaded correctly?

[KHickam]

It has been my experience that flintlocks are as accurate as caplocks and a well tuned flintlock is just as fast.

Case in point;

I went to a rendevous this weekend - I shot my flintlock smoothbore using patched round ball - I had two klatchs (my own fault for not wiping the frizzen face) and several cap locks had that many or more failures.  I ended up with the high score in the rifle portion of the aggregate.

[biliff]

Someone on another forum actually timed the two, using high speed film. From what I remember he found caplocks fired the cap in .02-03 seconds. The better flintlocks, including an original Manton lock, fired the prime in .04-.06 seconds. Based on that the lock time is twice as long on a flintlock. But the difference is not within the range of human reaction time which is around a tenth of a second.

[Captchee]

i believe some years back Im thinking it was   jim chambers ?? Or maybe it was Hershel ? but i could be wrong . but  they did some tests . with time laps .  using ignition to ignition . IE flash in the pan to flash of cap .
 the ignition of the two  properly built and tuned lock was less the 10 /1000 of a second .
 as was said , beyond the ability of humans to physically tell .
as far as accuracy. Once learned .  There will be no difference IMO between the two .
As to reliability , IMO a flint lock is a lot more reliable then a cap lock . But that’s in the experienced hands .
 Myself I have seen the same as others here  when out on the trail . Even a novice that is being guided by a learned shooter , seem to have far less issues them amy of the more experience cap lock shooters

[Uncle Russ]

FWIW....Back in the early days, I shot a cap lock for many years, thinking, as many others of the time, that they were far superior to the flintlock insofar as accuracy and lock time.....and I have to admit that when I got my very first flint lock, sometime in the early 1970's, the caplock was much faster, mostly because of the "fuse" we laid with the priming powder, while thinking that was the right thing to do....the clack, puff, fizzle, bang thingy was very common back in those days, and detrimental to accuracy.

As time went on, and it was a learning process but after maybe 5 or 6 years, it was figured out that the right amount of prime, along with a "correct" size flash-hole, made all the difference in the world.

Keep in mind this was all before the days of the computer, and modern communication...most "knowledge", if such could be said, was gleaned through Turner Kirkland's bunch at Dixie Gun Works, and although it was the best for it's day, it was a far cry from what's available today.....not to take anything away from that wonderful catalog, it still contains some of the best info around.

Nowadays, I would be hard pressed to say which is faster. I have read, like many of you, that the cap lock is still the fastest, but for "sure fire shootin" I have honestly learned to lean toward the flinter......if there is a defined difference in a well tuned flint lock and a very similar cap lock, I am not astute enough to see that difference.

Just my thoughts.

Uncle Russ...

[Gordon H.Kemp]

I have a lock that came from captchee. The rifle it's on is one I put together from various parts accumalated over a few years.It goes off as fast as any of my caplocks.

[cb]

Larry Pletcher is the man's name who has and continues to do hi-speed photography testing of muzzleloaders - many of the videos are on youtube. He's the editor of Blackpowdermag and has reprinted some articles online http://www.blackpowdermag.com/featured- ... rt-iii.php
He has also dispelled some "common" knowledge, such as the one about having your prime to the outside of the pan, away from the barrel being the best - his extensive testing has shown just the opposite......
The main thing his testing has proven is while we may "see" or "hear" things while shooting, actual testing has proven that the eye and ear are far from being the best judge - as biliff noted in every test with quality locks (including Mantons) of both types caplocks "win" when it comes to the speed (which makes sense from a mechanical engineering standpoint), but the difference is exceedingly small. The difference is in milliseconds - so small that only scientific testing has shown the difference - in some tests he had observers note which they "sensed" were faster - and in most cases the observers were in fact wrong.....
Me? I like them both and after 48 years of shooting them I'll take either one when properly built, which IMO is the real difference......there's nothing worse than a poorly built caplock or flinter.....and nothing better when built right....

[Wyoming Mike]

Flintlocks are just as accurate as percussion.  I do a lot of competative shooting, offhand mostly, with both and can see no difference in how one shoots over the other.  There is a little more chance of a hang fire with a flinter but not much and that's what follow through is for.  I have seen the same thing with people shooting percussions just not quite as often.

I have two flinters that are exceedingly fast.  The lock and touch hole geometry combine to make these very fast.  The others are fast but not like these two.  One has an old L&R Manton the other a Dixie Ashmore.  I have one rifle with a Cochran lock that is fast if the flint is set just right.

The edge the percussion rifles have is that they are more consistant and have less moving parts to go wrong.  The greatest edge the flintlocks have is they are so much more fun to shoot.

[Loyalist Dave]

First the caplock was developed to give more consistent ignition in less than optimum weather, for MILITARY applicaltions.  The locks themselves are much simpler and more durable in design, again making them an advantage for production in military arsenals.

When talkin' target shooting, you look for consistency, and the shooter makes up for the rest.  The "problems" with a flintlock is the higher number of variables lean to a better chance at inconsistency when in target competition.  That's all.

I have seen a bunch of flintlock tests, though I admit to not having seen or read them all.  I think they are nice to show what a flintlock can do..., I don't know if they show what they often  will do.  Ya see they are all done under laboratory conditions.  New locks, dry enviornments, a couple of tests that I saw used a hot wire as an ignition source.  While this makes the test uniform and consistent, it doesn't recreate actual shooting conditions..., unless we all hunt and shoot in laboratories?  

Accuracy tests, and ignition tests, all remove the human element, and fire from static, solid positions,  but we then hand the firelock (be it caplock or flinter) to a human to shoot it outside the lab, and often don't use a bench.  We add a whole bunch of additional factors into the equation, and say "we know the truth".  

Things they don't account for in testing:

Every time the flint hits the frizzen the surface of the frizzen as well as the edge of the flint changes, and that can have an effect on firing...,

We use new locks, new barrels, as near to perfect as we can get alignment between touch hole, lock, and trigger, but don't account for what happens to a rifle after say a decade of weekly firing...,

Prime in the pan absorbs moisture from the air over time, and 4Fg absorbs it faster than 3Fg, etc...

The atmosphere we fire in has variable humidity over time, altering the speed of moisture absorbtion by the prime...

Electronic ignition has no moving parts, bolt guns move toward the muzzle when releasing the firing pin, but caplocks and flintlocks move on the side of the barrel in a arc..., has anybody ever tested to see if the motion of the hammer or cock moves the rifle in an odd manner depending on the lock design??  Inertia is inertia, and when the hammer or cock is released, it moves and strikes another part of the rifle?  Does that give the rifle a tiny "twitch"?  Which lock is better or worse at causing this movement?  Does this movement matter when fired by a human?  Does a flinter dissipate that impact as the cock strikes the frizzen which moves and absorbs part of the impact prior to the cock coming to a rest on the lock plate...,  while a caplock just drops the hammer against the cap supported on a nipple, installed in a drum attached to the side of the barrel?

AAAAAAH my head hurts!

Bottom line (imho), a flinter can be just as fast if not faster than a caplock..., but there are more variables that can interfere with igntion to cause inconsistency.  I think with less variables it's easier for the average shooter to master the caplock vs. the flintlock, hence the higher popularity of the caplock, that's all.

LD

[Gordon H.Kemp]

LD, I think you have made several good points. The controlled labratory test certainly eliminate the human error factor , but as you said I know of no one that hunts or target shoots in a lab.
        The human factor is one that can be constantly improved on, practice, practice, practice.

[Mike R]

My subjective experience is that caplocks SEEM faster, but it may be that the differences are minute.  I have some fast flintlocks.  I shoot my caplocks better and more accurately.  I have been told that you have to hold the sight picture longer with a flinter in order to be as accurate as with a caplock--does that sound like a flinter is just as fast?  Once the caplock became distributed and available they took over fast from flintlocks except for a few holdouts [flintlocks for example were widely used in the back hills of the south until the Civil War].  There were many reasons, but reliability was the key issue.  Despite what flintlock lovers today want to believe [insist, argue about] caplocks are more reliable in all weather conditions.  JJ Audabon saw his first caplock rifle in ~1830 in New Orleans.  The owner could not wait to show him a 'trick'--he submerged the lock in a basin of water and pulled the trigger with the lock under water--the rifle went off.  Try that with your flinters.  Now I'll get a whole bunch of angry replies from flint lovers--be aware that I love my flinters too.

[jtwodogs]

Ah, but the same can be said of a caplock all day in the rain verses a modern in-line

I figured alot depends on the way the flinter is loaded.

Is there a basic method or something I can click on to see the proper way to load a Flintlock, ya see, I have never shot one!

[Gordon H.Kemp]

Mike, first off, I seldom fire my rifles underwater so I don't think that test proves a great deal. If you study the history of firelocks you'll find there were several flintlocks that could be submerged in water and the pan was watertight so the lock would fire after the dunking.  The caplock was one more item that encourage  people to become lazy and dependent on mass produced goods. If you were in the boondocks and used  or lost your cas, I doubt that you would find many made by nature laying on the ground ,like flints.

[Mike R]

...like I said, keep the cards and letters coming...I am interested mainly in history as well as firearm usage.  I read alot of early "period" writings and history.  In the 18th cent the flintlock was the advanced arm of the day, yet there are NUMEROUS accounts of its failings in real use on the frontier either hunting or fighting.  "Flash in the pan" did not become a common phrase for no reason.  In real use, all sorts of things can occur that hampers the proper [and quick] action of a flintlock arm.  Today we have all sorts of 20th/21st cent techniques of handling many of them--such as our fixation on magic lubes and loads that reduce fowling.  Plus we carry all sorts of stuff with us and on the range to service the piece.  I of course use a flintlock arm when reenacting 18th cent and early 19th cent 'living history'.  But I try to use it in the old ways. There are numerous old reports of guns fowling, pans flashing, hangfires, wet conditions inhibiting firing--in fact some major battles were affected by rain.   The caplock cured alot of that and that is why it became so popular--someone said it was developed for the military--not true and in fact civilians adopted it first.

[Kermit]

Anybody here still shoot in a club that separates flinters from capguns in competition? The last bunch I shot with did in the 70's-early 80's, and then gave it up. Our experience was that flinters were shot by the older/more practiced shooters, so if caplocks had an advantage, it was going to the newer shooters. Probably a lot of bunk, but we just finally went with "shoot what you brung."

I shoot flint exclusively now. But I admit to still having this wee fascination with underhammers...

Anyone want to chime in with the patent breech/bolster/mule ear/underhammer question when considering caplocks? Seems I recall seeing an underhammer FLINT gun in my wanderings.

Too many questions. My head hurts.