traditions flinters

Beater

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who can tell me about the traditions line of flintlocks? was in wholesale and there was a pennsylvania style 50 in there. really caught my eye, but i know nothing about them.
are they any good, shoot decent? lock ok?
 
Spanish lock or other?

O.K. - correction: All the Italian and Spanish flintlocks I've used have had problems - firing!

Mind you...this is my fair-weather gun...it's too nice to go out in the rain/snow...but I've never (about 100 shots?) had a problem with it, in the 3 years I've owned it. :)

From what I found...the key is the placement of the priming charge-don't block touch hole.

Traditions flintlocks??? The charges and ball weights are pretty small, if the $$ is decent, I would try one.
 
i have a woodsman and i think it pretty good for the money, the accuracy... im still dialing mine in, but that might be me in part. an allright gun.
 
IMHO...the only way to go with a"Rock-Lock" is a custom gun, fitted with a tuned Siler lock. The avoidance of frustration is a key factor in shooting this type of gun. Guys who fart around with some foreign guns will eventually drop out of the sport due to frustration of trying to get these things to go bang.
Stay away from spaghetti locks, unless you send it to a flintlock expert. If it is tuned and properly hardened it may do OK. I have heard from hundreds of guys who have bragged about good "their" spaghetti gun is. Once they step onto the firing line they stand there scratching their heads wondering how come their "great gun" doesn't go bang. Thus is coined the term..."Clatch-god-damn". This is the sound coming from their direction as they try to fire the thing.
Once again, avoid frustration and get the good stuff, right out of the gate...you won't be sorry.
Cheers
 
On my way home from Dixons Muzzle loading Fair i called into Cabales. They had some Austin @ Halleck's muzzle loaders on display. What a waste of nice wood.
 
On my way home from Dixons Muzzle loading Fair i called into Cabales. They had some Austin @ Halleck's muzzle loaders on display. What a waste of nice wood.

I'm a modern muzzleloader type hunter...Don't really know squat about what makes a good flintlock good.
I like my A&H flintlock ...its always gone bang for me. Maybe someone should tell us what qualities make or break a good flinter??
 
I bought one of the new traditions PA pellet rifles this year. I bought it to hang on the wall in my cottage. I also want to use it for deer in the blackpowder hunt as soon as I scare up some FFFFg priming powder. Seems a quality peice for the cost, plus it was a kick to by a gun without using my PAL.
 
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What make's a good flinter for me. When i pick it up i have to check if it was made in 1770 or last year.I dont want any gap's around the lock. I dont want the ramrod rib attached with new screws or the ramrod guide screwed on . I dont like to see a gap between the ramrod and the rib.The hardware should be inleted into the wood not screwed onto it.All spring's should be leaf not coil.
Look up Americian Longrifles . com There you will see work by Jim Chambers,Jack brooks,Hersal House and many more.
To see them and feel them is to understand them.
 
I have a traditions PA Pellet. The PA pellet is a bit of a misnomer as it will not fire pellets with out help. I shot it using 777 pellets and Pyrodex RS and both have resulted in frequent hang fires. I found, though, that about 20 gr of FFg under the 777 will work great but it has no accurracy at all with patcvh & ball, missing the target board completly at 50 yds. If I pack it with 70gr of Goex FFg it's not too bad with patch & ball. The best accuracy I get out of it is a 3" group at 100yds when using 75 gr of FFg and Hornay "Hard Balls" (lead ball in a sabot) or Hornady SST's. The quality of the gun is less than spectacular as the clamp on the #### wasn't drilled straight so the flint sits at an odd angle to get it to line up with the frizzen and the stock is plastic. I had an instance where after a hot load the barrel moved forward from the tang by about 1/4" but that may be that the wedge needs tightening. I don't think I'd go hunting with it but it's fun at the range. I purchased a Lyman Trade Rifle flinty last weekend but I haven't had time to shoot it yet. The build quality is miles better than the Traditions and I'm hoping that it will shoot better as well.
 
IMHO...the only way to go with a"Rock-Lock" is a custom gun, fitted with a tuned Siler lock. The avoidance of frustration is a key factor in shooting this type of gun. Guys who fart around with some foreign guns will eventually drop out of the sport due to frustration of trying to get these things to go bang.
Stay away from spaghetti locks, unless you send it to a flintlock expert.

IMHO???.... LMAO!

There's not a grain of humble in that opinion at all. That's some genuine gold plated elitist bull-puckey right there.
 
I bought a Lyman GPR from WSP and having it not go bang so many times after the trigger was pulled was flustrating. I since have drilled the flash hole larger and using Missouri white flints from Rich Pierce have solved my problems. Now I get my bang everytime I pull the trigger.
 
I had an Austin and Halleck Mountain Rifle, and after drilling the touch hole a little bigger, and using 4f for priming, was very fast igniting. If it didn't weigh 9 lbs, I would still have it, 8 lbs is my weight limit for a hunting rifle.
 
I acquired an unfired, original 35 year old Lyman double trigger .45 flinter last year and had some ignition problems with it too. After being advised about priming properly and not overloading the pan with powder ( BIG THANK YOU TO SMOKEPOLE and a few others for that advice and thanks for not making me feel like an idiot GRIN), things went a LOT better but I still had some failures to fire, but was using 3F for priming as I was told that it would work O.K. by a couple local fellas and that was the finest powder I could find locally at the time. My next major step in the right direction was buying some 4F for priming. WOW! Now that worked MUCH better. The final step in the journey was changing to some quality english flints I bought at the last Black Powder rendezvous, it now goes bang properly, super fast and 100% reliably every time now and is the most accurate shooter out of the 5 Hawkins I own. I love it and it's my favorite BP gun.
All my spanish built cap and ball rifles including my lowly 30 year old CVA. 50 shoot very accurately though. I have no complaints at all about any one of them. The Lyman rifles are much better all around fit and finish though. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat although the newer trade rifles are NOT as nice as the older ones. They've cut a few things to keep the price down. :-(
Al
 
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