Today i Tried out my Flint lock

S

smellycorpse

Regular
EE Expired
Rating - 100%
42   0   0
Location
Victoria BC
Hello Nutters, Today I played with my flintlock. It was the first time firing it.
The rifle i was Playing with is a Tradition PA pallet. I really had a blast... but the cleaning of it was mess. I think the next time i play with it, i will brush the barrel down after every 4 or 5 shots.

I just wanted to say that.
 
I love my flintlock, it is a .50 Lyman great planes rifle. I still chuckle everytime it fires. I fire goex in it and swab the barrel out every couple of shots, I used to use rubbing alcohol on the swab but a friend of mine who shoots blackpowder competitivly has given me a secret concoction of pinesol, mineral oil and a few other ingredients. I moisten a swab and run it through every two or three rounds and when I am done, I then clean with hot water when I get home.
 
i have played around with muzzle loaders

are you getting a lube ring ?

if you have problems loading the next round use more lube

during the summer i fired 20 rounds NO Cleaning and #2 was worse to reload than the 20th

in the cold you might have more of a interesting experience

and if you do it right a ml can be cleaned faster than a Rem 870
(lots of hot soapy water)
 
Thank you for the tips. I fired about 25 shots. there was so much buildup that the sabot and hunting round got stuck in the first inch. I was shooting lead ball 490, steal ball in sabot, and nylon tipped hunting rounds in sabot. I had no problems with the ff goex Powder in the rifle and the pan. I'm using simply green and for warm water cleaning right now. ah yah so the ball and chain walked in the room and well she thought i had to change my shorts fro the unique burnt bp smell.

Smellycorpse
 
jc2cdo said:
I love my flintlock, it is a .50 Lyman great planes rifle. I fire goex in it and swab the barrel out every couple of shots, .
Click to expand...


I shoot a .50 cal. flint as well and only clean at the end of a day. At a rendezvous I would not consider it unusual to shoot 30 shots one day, run a couple of wet patches through the bore then an oily one for over night and shoot another 30 or more the next day. I clean with warm water and a bronze brush before putting away for a week or more.

In a general sense, coarse powders and greasy lubes foul far more quickly than finer powders and water based lubes. I shoot 50 grains of 3F GOEX for targets and 70 gr for 100 yard plus shots. For lube I use home made moose milk which in my case is 20% (roughly) water soluable cutting oil, the rest water except for maybe 3 - 4 oz of isopropyl alcohol per liter to prevent mold forming in the main container of lube. I use a light spray on grease (Fluid Film) for a hunting lube where I don't want it to dry out and am only hopefully firing one or two shots

cheers mooncoon
 
Two added tips that helped me hugely:

1) get a little piece of flexible tubing that you can stuff into the muzzle and bend to the side to blow down. The moisture from a few good puffs down the barrel will actually soften the fouling enough to ram another shot down. Really brings the point home about just how hydrophilic (water loving) blackpowder salts are.

Conceivably you could just put your lips to the muzzle, but that's a bit too much like tempting a Darwin Award for me to ever get used to.

2) Get a brass range rod. For quite a while I was shooting balls slightly too big (still undersized, but when using any patch whatsoever got hard to ram home with fouling) and needed the brass rod to load. Don't seat the ball/bullet tooooooo hard or you'll compress your BP load and end up with erratic shots, but does help in the process.


Finally, glad you've started shooting blackpowder flinters too! I don't have the pleasure of owning any flints yet, but the cap and ball guns have been multiplying like rabbits recently :p
 
Assuming it's .50 cal from the reference to .490 sabotted ball? My standard patched .490 ball goes on top of 65grs... but that's mostly because that's what it shoots well and the pre-measured case came with it :p
 
smellycorpse said:
hmmm .. I was using 50 to 80 grans. just to see and feel. no misfires.. if i were to hunt with it, what grans would yo guys go with... max is 150
Click to expand...

I would think that 70 to 80 grains of 3F would be plenty and would definitely consider 150 grains considerably too much. In part you need to bench the gun and confirm that your hunting charge (or target charge) is accurrate. In some perhaps many guns, too much powder will eliminate your accuracy. Also remember that you will or should be shooting at relatively close range; on the Island here I would hesitate to shoot more than 50 to 75 yards. There is enough underbrush and vegetation that if a deer does not drop immediately, you stand a good chance of loosing it. It is not like Saskatchewan where if your dog runs away, you can watch it for 3 days. :>)

cheers mooncoon
 
I soak my patches for a .54 cal. Hawken in a mix of Ballistol and water, the resulting milky looking solution is allowed to soak into a 0.010 patch, and loaded damp just before shooting. I have shot a string of 30 or more shots with no loading problems.
I buy my patching material from IKEA. Take a micrometer with you as they have a variety of cloth, and their cheaper than you average cloth store.
.
 
ah gotcha, thanks. well i will need to play more with it at longer ranges.
I'm going to try to head back to the range in the middle of the week. setting up a 50yard, 75yard, 100yard, and just for the fun of it 150. might just simplify it with less targets.
Thanks again
Smellycorpse
 
Just found this thread, so apologies if I've bumped an older thread.

Proud owner of a .45 Pedersolit Pennsylvania here. Love flints. It's the most fun I've ever had shooting anything.

Am waiting manual on the Dutch Schoulz method for accuracy.
 
My wife has a Deerhunter cap lock and it likes 70g of 2f and a .490 ball and 15th pillow ticking patch, and a home made grease lube or Hopps #9+ black powder lube. I would get rid of the plastick sabot and use a lubed pillow ticking patch, your clean up will be much faster. Plastic has no place in a traditional style muzzleloader.
 
Can't help you with advice regarding sabotted loads but my 50 cal loads for patched round balls are selected for accuracy, not max muzzle blast. I use 50 gr FFFg for targets to about 75 yd and 80 gr FFFG for hunting and more distant targets. It can go easily 30 to even 50 shots without cleaning or swabbing as long as I use patches saturated (but not dripping) with a Moose Milk similar to Mooncoon's recipe.
 
Last edited:
bp shooting

have experimented with a number of lubes and settled on old standby Crisco. fire 20-25 shots on our trail and ball goes down as easy on 25 as on the first. big plus is they don't taste bad when you hold them in your mouth while loading and as well i guess the added saliva helps.
 
I'm still a greenhorn. I've been shooting .440 balls with an .015 patch. Even with that it leaves almost no pattern at all when it's slugged. But it won't load at all with two .010 patches.

Ordered some .445 balls, then should be able to slug it and get a pattern. Probably will need .010 patches then. Am getting better and faster with it, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom