Where to purchase matchlock match cord?

GoodDoomguy

GoodDoomguy

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Hello guys, just bought a great Japanese matchlock from a great friend here on CGN, have a few inquiries.

Can someone please recommend me a seller who sells matchlock match cords/slow match? Looking for a really long one.

Also can anyone please tell me a place where I can order a display stand for a long matchlock? Hoping to display on a shelf top not on wall.

Thank you guys! New in the black powder and antiques hobby please forgive!
 
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The great thing about owning a matchlock is that you can experiment with making your slow match.
For my Japanese matchlock, I ended up braiding cotton strips until I got the correct size and then boiled the braided cords in ashes from a campfire.
That is all I have used for the last 4 years, and have burned up yards of slow match of various styles.
 
Cotton clothes line makes good match cord.At one time you could purchase salt Peter also known as potassium nitrate at pharmacies to soak the cord in to make match but I don t think they sell it anymore.I made a matchlock years ago and have somewhere amongst my library a recipe for making match cord
 
I dissolved black powder in water and soaked hemp chord in it. While it worked after a fashion, the burning end would not stay lit more than a minute or two. A friend in Switzerland who shoots matchlocks recommended lead acetate but that is also on a controlled list and unavailable. A final note is that in order to get ignition, I found it important to pull the trigger quickly so that the chord plunged into the powder. When I squeezed the trigger slowly, the end of the chord seemed to just push the powder away

cheers mooncoon
 
Stump remover at Canadian Tire is potassium nitrate and it works for this purpose. Dissolve the crystals in a 1:2 HOT water solution (1 Stump Remover:2 Water). Soak the cotton cord and let dry. We just picked up a couple more containers last week and the formula is still good for this.
 
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Thank you all so very much, will try all your suggestions one at a time for sure. Will update here with my results!
Can you tell me what matchlocks you guys have? New to the genre, really hoping to learn more!
 
I believe the matchlock you have is the equivalent of the European snap lock as normally on the other match locks the lowering of the match into the pan can be controlled on how fast or slow you pull the trigger where the snap lock performs like a regular spring loaded lock so you have to be careful that the match doesn’t snuff out ignition instead of igniting the powder in the pan.This depends on how much match is exposed in the jaws of the serpentine so it s a trail and error thing until you get use to it. I still have some parts for another matchlock so maybe some day I ll build another
 
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NorthCoastBigBore said:
Stump remover at Canadian Tire is potassium nitrate and it works for this purpose. Dissolve the crystals in a 1:2 HOT water solution (1 W:2 Stump Remover). Soak the cotton cord and let dry. We just picked up a couple more containers last week and the formula is still good for this.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that piece of information!
Is that 1:2 by weight or by volume?
 
Thank you Chasseur, you're absolutely right, will keep what you said in mind, thank you very much!

Boolitcaster duly noted, thank you!
 
B_noser said:
Thanks for that piece of information!
Is that 1:2 by weight or by volume?
Click to expand...

Whoops sorry I have that ratio backwards! (that was my first attempt posting from my "cellular phone"). And actually the 10% concentration note above is probably quite accurate, so you could water it down even more. A cook I'm not - try some small batches and fine tune it.

By volume.
 
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NorthCoastBigBore said:
Stump remover at Canadian Tire is potassium nitrate and it works for this purpose. Dissolve the crystals in a 1:2 HOT water solution (1 Stump Remover:2 Water). Soak the cotton cord and let dry. We just picked up a couple more containers last week and the formula is still good for this.
Click to expand...

I second this. I've made slow-match for touching off our cannon & mortar with a similar recipe, and it works well.
 
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