[GVMan]

Greetings,

I do not currently use a muzzle loader. But after giving careful consideration to my first rifle purchase, I am begining to see the merits of black powder. I want a rifle that I can put meat on the table with and possibly use for self defense way down the road.

I see ammunition as being one of the big problems in any Long term survival situation. Seems like it would be easier to stock up on powder, primers, and lead, vs expensive cartridges.

Any ideas on the perfect muzzle loader for long term survival?

[scrat]

My thinking. Since a lot of readers here are already making there own black. A good flint lock is the way to go. As you would not need to worry about having to stok pile on primers or caps. Thats just my thinking though.

[Harve Curry]

Another to consider is a modern inline that can use smokeless or black powder (Savage).
Others can also use percussion caps or change to shotgun primers ignition.

[mykeal]

The true spirit of survivability would suggest a Tennessee Poor Boy flintlock for the reason suggested above - the least reliance on outside purchased equipment.

However, based on my own skill level and experience I'd keep my 30.06 Model 70 Winchester.

[Macmac]

A good flinter, will work once you make your own powder. That way you can use it and reserve anything so-called modern.

If the flinter was about .62 cal, it can do what any 20ga shot gun can do and then some. Shot, round ball, and in anything that will fit the bore.

In some ways it can do more than a modern gun, as you could work up loads where maybe you would shoot some sort of shot, like maybe (9) 36 cal balls and 1 .600 round ball, but maybe (2) depending on why you are using 'Buck N' Ball'.

With a flinter once you can make powder there isn't another thing you must buy from anyone ever to make it go boom.

[Pancho]

A flint lock smoothbore. Chert (flint) can be stockpiled and not degrade. Blackpowder can be made if you can stockpile sulphur or your in an area of the U.S. that it can be found.Salt peter can be made from your own urine. Lead might not be that easy to find but a smoothbore can shoot anything from lead to rocks.

[ZeSpectre]

If we've dumped down to that point of existence I sometime consider it entirely possible that I'll only need just one bullet <sigh>.

[barneyrw]

<<"Seems like it would be easier to stock up on powder, primers, and lead, vs expensive cartridges.">>
Actually in a situation like that a .22 rifle would be better than any blackpowder gun. Up until recently a 500 round box was $10 or $12. I don't know what it is now with the increase in ammo prices but even if it is double that, you could stock up on more than you could shoot in a lifetime for a couple hundred dollars.

[scrat]

True Very true Barneyrw. However the stopping power of a 22 isnt going to feed your family. It might be good for small game. Maybe even self defense. However anyone of my 44's or my 50cal is all i need. A good 50 cal can be loaded to shoot shot similar to a 410 guage. It can also bring down well any sized game out there that ever lived. or is living. So ya i know i can feed my family with my 44's and my 50 cal.

[smullen]

How long will containers of Black powder keep??? Indeffinitly or is there a shelf life???

I should ask my dad he has been shooting Black Powder for over 10 years...

He collects cans and other scrap and turns it to the local metals guy in swap for bars of lead to make his own bullets... Hasn't had to buy off the shelf ammo in years...

[Malamute]

I have mixed feelings about a muzzle loader as a primary gun if the world turned bad. Maybe way down the road when other options were exhausted. Primers are the main weak link in centerfire ammo. A lifetime supply could be laid in for reasonable cost. Various modern rounds, if the wrong caliber for your gun, could be broken down for componnents, and modest loads extrapolated well enough to keep you going if you ran out of your own supplies to load with. Many centerfire rounds still would work fine with black powder also, as well as cast bullets, so that isnt an obstacle, or reason to go with a muzzle loader. Having one for back-up may be ok, but I don't think I'm going to get one for that reason. For the cost of the gun, I could buy enough supplies to keep a couple modern (relatively speaking) guns going for a lifetime.

[bensdad]

Something similar to this was covered recently. I think it was "what gun for the end of the world?"

I realize this is a gun forum, but in a situation where you really HAVE to kill your own food, are you folks actually planning on using guns?

Fish traps, trap lines, snares, etc. can all be set and left. You'll need a spool or three of different fishing lines, parachord in several thicknesses, and some idea of where the critters are. You can hunt for food 24/7 WHILE you collect firewood, build shelter, barter with others, etc., etc.

There will be uses for a gun in such an environment, but gathering food won't be among them.

[Malamute]

Good point. Also depends on where you are, or plan to be if things went bad. Many also seem to feel they can just have some gear, then when things go bad, head out and live like a mountain man. It takes time to learn how to live the life, even a hunter has much to learn. On the job training for that lifestyle, even when things arent real bad in the world, isnt very forgiving.

If that sort of thing happened, a LOT of people would be out shooting deer and whatever at first. Best to know how to do more than hunt one particular type game, or one means of gathering. Traps and snares are good subsistance tools.

If I was going to try to prepare for "the end" type thing, I'd be concerned about having very good skills built up and regularly practiced, know the main edible plants in the area, and a reliable means of starting fires for several years laid by. A good starter might be to spend a month or two alone in the wild places, living strictly by your wits, and what you could carry in a pack. Even if you're planning a settled existence, that would be valuable skills.

[scrat]

Well then that takes us back to bp. A little bp on kindling with a good flint and there is your fire. Like others i would want my other guns too. Im just saying that lets say 10 years or so go by. Eventually when the supply line starts to go low and it will. you will need to hone up your skills on making bp and shooting flint lock.

[hamourkiller]

T/C Hawken or Renegade Flintlock with interchageble bbls. From small caliber all the way to 20ga smoothie with rifle sights.
BP lasts forever if it is kept dry.

[bigbadgun]

Best as I can figure ya best know how to hunt fish trap and forage.
Huntin and fishin aint nothing its easy enough but traps and snares are the trick.And at some point store bought ammo can run out so ya best know how to make the black holy. And primers or caps are gonna go away fast also so best as I can figure ya best have some knowledge with nappen a flint rock.

[sundance44s]

Flint Lock rifles were favored by the Free Trappers ..they never quite knew where their next supply stop might be ..so for the most part they chose the flint lock guns ..one could forage around and find uasable flint left by you know who ( mother nature ) Company Trappers on the other hand prefered the cap locks , they always knew where they were going to pick up supplys and their needs were met by the large companys they Trapped for . So I`d have to say when the going gets tough , supplys are limited , I bet one can still do a little forageing and find flint to keep their guns fireing . Just keep yer powder dry .

[Macmac]

A few off comments..

With a flint lock you already have a flint and steel fire starting tool, and you don't need any powder to get the fire going either!

If the talk in other forums about "imprinting" cartridges becomes LAW, I intend to break the law. As it is posted on those topics, it is said we will have to turn in all ammo not imprinted, and I just won't. I bought what I have and it is mine. Law or no law someone can pound sand. it is said there will be no buy back for this ammo as well. I hope these bad laws don't ever pass.

I already lived off the land 3 full winters in a tee pee much like Mt Men, and have woodland skills much like they had. Still in the here and now there just isn't that kind of game anymore, and anyone thinking they can go get all the deer they want when ever they want, had better be good at sewin up mocs, as they will need to eat them, and often.

Many days passed where if I didn't know about wild plants to eat I would have starved.

I can make cordage from bark off trees strong enough to hold deer! I did too, and I caught fish, and other small game to eat. I got hungery enough to eat boiled pine borer's, a big fat wood eatting grub, and to tell the truth they ain't to bad.

If I can make powder I will live for so long as I can still walk.

I have made selfbows, not legal to use as the pull isn't enough for he Law, and my bones don't work so well as they used too. I have made atlatals, and man if you got a Harley look the hell out for me. My Bad with one of those rigs.. :D

How was i to know that dart would go 150 yards with a girlie toss?

I make a passable coffee from birch bark, that inner tan cambium on birch.

I make tea with white pine fresh this year growth too, and it works well on the common cold to boot.

I have made flat bread from that same white pine using the cambium bark, but it takes some getting used to when you eat it. of course my cooking isn't the best. i can burn just about anything with enough heat! :what:

That rock lock is a whole kit if you ask me. The flint is all you need to gut and skin a deer easy. So even if it was your last powder and you got a deer, you can skin it, start fire and eat once more.

A deer is a walking tool box to me, but I am not sure where to mention all that around here.

In hard times life will be what you make of it I guess. I don't really care what the economy does so long as we are still more or less on the same time zone.

What was hard about living off the land was i lived in 19th century time, which was just fine in the woods, but coming out for things I ran smack dab into the 20th century time, and that made most folks hungery.

I took my woman to the eye doctors and traded up bark vessels for eye glasses, and that whole time the doc was talkin' about going home early and having BBQ off the grill.

I don't know, but the time does seem to be coming where my skills in the woods could be in demand. I hope not.

I might help many, but I won't help those with a big wheel barrow full of green backs, making any demands. Not you guys, you all seem Earthy to me mostly, but there are those who like power a tad too much to suit me.

I can't say if a rock lock will meet anyone's needs, but they meet mine.

You can bank on I will carry a little something modern just incase I need it, but it ill be a last resort to use.

[eagle24]

The true spirit of survivability would suggest a Tennessee Poor Boy flintlock for the reason suggested above - the least reliance on outside purchased equipment.

Kinda like this
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y130/weagle1/IMG_0122.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y130/weagle1/IMG_0127.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y130/weagle1/IMG_0126.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y130/weagle1/IMG_0117.jpg

[mykeal]

Eagle24 - Yes. Simply superb.

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

MacMac... Well now, you do know a little s*** don't you? My son, my son! I'vd had a feeling about you for a long time.
May I add a few points?

Clean white wood ash (any type of wood) is the best baking powder you can find on the face of this earth. Just pick out the black cinders and it's ready to go. Use it just like baking powder you buy. It will not give the bread a bad taste if you accidentally use too much.

They say Jesus Christ was crucified on a Dogwood tree, and God said no man would ever hang on a Dogwood tree again and so he turned it into sort of a bush. Be that as it may, when the Dogwood blooms it has some of the whitest blooms you can ever see. Inside each one of those flowers is a dark looking seed sort of in the shape of a cross. Pull that seed out and grind it up and it's some of the hottest pepper you can find anywhere.

Layer your meat in thin slices, buried just below the surface of the hot sand. It will cook to a turn using only the sand and the sun.

Boiled tea made from the bark of a Hickory tree will straighten up a bad stomach in just a couple of hours or so, be it from constipation or the runs.

Tea made from the roots of a Blackberry briar is good for pain of any type, plus it's just plain healthy.

If you have a toothache, find you some bird droppings. (any type of bird) Use a small twig or whatever and get some of the white part of the dropping and touch it to the tooth and the gum around it. The very instant it touches the bad tooth it will quit hurting completely and instantly.

If you are very hungry and kill an animal that has rabies, don't worry. Cook the meat thoroughly and eat it. The fire will kill the rabies. You don't have to burn the meat up, just cook it thoroughly.
Well, that's enough for now!---- However, I would imagine that when something like that happens (and it will in our lifetime to) Uncle Sam (what's left of him) will be trying to give you a gun and all the ammunition you can fire and all the C-Rations and Long Rations and MRE's that you and your family can eat if you're willing to step up to the plate and help defend the Constitution of The United States and our way of life. Man, woman, or child and age won't matter, just as long as you're willing. If you can't fire then you can load. If you can't load then you can help to treat the wounded..There'll be a place for everyone....

[Macmac]

Gof C why thanks but my days of shootin irons and Uncle have been over some time now. I just don't talk of it much. lotto numba 36.

I know about hearth stones and white ashes, but thanks as I would have never written it as it is too common, like talking about toothpast. We all use it, but never talk about. 2,000 years from now if anything human still exists they might well wonder if we brushed our teeth and wiped our butts..

You got me on the bird droppings though, I might try that next time I need to, but if you please Sir, I hope not to soon ok?

I do have black berry here, and they for sure are a pain, more so in mocs! i eat the berries of course and make kni knick from the leaves, mixed with mullien, and other things. I was born with poor breathing, and mullen really helps me breath. I am lucky is a weed to most. I smoke the fuzzy leaves, and can run a hand drill from the stocks.

We have a dog wood tree, doesn't everyone? Except these vary widely, same mane different bush/tree. Of the type here it is a tree, and very hard dense wood i use for making long shaft mauls to drive wood chisels.

I can't be sure which you mean as I know my type and another from Maryland, which is also very hard wood, and more bush like.

In NH but south of me is shag bark hickory, also white oak down that way, but none here. I really enjoy white oak acorns, over red oak which must be boiled and leeched to get the tannin out first, or you will fer sure end up with that belly ache.

I am none to sure about cooking in ther sand of NH, maybe in the hottest days, but I smoke venison after just sun drying very much like your way less hot sand. A little smoke gives it flavor more, like carbon does when I cook. LOL

I am waiting for warm weather as I set maple taps march 2nd and haven't collected more than a few drops of sap, while other near by have made syrup already. I still have 4+ feet of snow on the un-plowed level, and it was +9 F degrees here last night and stayed there well past sun up.

I'ld be eager to try sand cooking like that but I would need a very warm day I would think.

If I recall dog wood here flowers early, perhaps right after shade. i am not to sure where shade grows except for here, so maybe no one heard of it. This tree stand by water close, and the heart wood is bright purple, and harder than hell. This is used for wood chisel mauls as well, and great deal of other thing real hard wood is good for.

We have 'imported' from the south locusts with thorns and with out, honey, black and maybe another. The black is used for fence posts and will out last granite by atleast 10 years.

Oh speaking of thorns, so far gathering thorns off trees anytime I get cut I get a nasty infection. I learned to gather thorns wearing gloves and use a side cutter to get them. I use thorns as if they were nails.

I don't know where here we can get into this more, but I am always wanting more info. I don't care how i get it either.

I will share most of what I know, but not all, just like fishermen don't tell their best spots.

[Macmac]

eagle24 , Now that's bait, you post that pic and say not one word..

I can't tell what calibur that is, but I can see it is a bridled frizzen, nice burl wood too, but there is 2 things really wrong with that gun.

1 is it ain't mine, and 2 is it ain't lefty.

Is it cast off in the stock? I have a .40 something like it, but not the same stock, less scoop at the shoulder. I can't ID the lock on mine and I have it here. To me it looks like a Durs Egg with a roller frizzen, and water proof pan, but it isn't Durs Egg, and so I can't tell who made it.

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

MacMac, yes you're right about that of course. Different thing's work in different part's of the country. I think somertimes the best thing I ever learned was the part of the wood ashes. God know's I'vd made many a skillet of hot biscuits or cornbread all the way from Wyoming on up through Alaska..
MacMac, I am thinking about buying myself a flintlock just to mess around with.
Does a flintlock come with a rifled bore if you want it? I don't want a heavy caliber. What I'm thinking about is maybe along the lines of a .32 or .36. I'vd never studied about them so I don't know how they come. It may end up I don't want one at all....
ADD ON.. I don't want one at all, plus I just found one of my favorite manufacturing companies that make a fine little .32 squirrel rifle, percussion, and it's not that Blue Ridge mountain type either. Nothing 'traditional' about the one I just found. It's not an inline but it will damn sure help me pot squirrels when they're outside the range for the .31 Pocket '49.. I get tired of wasting a .44 on a squirrel....

[eagle24]

eagle24 , Now that's bait, you post that pic and say not one word..

I can't tell what calibur that is, but I can see it is a bridled frizzen, nice burl wood too, but there is 2 things really wrong with that gun.

1 is it ain't mine, and 2 is it ain't lefty.

Is it cast off in the stock? I have a .40 something like it, but not the same stock, less scoop at the shoulder. I can't ID the lock on mine and I have it here. To me it looks like a Durs Egg with a roller frizzen, and water proof pan, but it isn't Durs Egg, and so I can't tell who made it.

MacMac,
It is a .32 caliber squirrel rifle built by Curt Lyles. 42" 13/16 Green Mountain barrel, the lock is a Chambers Late Ketland. Curt did an outstanding job IMO. The maple stock has nice curl and seems to be a very dense piece. Curt did some light antiqueing to the stock and the metal. The sideplate and triggerguard are forged. I'm currently building a .50 caliber, iron mounted southern rifle. 42" B-weight Rice swamped barrel, maple stock, and also using a Chambers Late Ketland lock that I have rounded the rear portion of the plate to look a little more "East Tennessee". Both rifles have long tangs that stop at the comb.

[Macmac]

Well G of C, Thar ya go, what you think you want and what you really want is two different things.. i would say invest in a gun like that one you can see.

It will be a rifle with rifling sartin! I can't force you to get a rock lock, but if you get a good sound quality gun in rock lock you will never fool around again with a capper long gun.

Caps go with six guns just fine... A good flint is a remarkable piece, and none of mine have any lag and all the other tails of woe bestowed on flinters that are not made right.

All mine are made right including the ones i made myself. ALL of these will fire instantly wet and held upside down.

Mine is somewhat similar, with a Getz 2nd generation swamped barrel when Getz used a electric pen to mark his work on the bottom close to the breech where you can't see it when the barrel is mounted..

Mine is left hand and cast off, in a plain walnut, but nicely done.

I traded with a women who wanted cash, and was no longer wanting the idea in her head about the who bought this gun for her.

All she wanted was $200.00 cash, but she is a friend and i couldn't live with that little for a custom rifle of quaility, so while i didn't mention how much in silver which was more than maybe I should have given I just gave her a whole bunch in trade silver i made and happened to have on hand that day.

SO I might never know who made the stock and or just which lock it has, but it is a shooter.

It has the weight of a broom, and I am much more acustomed to my trade gun and the bess, which are rugged guns. This rifle almost scares me in it feels delicate.

[Jamie C.]

A question for you folks on the Rock Locks...

They obviously need flint to work... so... How long does a flint generally last, for one, but more importantly, how 'bout a little info on foraging for your own, and what it needs once you locate a suitable piece?


J.C.

[eagle24]

A question for you folks on the Rock Locks...

They obviously need flint to work... so... How long does a flint generally last, for one, but more importantly, how 'bout a little info on foraging for your own, and what it needs once you locate a suitable piece?

The flintlocks are new to me, but I've been getting about 30-40 shots before reknapping the edge. Then 30 or so shots on the new edge with the bevel turned the other direction. I also broke a couple of flints in less than 10 shots. I'm guessing if the flint does'nt break somewhere between 70 & 100 shots on avg.

[Macmac]

Jamie C, How many times the flint last depends on the particular stone, the type, how it was made, and the lock it is placed in.

My Bess aka Rock Crusher gets about 60 shots before it has devoured a flint pretty well. The gun has one heck of a main spring.

You are living in prime time to find good flint knoduals. Big frikin hunks of raw material. I was in Tn around and about Bledsoe Park in 06 at a primitive rondee voo, and found about 60 pounds of flint on the ground. Most of it there was black with gray mixed in.

Unfortunately I didn't get any home to play around with as it was in 2 big boxes in a trailer with my motor bike at the time and in the way of stealing that bike. So both boxes as well as all my wifes clothes were stolen with the bike.

I have seen and dragged home gray flint a chert also from Tn, but I don't know where from exactly as a Trader brought it to Ft Ticonderoga where I bought it.

It is hard to say how to search for this by eye, like I do, but once you find it, you will know. For a bare bones beginner i would buy a brass mallet and walk around bashing every rock I could lift I guess.
Sooner or later you are bound to smack a corner off a rock and have the shear look smooth and waxey.

When dirt, sand a little plants grow on rocks it makes seeing that rock harder to see. I collect flint from the sea. it is the color of what ever else it is embedded in. None of the flint I find in New England really comes from New England, but comes from France and England, and was ballast.

So it might look like iron oxide, or it might be mud brown. The white chocky coating takes on what ever the surronding area has to offer.

You won't find any white chocky coating in Tn I don't believe.

In the usa we don't really have 'true flint' but we have all kinds of rocks that work as well as flint. Most of these are cherts. Obsidian won't work at all, for gun flints, but I don't think you will find that in Tn anyway. Obsidian is volcanic glass.

Avoid hitting cherts with steel carpenter hammers! You might find chert with one, but you will ruin the entire hunk of rock at once!

Traditional tools are made of brass, copper, deer antler, moose antler, and elk.

I have seen a lot of tools, and some are just pure imagination. I have a friend who mounted a copper ground rod, not copper coated and steel but solid copper about 5/8" round into a cut down rifle stock and he presses off slivers with his shoulder and back.

You can hit by percussion off slivers which is where to start, and finish up by pressure flaking to get the shape and edge.

A hunk of sand stone helps grind off parts that need to be ground to get the right strike and or pressure.

Another type of tool is a hammer stone, which is no more than a well rounded river rock made of granite.

Almost all the tools are well rounded, more so hammering tools.

With antler, the best is made by grinding off the drops, that most people waste by making a belt buckel from.

The bigger the tool the better to wack apart a big hunk of rock, and once you have, many pieces to choose from then smaller tools work best.

You will get cuts. I reccomend you use a thick hunk of leather to protect your legs, and wear leather gloves. Don't breath the dust! It is silica, and wear safety eye wear!

You will still get cuts, trust me on this. When you do it won't hurt and the first thing you will notice is blood. You will find you skin has been divided and you won't feel a thing until later. Just keep it to a minimum and you will be fine.

You will get into trouble at first, and work hard. You will find wacking the wrong place creates a wave like bump, and you won't like those bumps. The shock stacks up stone just like throwing a rock in a pond stacks up waves.

Each hit creates this shock, and you must envision that you have shot a BB thru a window. When a BB hits a glass plate it blows out a cone from the back side, and you are doing the same exact thing, except you are only hitting the glass on the far edge.

When you get close to a shape that suits you, then switch to pressure flaking, and when you press off sand, drag hard with a finger you are supporting the stone with, as if you will pull the chip off from the bottom, because you are.

There are boards you can make to support this work too. These are built with a step up in the back, and usually covered in leather. That step helps hold the work from sliding off the board, the leather is soft and plush and adds grip, some support and a place for the chip to go off the rock.

Some boards are complicated like a big V cut out in the middle, while others are plain.

Once more steel has not forgiving textures, and will create flaws thru the core stone, which will shear away later, and runi any half decent work, so if you use a steel hammer you can exopect a lot of heart break and get no where.

What happens with a good tool is the shock is delivered for a moment and then the tool skips off the work. The shock wave does the work.

When pressing the force does the work, and this is hard labor untill you work up to it like excersize when you try to push a wall in a house over 1 inch, hard to do, and not fast. You push and build pressure, and if you get lucky the wall moves. I never get that lucky, but I can;t think of a way to picture it otherwise. Maybe pushing a car up hill alone is better. You push and you build power, and you push more, before the car moves 1 inch.

Well when you get the power the chip has given up to a force bigger than it is, and a lot of stored energery fractures. When it does you get a long sliver from the underside of the piece. Shorty choppy work lends to short choppy chips, and stacks right up.

When the stakes are small you can grind them down some with sand stones, and flip the piece over and clean it off, so long as they are stacks near the edge.

There are books on making stone tools too, and most make points and knives, while a few show how gun flints differ, but one is pretty close to the other.

I can take arow heads and make gun flints from broken larger ones pretty well, or I can make a small point from a broken gun flint, just as well.

I don't make jewelery quality points or gun flints and we don't need them to be of that quality to shoot.

[Macmac]

cont:

To practive you can bash a beer bottle and or any other bottle and work off the bottom. This won't due for a gun flint, but you can learn how to flake this way for cheap. Johnny Stone is just old sinks and toliets, which make dandy points. I used a 8 penny nail on a const site deep in NH mountains and made the entire crew think the place had been attacked by indians!

I forgot to mention antler tines as they are make good pressure flakers, for no mnore than finding a few tines that fit your hand well. The more you wear the point down the wider of a flake it will chip off. I have several in many pointed to wider rounded shapes. The more pointed the longer and thinner in width the chip will be. For like making Folusm and Clovis points where you want a thin section to make mounting a point to a shaft thin, so the shaft doesn't bulge out much, and thusly become to wide, actting as a stop when you want to drive that point deep.

[eagle24]

I just cut off about a 2" piece of #2 bare ground copper wire. I chuck the flint in a padded vice and position the piece of copper on the edge and tap it with a little brass hammer I made. I don't know what the heck I'm doing, but I have learned to put a serviceable edge back on my gun flints.

[sundance44s]

Someone asked how to look for flint , flint would be a rock that will knapp or flake leaveing a sharp edge , you might find some in a creek bed or dry wash , flint type rocks can be found almost anywhere ...it`s not the flint that sparks , you can get the same spark by useing a sharp knife on a piece of steel ( not too good for the blade ) but if you are needing fire , it will work , the sharp edge of the flint type rocks will shave a tiny bit of steel that will be red hot from the impact .I know alot of people that think its the flint that is breaking off and glowing hot , it`s not it`s the steel frizzen on a flint lock rifle that is shaveing off causeing the sparks .

[DixieTexian]

MacMac: I believe there are real flints in some areas of Texas, but those are the only real flints in the States. I have made many arrow heads out of the bottom of glass bottles, and it is pretty easy to do once you get the hang of it. To get the bottom of the bottle out cleanly, put a nail in the bottle point down, and shake the bottle up and down with your thumb over the top. After a few seconds the bottom will just pop off, usually in tact.

[scrat]

Well for now all i can say is this has been some good reading by both GOC and MACmac. Its amazing when they say great minds think alike. One thing for sure it seems that we can all agree on the flintlock. You hardly see them at the ranges now a days. However there seems to be a great appreciation on the folks that bring them out.


There are a lot of people who make black powder using a ball mill. I came across a recipe a while back on making black powder, using a small type ceramic mixing bowl and a Ceraminc stir stick. Kinda like what you would see on an old RX perscription or pharmacy. When i get some time and work starts to slow im going to spend the time mastering the making of bp this way. The old old way.

[Macmac]

What I know of steel is you must have high carbon steel and it must be hardend to shear off and burn. Flint and chert is harder than hardened steel, and the steel is the burning part, not the stone.

Mild cold/hot rolled steel can't be made hard enough, you need tool steel atleast 1% carbon.

Some frizzens are too soft, and most of these can be case hardened with casinite, and other things.

For kicks I once thinned a flat file and riveted it to a soft frizzen, because i saw a gun in a book that had that. Seemed like a great idea and it looked interesting.

My gun spray off light blue sparks, you can have red hot anyday. My guns will tingle yer toes if yer bare foot, with still hot sparks.


DixieTexian, You could be right. I crossed Texas once, on Rt 149, and I saw all Texas I probably ever will then. My wife has family in the Dakota's and she has a rootbeer and very waxey collection from there of broken arrows heads harder than jumpin blue blazes. When I was there i found none.

In Kansas i found white flint chips and saw some used on railroad beds in Indy.

The first I found in any size i could use was in Tn. I have spent almost my whole life in NH USA, and the chert here as native is rarer than hens teeth, but there is a little. There is more in Maine, called Munsungun Chert, which comes in 2 flavors, jet black and flecked with gray bands, and a crimson wine color.

In NH there is some very high quality basault, a lava like rock forming dikes between graintie, that can be worked, and used, but in most places it won't be thought of as good. We have a rare chert only from on place which a brown and has white flecks in it, which comes from right here off the Ossipee Mt, a, I hope very dead volcano ring dike.

Oncet when I was a wee lad and really big lizards roamed Earth this mountian was about 5 miles higher than Everest is today. Today it is 3,000 ft and 12 miles across with a big pit dead center, pretty cool on a topo map.
03886 if you want to play just back off a bit and move south 6 miles, which will put you in the middle somewhere.

DixieTexian, From the sounds it you could be much better in the skill on this one than me. I can make these, but like I said they are not jewelry quality.

I for sure would like to master those long Danish Blades, but I don't know if I will.

[Jamie C.]

Thanks for the info, guys.

Macmac, flint is kind'a rare around here, but there's all sorts of chert that would probably be useful. Yes, the dark gray chert is pretty common here. Never found any that was black, only a blue-ish gray. Also some white that was about the same consistancy/texture. I've used broken slivers of it for cutting tools a few times that I've found myself in the woods without a good sharp knife. ( and you're right, that stuff is scary-sharp ) Never had much luck in getting any of it to intentionally knap into a useful shape though... it's apparently a skill that eludes me. Best I can do is give the lump of it a good bash and see what useful pieces come out.

I wasn't aware that just any ol' flint-like rock would work. That being the case, I've probably got a lifetime supply readily available in the dry runoff creek beds around my house.

As for obsidian, well, it's rare here but you do find it every once in a while. ( Tn was once a very geologically active place. Matter of fact, we even had a little 'quake here, a few years ago. It was a quite bizarre experience. )

Like I said though, the dry creek beds are a good place to look for any of that stuff... you'll also find a lot of fossils.

Maybe I'll have to wander around out back, as soon as the weather warms up a bit, and see what I can find. I might not have a lot of use for it at the moment, but some of you might.



J.C.

[JCT]

Jasper and Feldspar should work for a flint. MacMac, if you're near Hurricane Mtn or Moat Mountain, you can find tons of smoky quartz and feldspar.
Train tracks are often filled with red Jasper.
Here's some reading on flint; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint

[Mac Attack]

All this talk about a flinter brings up a question. I know that cap rifles require primers and flinters require a 'flint.' But in a SHTF situation like the end of the world, how hard would it be to find a flint for a rifle? Also, how long (many firings) can a single flint last?

[sundance44s]

It would be hard to keep up with how many shots one can get out of a single flint in a rifle ......with the adjustments on the jaws , knapping , turining it around and starting over ...no telling how many times you could use one flint if you really needed to make it last . If you have any knapping skills at all , finding flints wouldn`t be a problem at all ..one just has to understand how it works , some companys have came out with man made flints ( not made from aggregate at all ) ..it just requires a very sharp edge to spark the frizzen ..remember it`s the frizzen steel throwing the shower of sparks ...not the rock . So when a flint lock quits throwing sparks , it`s not the flint is worn out ..it`s the sharp edge that is worn , so when you knapp it , what your trying to get is a sharp edge back on the stone .

[GVMan]

Wow, I never imagined when I posted the original question that the thread would evolve into such an education. Thanks everyone and keep going. This is why I love THR!

[Macmac]

Jamie C. I found apx 60 pounds of what i said at and around Beldsoe park in Tn. I was at the South Eastern rondee voo... I was also on my way home from a motor cycle tour of the UAS so much as i could and hit 40 states in all.

I left NH with a bike and a bike trailer the bike pulled, with my wife. Rode 9,000 miles to Cal. In time turned back east to Fla making some 6,000 miles in the doing. From Fla I went back Nor' West to Arkansas, where I hit on Thanksgiving day in temps of abnout 25 degrees. Brrrr. Bought a 1986 3/4 ton Doge converstion Van, a big trailer to hold the bike, the bike trailer, some camping gear, an headed to Tn, where we stayed about 60 days in 2 different camp grounds.

A big heavy turing bike isn't the best back woods cruiser, so finding flints and cherts was indeed hard to do. In that park it was like a gold mine to me! 60 pounds in the 7 days I had there was great since most of the time was spent meeting new folks and saying hello to ones I knew from before.

Another way to discover flints and cherts that work is to polish off the teeth on a file. A good file is hard and is the same as a flint and steel , steel.

Never allow it to get hot. grind a bit and water quench. Don't wear gloves ginding so you can tell when it is hot. Just don't grind yer fingers off.

Then you can go bash rocks, and test them. If you are right handed hold the steel in you left haand with the thin polished edge out. You ground that file's edge not the fac see?

With you new rock as a sharp shard rake a glancing blow, and look for sparks.

Do that a few times to get the 'feel'. Once you see any sparks do it more to memorize that 'feel' and after that it will be a no brainer.
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JCT, Well of course i know Hurricane, the pits, and I know the old pits in the National Forest where amethists, Topaz, and other quartze chrystals are. Been to Mt Jasper in Berlin. i live in Tamworth, about 15 miles from the East entrance to the Kanc.

Feldspar??? I have no clue what Feldspar is to you. I know it as a black fleck inclusion in rotten granite. I have no doubt you are correct in what ever it is you mean, but I sure don't undersand what you mean.

At the local rock shop Dondero's - N. Conway) for kicks I bought Blood Stone, that comes from India, just so I could have green flints with blood red spots. What can I say I am a sucker for colors..

A tool I made a few of so I could have one in each possibles bag, as each flinter has it's own possibles bag, is an antler tine, with a 3 corner file awl. One side of the file has been ground smooth. I use this for sewing, scraping sprues clean, and pressure flaking, and other misc chores. So I don't get stuck like a pig, I place this awl end in a qoose gill, which is wrapped with bits of real sinew, linen threads, and very thin raw hide thong.

Un-related to the topic of rocks, I also carry a hard gray chunk of 'Hide glue'.

I made this in a pyrex dish on a wood stove from bits of fish skin, deer sinew, and assorted other nasty greasy parts of animals. I use this to glue a great deal of natural items from sinew wraps to fletchings. It dries hard so long as it never gets wet again, an shirnks as it dries.

Ok so I got in trouble making this. After i poured off all I wanted from the dish, I failed to clean that dish quickly. I figured one day i would get around to it see? This was my wifes best brownie pan and it had been some time since she used it, and so I figured i could use it and she would never know.

Errr well as it turns out she did know. There wasn't one thing I could do about it. That residue I left in the dish near the warm wood stove on top of a pile of my recent woodchips and assorted media, was tilted. That dammned residue collected in a corner of that dammned dish, and dried.

How was I to know that glue when it shrank would pull a sliver of pyrex right out of the corner of that dish? It was just like an arrow head made to go around corners, and it was some wicked sharp too!
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sundance... it takes a sharp edge to cut hardened steel, and the edge must be harder than the steel. Can't have one and not the other, but atleast we don't have to heat treat these kinds of rocks..

Not just anything sharp will cut hi carbon hardened steel.

There is problems and tricks to cover the problems to get frizzens to be both hard at the face, so hard that the steel chips burn, AND have the rest of a frizzen soft enough that it doesn't snap right off like broken glass, on impact.

A ALL hardened frizzen will snap in half, just like a full hard file dropped on a cement floor with become bits. A frizzen to soft is a miserable beast, but can be hardened and fixed in a camp fire if you know what to do and how to do it.

You can take the sharpest stainless steel and never get a spark from it, or shave one from hi carbon steel and get sparks.

I have no real use of stainless blades except for table ware, and the cheap junk folders I buy when I want a throw away knife to strip and cut wires and pick at things.

Any blade I have that means anything to me is hi carbon steel, that will take and hold a razor edge. Sometimes these toss off a spark or two when I don't really want sparks much.

For sea going folks an guys working in certain chemicals a cabon steel blade can be a bad deal, but for the rest of us stainless blades are junk.

Of course these days it is hard to find a guy who can tie knotts, and so we don't need really good cutting edges much anyway. Swiss knives are ss and cut twine just fine, but do a poor job carving wood very well.

The tools we use depend on the jobs..

[DixieTexian]

Most of the arrowheads I made out of bottles weren't that good. The thicker the bottom of the bottle is, the better. This is my best one, and it was made out of a 1 liter glass bottle in Africa. The bottles the use in third world countries are better because they reuse them, and the bottoms are nice and thick.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/DixieTexian/S1030478.jpg

[Macmac]

DixieTexian , yeah you and I have about the same problem. You got one real nice chip on the bottom of that piece that ran out to near the midline. 4th chip from the right.

The top side has a bunch of stacks, 2nd and 3rd.

Where you would mount a shaft is thick, and forces the shaft to be wider than you really would want if you hunted with this piece.

Oh yeah! I get these very same problems too.