Bought my first kentucky rifle!! Minor problems

[Ironhorse522]

I got my sweet kentucky rifle from the grandad of a friend of mine. A couple months ago I offered to buy it. But he wanted 600 I said no because I thought that was high. He calls me up last Saturday saying he really needed money for bill and wanted know if I still wanted the rifle. I told him I have three hundred cash dollars in my pocket if that was enough for him to part with the rifle. Make a long story short I came home with her. I've never seen another like it. Will post pics later. Next day went and got powder and balls couldn't find flints though. But it had one in it. Loaded it up with 60 grains of 2f blackpowder substitute to start out with( as per the suggestion of the bass pro guy). Added a patch and ball and went outside to shoot it. Primed the pan with 3f black sub and pulled back the hammer. Flashed up but no go. I called my buddy and he said we needed to sharpen the flint. He took it out of the vice and dropped the flint on the ground(concrete) it broke in two peices!! I was furious!! Not only could I not shoot my rifle but I would have to keep it loaded for a week. I ordered new flint from Dixie gun works. But my question is will it hurt the rifle to leave it loaded for a week?

 

[runs.for.beer]

Harm? No. Difficulty to get it to go bang? Likely.

Congratulations on the acquisition! We all look forward to seeing the pictures.

Assuming safe handling is followed, I don't think there is any harm in keeping it loaded with the main charge, but without a priming charge.

I have not had much luck priming a flintlock with substitute powders. I can appreciate that the real holy black can be hard to come by, but I think it is the best stuff to feed your sparker. ffff in the pan is the only way I have had avoided fail-to-fire.

When running low on the real stuff, I have had good luck with a hybrid load of a few grains of ffff down the barrel followed by the main charge of substitute powder.

 

[Ironhorse522]

 

[Acorn Mush]

Loaded it up with 60 grains of 2f blackpowder substitute to start out with( as per the suggestion of the bass pro guy).

Congrants x2 on your purchase but wrong info from the Bass Pro guy! Real black or, as a second choice, a duplex load with real black UNDER the sub is the only reliable way to go.

By the way, be sure to remove all of the fouling produced by you attempt to fire with the sub, especially if you were using Pyrodex. The fouling from Pyrodex is very corrosive and will damage your rifle in pretty short order. Want to know how I know?

 

[Ironhorse522]

 

[Doak]

If you wanna shoot off the load, touch off the open pan w/a long stick match. Have someone help ya if need be.

Rule No.1 for flinter's: Black Powder Only!

Coonie's has been my source for GoexBP for many years. Just type in "Coonie's". 25 x 1lb. cans in a case. Can mix f's in the case.

 

[Patocazador]

Make sure you re-seat the ball on the powder charge before firing. Sometimes a dud moves the ball down the barrel a bit causing a potentially dangerous situation. I'd hate to see that beautiful rifle with a split or bulged barrel.

More info on the gun please.

 

[Ironhorse522]

Is there anyway to identify who made it? He said it was a kit gun but there still should be some kind of indentifying marks

 

[Ironhorse522]

All I know is it is a 50 cal kentucky flintlock rifle

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

If it is a modern kit gun the manufacturers information should be on the breech end of the barrel on either side of the top flat. It could possibly be marked on the underside but mine are all marked on either side of the rear sight.

 

[Doak]

From what I can see of the lock, I'd I.D. it as a Siler lock. Looks like a high quality kit. My guess would be a Jim Chamber's Kit. He's on the Net.

 

[Ironhorse522]

Dang!! So I didn't do to bad. Is there anyway to identify it as a Jim chambers rifle?

 

[Doak]

Also, ya don't need to remove the flint from the jaws to sharpen it. The only time ya loosen the jaws, is to replace an old, worn out flint, w/a new one. Or, in some cases, to move a worn, but still serviceable flint, forward, closer to the frizzen, on 1/2 cock.

I'll post pics, soon, of the coolest, easiest to make, easiest to use, flint sharpening (knapping) tool ever devised.

 

[Ironhorse522]

Any other way to identify my rifle

 

[[email protected]]

A good Flintlock will really spark

 

[Ironhorse522]

See that's why I thought I needed a new flint. Mine threw like three sparks. Plus I think my vent hole was clogged. Stuff comes in friday

 

[[email protected]]

This might help you on how to sharpen a Flint while still in the hammer.

 

[gunner69]

You got a hell of a deal there. Like the man said get real black powder. Use 4F for the pan. If you have an air compressor at the house, and have one of those Harbor Freight kits, you may be able to air blast the ball out. Then clean hell out of it and don't forget to dry patch before you shoot it to get the moisture out of the barrel. If you get tired of it I am sure someone on the forum will be happy to take it off your hands.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Will it hurt to leave the rifle loaded for a week? If the bore was clean before loading, no. If the bore had been shot and is dirty, yes.

 

[the Black Spot]

Left mine loaded for over a year, fired off first try.

My firelock is a .50 as well. I load 60 gr of 3f BLACK powder, no sub and i prime the pan with 3f as well. No need for 4f

 

[loose noose]

As has been previously mentioned, the only powder that will consistently work in a flintlock rifle is the real black powder period. In my .50 Flinter, I use 70 grns. of Goex 2F down the bore and just fill the pan even with the flash hole using 4F, I've allways had an instantaneous ignition on a par with percussion ignited rifles.

 

[Doak]

Flint Knapping Tools

OK. The knapper is made from a nail. In this case a duplex nail. Can grind the top nail head off and grind the shaft above the 2nd nail head into a tapered tang. Then burn the tang into a hole in a wood dowel. Or just use a nail as is.

Close up of the flint shows the knapper held perpendicular to the top surface leading down to the cutting edge. The nib, on the end of the knapper, acts as a stop, against the edge. And the shoulder, resting on top of the edge, does the knapping, when the top of the tool is struck w/the brass hammer. The size of the spall knapped off is determined by the width of the shoulder, above the nib. You control this when ya make the tool.

The hole in the hammer head is finished w/a taper pin reamer. The hammer handle is a length of bamboo from a chop-stick. It's just a jam fit.

When sharpening the flint, ya work along the edge, from one side to the other. Remove the high spots w/the knapper 'til most of the edge makes contact w/the frizzen.

Never do this on a loaded gun! Sparks have a way of showin' up unannounced.

Top view of the lock shows the gun across my knees, while sitting.

Spalls come off the bottom of the edge, revealing a fresh cutting edge, a bit higher on the flint. This is good. It's contact, w/the frizzen, keeps moving higher on the frizzen, during the life of the flint.

 

[Doak]

Flint Knapping Tools: Last Foto

These are spalls off the bottom of the edge.

 

[raa-7]

Doe's anyone ever go out and find good quality flint and just make they're own ? I noticed that the flint that I find, some of it sparks really well and some not.I was just wondering about that because,being a natural material I would think some people know what to look for.

 

[Doak]

In America we have Obsidian & Chert. Obsidian aka volcanic glass, & Chert aka hornstone: an impure form of flint, will both do, in a pinch, for "gun flints". Learning how to knapp the stuff is where the art comes in. Track o' the Wolf's 'sposed to have at least one book on the subject.

"Flint" is a gray, brown, or black quartz mostly found as nodules in chalk. This means, as I understand it, that most of the good stuff comes from the White Cliffs of Dover, England.

The nodule is the problem. Some of them are larger than footballs, and round, like geodes, aka "thunder eggs", but are not hollow inside. They're solid flint. To make sumpin outa the dern thing ya gotta get it open & into smaller pieces.

One way to do this was to heat the nodule up in a camp-fire, then pitch it into a large container of cold water, whence, upon entering the water, it exploded into many "spalls", which could then be knapped into whatever.

Oh, and one more thing, it's an unproven rumor, yet quite possibly accurate, that gunflints recovered from submerged centuries old shipwrecks, will not spark.
One o' my ol' shootin' buds bought some, one time, and they wouldn't spark, in his otherwise reliable lock. I was there, to see it.