Loyalist Dave
Member
Good Morning Folks,
Well I took one of my two flintlock trade guns out twice in the past three months. It's from a company in Canada, and it came ready-to-shoot, with the touch hole drilled, and was sold with the intent to shoot it with live ammo.
I know some folks think the India origin flinters are "junk, the locks don't spark", or are "pipe bombs", etc etc. The only thing I did to mine was to paint the stock with oil based paint in a colonial red as they sometimes did, and to add the brass flash guard to the lock to conform to historic site safety regs at locations near to me.
I like to use 80 grains of 2Fg in a book-paper cartridge (I harvest a hardbacked book from Dollar Tree for this . ) After I dump the powder I crush-up the now empty paper cartridge tube, and ram that down as the wad. Then I load 1 oz. of #4 or #5 shot, also in a paper cartridge though I use newsprint for these, and I leave them intact when I gently seat them against the wad. I prime with 3Fg from a horn after loading.
The first photo is Dec 10, and the second photo is yesterday, the last day of squirrel season in my state.
OH..., yesterday, I tried using a 1/2" fiber wad instead of crushing the empty, used, powder cartridge...lubed with 30:60 beeswax and olive oil. Both methods seem to work well, as the last two squirrels were taken at about 20 yards from me. I've also swapped out the ramrod for one that I made from a straight grained blank. So far....I haven't blown myself up yet.
LD
Well I took one of my two flintlock trade guns out twice in the past three months. It's from a company in Canada, and it came ready-to-shoot, with the touch hole drilled, and was sold with the intent to shoot it with live ammo.
I know some folks think the India origin flinters are "junk, the locks don't spark", or are "pipe bombs", etc etc. The only thing I did to mine was to paint the stock with oil based paint in a colonial red as they sometimes did, and to add the brass flash guard to the lock to conform to historic site safety regs at locations near to me.
I like to use 80 grains of 2Fg in a book-paper cartridge (I harvest a hardbacked book from Dollar Tree for this . ) After I dump the powder I crush-up the now empty paper cartridge tube, and ram that down as the wad. Then I load 1 oz. of #4 or #5 shot, also in a paper cartridge though I use newsprint for these, and I leave them intact when I gently seat them against the wad. I prime with 3Fg from a horn after loading.
The first photo is Dec 10, and the second photo is yesterday, the last day of squirrel season in my state.
OH..., yesterday, I tried using a 1/2" fiber wad instead of crushing the empty, used, powder cartridge...lubed with 30:60 beeswax and olive oil. Both methods seem to work well, as the last two squirrels were taken at about 20 yards from me. I've also swapped out the ramrod for one that I made from a straight grained blank. So far....I haven't blown myself up yet.
LD