Finally got to shoot

[hotfxr]

Got to shoot a frontloader for the first time in over 30 years. The range I belong to has a group of frontloaders that meet every month so I joined up with them last Sunday. Took my completely rebuilt Traditions 50 cal almost Hawken (Got this off GB froma pawnshop in MD. To say the the ad was inaccurate would be putting it mildly. The bore was rusted & pitted, the blueing just a suggetion, the triggers and lock were so rusted and gummed up the hammer did not hit the nipple, and the drum was JB Welded on) an older Jukar 45 pistol that was given to me a few years ago as a rusted box of gun, my shooting bag and a pound of my homemade BP. I made everyone try the powder and luckily, they all loved it. Had a blast, literally. Learned more from those 5 guys in a couple of hours than I have gleaned from 100's of hours of reading and surfing. Mostly I learned that I absolutely have to find a 54 cal Hawken(what can I say, I just love the Hawken) with a longer barrel and it has to be a flinter. I also learned that I am going to have to procure more "stuff". Stuff like wooden speed loaders, ball starters, all kinds of containers to hold the stuff in, and apparently some strange looking leather clothes and a furry hat. I know you guys like pictures and I wish I had some befores, but I am going to try and attach a couple shots of my two frontloaders and the ball starters that I made after I got home. The 50 is from parts of and old brace (hand drill) and a door peep sight, and the 45 is from an aluminum handle off a broken tripod and a spent 40 cal case.

[hotfxr]

Ok, I need to work on the picture attaching thing. Trying again.

[hotfxr]

And again.

[hotfxr]

And one last one. What a way to up my post total, huh?

[Dogshirt]

"and it HAS to be a flinter."

NO! It does NOT! Not by ANY stretch of the imagination! Caplocks are just fine and appropriate!
And a LOT less headaches!

[Watauga]

Nice The Traditions, CVA or Ardesa, Jukor, Frontier rifle is a good Hunting Plinking and target shooter if the barrel is in good condition.
I think they have been making these for  50 years or so now 
Simple Affordable and Dependable (And Good Looking I Think anyway)
Gun Snobs hate them!
Especially when you use one to out shoot them

PS If I find one in flintlock I hope I have the funds to buy it!

[gunmaker]

Talk to mongrel, he can fix you up with a flinter....A good one. (that goes off)....Tom

[hotfxr]

"and it HAS to be a flinter."

NO! It does NOT! Not by ANY stretch of the imagination! Caplocks are just fine and appropriate!
And a LOT less headaches!

According to the guys with the furry hats, Flinters are faster, more reliable, more fun to shoot, and just plain sexier! I got to take a couple of shots with one and it definitely has a certain panache and flair to it. But I'd do it just for the sexier part alone.

[Dogshirt]

I wear a furry hat and disagree with each point. It just ain't so!

[hotfxr]

I wear a furry hat and disagree with each point. It just ain't so!

Well it was a lot of fun to shoot, and if it makes me look sexier, well I do need all the help I can get.

[old salt]

As for which is faster I shoot both, and I can not tell. As for which is sexier I can't say. Blue Bird says I still look sexy with either 

[mongrel]

IF it has a good lock to start with, IF routine maintenance is attended to, IF care is taken during shooting, a flinter is just as reliable as a percussion gun. Having a decent lock is of paramount importance to having a reliable flinter. It's not so critical on a caplock, where if the hammer simply falls more-or-less squarely onto the cap, with enough force to detonate it, if the flash channel between nipple and powder charge is clear, and the powder is dry, the gun is going to go off.

There are more individual things that can go wrong with the flinter; on the other hand, it is extremely easy for a caplock to get out of whack and when it does there is a greater possibility that the fix will be more involved.

So -- reliability becomes a relative thing.

As for flinters being faster -- no. High-speed photography and electronic timers have proven that, all else being equal, the percussion system is the faster of the two. Fred Stutzenberger put that one to rest a few years back, in "Muzzle Blasts", using a pair of T/C Greyhawks, one a rocklock, one a capbuster, and included a T/C in-line of some sort that had the same rifling twist as the Greyhawks, to similarly prove that there is no magic to in-lines that can't be worked with a sidelock rifle with a good lock and fast rifling twist. However, these are all areas where generally the "Don't confuse me with facts, I'm sticking to my beliefs" mentality kicks in, so I won't debate the various points other than to say that, the next time someone decides to put one of these issues to rest, I hope that along with simply providing solid proof he also drives a stake through the opposing view's heart, beheads it, burns the carcass, and scatters the ashes into seven separate rivers so, hopefully, it won't rise again.

By the way, I love flintlocks. I don't let my devotion to them (or lack of enthusiasm for other types) cloud my good sense or influence the tone I take when discussing them with those who don't share my views, but if they didn't work reliably the vast majority of the time, the chemical necessities for the percussion system were in existence well before the 19th century and the military, if no one else, would have demanded something better. Flinters were state-of-the-art in the firearms universe and gave excellent service for over two hundred years, from about the time Gustavus Adolphus equipped his Swedes with rocklocks during the Thirty Years War, until the flintlock was phased out -- gradually -- by the percussion system, mainly during the 1840's. Flintlocks -- good ones, anyway -- absolutely do work, but their owners have to work with them.

[old salt]

Amen!

[hotfxr]

Thank you mongrel for the reply. All kidding aside, that is what I am looking for in a forum like this. I bought my first and until a couple of months ago only BP rifle in 1976, a 54 cal flintlock kit. For $55 I might add. At the time I got it because you had to be 21 to buy a pistol and you could buy black powder almost anywhere. I wound up giving it away a few years later, one of my many less than stellar decisions. I started being interested in them again 15 years ago and have mostly just been learning what I can. I have an uncontrollable curiousity and a need to know how things work and the history behind how we got here today. Given my family's history and some friends I have, we have been going primitive in our hobbies. And being a bit handy with tools, we are messing around with making knives and hawks, and for me, the firearms. I have an unexplainable love for flintlocks and want to learn as much about them as I can. By no means being a gunsmith (one of my close friends is) I have built a couple of AR's and hotrodded a couple of 1911's for IDPA, but these sidelocks are just plain fun to work on. I am hoping to spend a lot of time here and appreciate all the information and input from the members of this site. I have noticed that folks who pour powder down a barrel are a lot more neighborly than those who slam a mag in and fire.

[mongrel]

It's almost impossible to get seriously into flinters without at the same time going into deep research about the earlier history of this country, and if you find yourself interested enough to trace flinters back to their origins (the Germanic/Italian snaphance, Spanish miquelet, and lesser-known variations) in the mid-16th century, you're liable to find yourself learning some incredibly interesting but at the same time often very ugly history in regard to Europe -- which is relevant to us on this side of the pond because the religious and social upheavals of western Europe resulted directly in a great many worthy folk bringing a unique assortment of skills and bad attitude to these shores and in the process contributing hugely to what it means to be an American.

In other words, the flintlock was one of key tools in establishing the foundations of the modern western world, and particularly the United States.

Getting back to reliability and speed -- guns of any design now considered "antique" or "primitive" really should be evaluated and appreciated for what they are, not found wanting for what they're not. There are modern shooters who have tried, sincerely, to work with flinters, or with muzzleloaders in general, but the only point of reference they can accept is that of a centerfire bolt-action rifle that makes itty-bitty groups in paper targets at long range. They simply can't bring themselves to love what they consider to be an ineffective firearm; my dad is one such. The flintlock is best appreciated with an understanding of what a stunning improvement it was over both the matchlock and wheellock, not only in terms of practical efficiency but as an affordable weapon that did much to level the social playing field when it came to warfare.

Many will not be aware that one of the first major attempts at gun control took place in the late 16th century, within the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire (most of western and central Europe, at that time), when the Emperor realized that the invention of the flintlock and its application to handguns now made concealable firearms not only affordable to the common man but as a result much more likely to be used in assassination attempts. Before the flintlock, the wheellock was the only one-handed firearm type (try slipping a matchlock pistol into your waistband, but please don't offer to show me what ended up getting burned), and wheellocks were and are obscenely expensive things to build and buy. It was therefore decreed that the manufacture or possession of a flintlock handgun was punishable by DEATH wherever the laws of the Empire were in effect.

This had the predictable result -- in spite of facing hanging or worse for doing so, "gun nuts" of the time and place ignored the law.

Anyway, the flintlock was a huge improvement over the cheaper matchlock or the infinitely more expensive wheellock. Though it didn't completely supplant the matchlock until well into the second half of the 17th century, from the 1630's till the mid-19th century it was the weapon of choice for the best military forces in the western world. Technology finally advanced to where the extremely dangerous chemicals involved with making the percussion system work were controlled (some violent explosions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had led to bans on experimentation with said chemicals, in a number of locations), and once the bugs were worked out (and reliable supply sources were established -- caps can't be improvised like flints can) the percussion system replaced the flintlock. The percussion system, assuming everything working as it should, is faster, more reliable, easier to master. However, to insist it's "better" is ignoring a number of factors having nothing to do with efficiency or ease of use, and if efficiency and ease of use are the only considerations then I wonder why the more outspoken critics of the flinters even bother with muzzleloaders when there are so many highly-efficient, easy-to-use modern rifles that are far more accurate, powerful, and reliable than the old front-stuffers.

I seem to be on a "teaching" kick today -- I think I had better get off the computer and haul my cold-ridden carcass back out to the shop.

Where, by the way, I am presently building three different percussion rifles....