So as the title suggests, I recently purchased a traditions pennsylvania flintlock. The first day of shooting didn't go well, as it was misting, and my first time shooting a flintlock. But the second day after some research went a quite a bit better. Currently when I load, I put about 25 pounds of pressure on the ramrod(I read in a forum last night that you shouldn't compress your loads with a flintlock to promote combustion). Step two is too wipe off the pan, frizzen and flint with a cleaning patch, then I put in Pyrodex P grade. Then I've been using my vent pick to push some of the primeing power into the vent hole. I usually end up with the powder in the pan being level to the bottom of the nipple, with power going right up to the vent and in it.
 
While I know that this is not the correct way to prime a flintlock, it is the only way I have been able to get the gun to fire consistently.
 
Please feel free to critiqe and offer free advise on your own best loading techniques.

Quote from: duxSo as the title suggests, I recently purchased a traditions pennsylvania flintlock. The first day of shooting didn't go well, as it was misting, and my first time shooting a flintlock. But the second day after some research went a quite a bit better. Currently when I load, I put about 25 pounds of pressure on the ramrod(I read in a forum last night that you shouldn't compress your loads with a flintlock to promote combustion). Step two is too wipe off the pan, frizzen and flint with a cleaning patch, then I put in Pyrodex P grade. Then I've been using my vent pick to push some of the primeing power into the vent hole. I usually end up with the powder in the pan being level to the bottom of the nipple, with power going right up to the vent and in it.
 
While I know that this is not the correct way to prime a flintlock, it is the only way I have been able to get the gun to fire consistently.
 
Please feel free to critiqe and offer free advise on your own best loading techniques.

Dux,
welcome to the forum. You'll find as many different ways to load a rifle here as there are people. They way I do mine is after I load and run the ball down I give the top of the ball a couple of love taps with the ramrod. Not hard as I don't want to deform the ball, just enough to slightly compress the powder. Sound like you're well on your way, but my only other suggestion would be to 86 the pyrodex and get some black powder.

I've looked at my local options for powder, and none of them carry blackpowder anymore. Which kind of stinks cause I have to use Pyrdex P for priming, which is the equivelent to fffg i believe. I'm going to leave my loading procedure the same for now, as I think it's the easiest way for me to stay consistent at the moment. But priming wise, I want to expirement as much as possible. My current plan is to get my paws on some alcohol to put on patches to wipe the pan as clean as possible between shots. As I am pretty sure that my priming powder is getting a little soggy if I am unable to get spark on the first attempt. I also want to try using my pick to open a little hole into the main powder charge which should present more surface area for the priming charge to set off the main charge.
 
Basically, right now I can get the rifle to fire every time, but at the expense of my lock time. As it takes about .2 - .5 seconds for the priming to set off the main charge. I want to get that down to under .2 seconds consistantly, which will make my offhand shooting quite a bit more precise. Right now i can just barely keep all my shots in a 6" group at 50 yards or so freehand, but shooting over a log, I can keep them in a 2" or so group, maybe a little smaller. I know that the rifle has more to give me, cause on a couple shots from prone that i felt good about, ended with a cluster of 4 within an inch of each other.
 
The next thing i want to get will be some better sights. The current one seems to be more for hunting, as the front post covers up about 2 inches of target at 50 yards. I'd like to get a hooded front sight and a vernier tang sight, but that is going to be put off for next summer me thinks.
 
So, after my bit of rambling, if you guys(or gals) could share your exact way that you prime your pan and set up your flint and such to get consistent and quick main charge ignition, I would appreciate it greatly in my quest.

I use Goex 2 and 3F in my cap lock after trying some Pyrodex.  I gave away 3 lbs of Pyrodex and bought more Goex because it is so much faster and more reliable.  It would be worth your while to drive somewhere until you find a distributor.  There may be some places that have it and your not aware of it, as it won't be on the shelf and you have to ask for it.

Check and see if there is a local M/L club. The larger ones buy in bulk and usually have some they're willing to sell.

Hmm, seems I'm going to have to do some hard looking to find some good black powder. Do you guys think that I can keep using Pyrodex for the main charge, and just ffffg black powder for priming, or should i go black powder for both?

Quote from: duxshould i go black powder for both?

I'd go both. The gentleman that is building my flintlock recommended Swiss 4f for priming. Gonna follow his advice. Have seen the one he shoots in action and you can't tell the difference in ignition time between it and a percussion. Course he's got everything fined tuned but swears by the Swiss for priming.

You're going to find it impossible to get accuracy out of the rifle while using pyrodex P as the maincharge and the prime powder. I to have traditions kentucky classic and before i found goex blackpowder i used pyrodex and it was a real hassle. So whats the problem you're having besides not being able to find real blackpowder? 25lbs pressure to ram the ball home? Are you using store bought or home made roundballs? I tried home made and after the 3rd shot, it was near impossible to load a 4th. I'd much rathr pay for the store bought and easy loading. Just keep your flints sharpe and keep the edge of the flint closest to the side of the barrel. You'll also want to check into a flash guard to keep other shooters on the right side of you safe from flying hot gases and burning powder. My brother learned the hard way hahahaha!

You might try this group.
Twin Cities Muzzleloading Club. They're website has some club contacts.

http://www.tcmlc.com/
 
They should probably be able to tell you we're B/P can be found or might even have a club store.

I had simular problem when I first started shooting my kentucky flinter. I did not have any bp at the time and a guy at the shop suggested using 3fff triple7. Needless to say ignition was simple hit or miss. Totally unacceptable delay in firing as well. Moral of the story: Black powder substitutes do not equal black powder!!!!!

So I ended up having to drive 6 hours to pick up some blackpowder. Don't mess around with 3fff for priming......get some 4ffff, trust me the ol timers made that stuff for a reason! I found that 4ffff ignited with the slightest spark and ignition time of the main charge was almost instantaneous.

Presently I am shooting 3fff goex bp and priming with 4ffff goex with great results. I am even planning to hunt with this rifle this fall! It was definetely worth the extra effort to get some real black powder.

P.S.  Just an afterthought, the 4ffff goex does not muck up your pan like pyrodex does.  It burns quite clean.

Well, I managed to get some black powder, goex ffg and ffffg. Im using speer .490 round balls, with prelubed .015 patches. I also lube the barrel before i start shooting with bore butter. I also re-lube the patches with bore butter. I can get two shots off before I run into trouble reloading, so I usually run a cleaning patch down after every shot. My current dilema is that I am unable to get the gun to fire if I load the pan correctly(powder away from the touchhole). My current sure fire method of priming is to push some of the priming power thru the touchhole, and then have the powder about level right up to the touchhole. Ignition can be a little slow sometimes, but I have had 0 misfires when I use this method. There is a muzzleloader shoot on Oct 14th at the gunstore that I bought the powder at(Ahlmans in morristown mn), and I'm hoping that some people with flintload experience will be there and can teach me a few tricks on priming.

hmmm, you are fusing your load, ignition will be much slower this way. Take a look at your touch hole it should be roughly centered with your pan( just left to right) and should be almost level with it (just above the bottom of the pan). How much priming powder do you use? I have a priming tool which dispenses 5 grains by volume. It does not seem to matter where in the pan I place it, the charge always goes. But as I said before I am loading with 3fff and priming with 4ffff.
 
Now my rifle has a touch hole liner and was very tight when I first got it, this touch hole was less than 1/16 of an inch. Somewhere in the quest to make the thing fire reliablly I reamed the touch hole out to 5/64 of an inch with a drill bit. When I did this the flash from my pan was able to reach the main charge. I tell you this as a last resort, and I would not try this if you do not have a removeable touch hole liner!!!!

looking at my priming pan, the touchhole is foward of the center of the pan about 1/8 of an inch and is above the bottom of the pan about 1/8 of an inch. the pan is about 1/8 deep so the hole is level with the top of the pan. I don't have my micrometer at home so i can't measure my touch hole size, but it is removeable i think. Im not sure how much powder my priming flask puts out, but it's enough to almost fill the entire pan. Hopefully some people who shoot flintlocks a lot will be at the muzzle loader shoot i'm going to go to on the 14th and they can look and see what im doing wrong, or conversly, show me how to do it right.

That seems about the right amount of priming powder.....have you tried passing a touch hole pick or a wire through your touch hole to ensure that there is no obstruction?  I do this each time, before charging the rifle with the main charge.  Also when charging I leave the touch hole pick in place to prevent powder from blowing out the touch hole, to help prevent fusing.  I am not sure what else to tell you, if your pan consistantly flashes, the main should ignite consistantly as well.

Currently, instead of picking the touch hole, i'm actually pushing some of the ffffg from the priming pan thru it. I know that this shouldn't be the correct technique, but every time I have tried otherwise the main charge doesn't fire. The only step that I know about that I'm skipping is to block the touch hole while charging, but other than that, as far as I can tell, I'm doing everything right.
Interseting side note, I was at my buddies house shooting, and it's his shot. Pull trigger, no spark, he tries it 3 or 4 times and I tell him to hold on and I'll grab a new flint. Open the frizzen, dump out the priming and brush it out as best I can. install new flint but don't prime pan. There is still some ffffg in the cupped in area around the touchhole. I tell him to treat it like a completely ready to fire gun and pull the trigger a few times to get the flint seated nice and square. first time he pulls the trigger--kabooom. so, moral of the story "treat every firearm as if it were loaded at all times" really is a great rule to follow all the time