Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Making Smoke With A Hatfield

Last October I acquired a really nice .45 caliber flintlock.



Though manufactured in 1989 the poor thing was yet unfired. Hunting season delayed my first session with the gun. But the season is over and the weather Saturday was perfect for shooting. It's a virgin no more.

Having no idea where it would hit with the factory sights, I set a target up at fifteen yards and took a half dozen quick shots. Here's the result.



Well that was neat! I was using a 6 o'clock hold on the bull and the group hit 1.5" above the POA. I could tell right off the gun likes that 65 grain load. It makes a nice crack when you pull the trigger. With the .016 patch the ball entered the bore with just a light slap of the short starter and was easily pushed home with the rod. Recovered patches looked fine. Just a delightful load to shoot.

So I drifted the front sight a bit to the left to bring POI closer to POA and set a target out at 50 yards. I took a shot at the 50 yard target using the same 6 o'clock hold on the bull.

Surely a load that hits 1.5" high at 15 yards will hit fairly close to the bull at 50 yards.....right? Well that's what I figured. But I was wrong. There was not a mark on the 8.5" x 11" target. Nor were there any holes in the backer board to the left, right, or below the target. Clearly the shot had gone above the target.

I then mounted the unscathed target on the backer board "upside down" so to have more paper between the top of the target and the 6 o'clock spot on the bull, and took five shots.

This is what I got (the five shots circled in black).



"Oh Poo" you say? Well I say, Yeah, OK. But it could have been worse.

The vertical dispersion of 1.5" is perfectly acceptable to me at 50 yards with these tiny little sights. The horizontal dispersion of 5" is clearly not acceptable. But that is the fault of the shooter, not the gun. I had a truly horrible time using the buckhorn/blade sights at 50 yards.

Wanting to see how high a front sight would be needed to bring the group down to the POA, I added and extra 1/8" to the height of the sight using the masking tape method (see picture below) and took three more shots. Those are the three circled in red on the above target.



I was hoping to do quite a bit of shooting at 50 and 75 yards in this range session. Clearly, that is not going to happen until I do something about the sights - possibly replace both front and rear with something I can see.

At this point I figured I may as well try a five shot group at 25 yards - a distance at which the sights might work for me. Here's that target.



All right, now I'm feeling better. Sure, it's only 25 yards, and it's not a "one hole" group. But it still made me feel better.

So with both time and powder on my hands and not being set up to do the kind of distance shooting I wanted, I figured I may as well break out the chronograph and do a velocity study.

I did that - shooting three shots each with loads ranging from 50 grains to 80 grains. Here's the result.



Now a word about the gun's function. I fired 40 shots in this session.

- The set trigger functioned perfectly throughout the session.

- I had a "klatch" with no fire to the pan somewhere around shot fifteen. The flint had loosened slightly. A quarter turn of the cock screw and things were fine until another klatch somewhere around shot twenty-five. I wiped the face of the frizzen and flint with a clean patch and had no other klatches.

- I had one flash in the pan about halfway through the session. I re-primed the pan and it flashed again. Inspection proved the touch hole was blocked by a piece of carbon. After that was cleared with a paper clip I had no other flashes in the pan. Except for that one time, I did not pick or clean the touch hole between shots during the session.

- I started the session with a new black English flint, secured with lead. It was a bit narrow and short for the lock, so I placed a small twig behind it to move it forward in the cock jaws. Ignition was good, but it did not seem to be as fast as with my Lyman flintlocks. That may have been a factor of the narrow flint not getting as much spark as a well fitting flint would. I did knap it a tiny bit near the end of the session after a "poof-bang" ignition. Here's what the flint looked like after the 40-shot session.

[img]http://i210.photobucket.com/al...intlock/40%20Shots_zpsrpwkzqal.jpg[/img]

So that's my report of the Hatfield's virgin outing. I hope you enjoyed the report as much as I enjoyed the session.

Well, thank you for posting it !

GTC

Beautiful rifle, sir!

I had a new .45 Hatfield flintlock about 30 years ago. One of the selling points of that rifle was that the barrel was easily removed for cleaning because it was only held in by two screws in the ramrod channel plus the traditional one(s) in the tang. I would start with making sure that those screws are tight and staying tight. For me, the Hatfield would never shoot the same place twice. I blamed it on that design and the forend screws giving inconsistent bedding pressure. I sent it back to the factory and they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I killed a couple of deer with the Hatfield, but, didn't keep it long. There are times when I wonder if it was really the gun, or, my youth and inexperience that was the problem.

Those Hatfields were real beauties. Lymans are good rifles, but not so purty.

If you put a quill or similar object in the flash channel before you load, and remove it when you prime the pan, you will have more consistent ignition with any flintlock. Having powder in the channel makes it act like a fuse and slows ignition - you want it clear so the flash from the pan hits the main charge ASAP.

I think part of the charm of flintlocks is like smoking a pipe - you spend about as much time getting ready as you do making smoke.

Wow...great knowledge shared here! Thank you for your time to keep track of these details as they were presented to you!

I really need to break out the KLR and send some quality time with it again...

I didn't know the Hatfields were really Pedersolis. Whodathunkit?

Years ago I had a Mortimer 54 that was a fine rifle, but ignition was spotty. An article in Black Powder by Ross Seyfried got me straightened out. I drilled out the touchhole liner to .0625 (1/16"), then relieved the inside of the liner until there was a cone-shaped recess on the back side and the wall the touchhole went through was very thin. This placed the main charge right at the touchhole. Ignition became very quick and totally reliable as long as there was a good spark.

I've read comments that claimed liners are dangerous and otherwise undesirable, but that Mortimer went from a dud to a peach with just that one modification. The liners can be replaced if they start to erode, something that should take some time with stainless steel.

Pappy, The original Hatfields produced in the 1960's by Ted Hatfield in St. Joseph, Missouri used Green Mountain barrels and L&R Locks. The gun was supposedly a copy of rifles built by his great-great-grandfather, Moses Hatfield in the late 19th century. Somewhere along the way Hatfield sold the name/design to a group that became the "Hatfield" company, and at one point that company contracted production out to Pedersoli. They built the "Hatfield" guns with all Pedersoli manufactured parts, except for the American tiger striped maple wood used for the stocks.

With respect to the touch hole liner, and my comment regarding ignition speed of the Pedersoli vs. my Lymans. The Lyman's seem to be instantaneous - like a caplock. My impression was the Pedersoli was not quite as fast as either of my Great Plains rifles.

Well, I got to thinking about that last night and realized that I have RMC touch hole liners in my Great Plains rifles. Those liners are coned on the inside and have a hex socket on the outside for an Allen wrench, both of which act to place the main charge very close to the pan flame. The Pedersoli has the factory flat faced liner with a screwdriver slot. That may be the difference. If I end up keeping this gun it will get an RMC liner.

I just thought I would a little history / info on my experiences with the Hatfield Squirrel rifle. In the mid 80's I was into buckskinning big time and did a lot of gunsmithing for friends and I became a dealer for Hatfields. They advertised in the Buckskin report which was where I first saw their rifles. I ordered and received 5 or 6 of them and the person I usually talked to was Ted Hatfield. I think he had a brother involved also. It took forever to get a rifle and they were quite expensive. At that time they were not putting high quality locks on then etc. but they were beautiful rifles and very nicely browned. They were accurate, but it took a lot to keep them working. They made me one in a beautiful 36 cal and even put my name on the cheek piece. The wood was 're a l striking birds eye maple. Anyway, I don't think they stayed in business too many more years. I don't have my 36 anymore, but my brother still has his 45. If you are interested, I think I have some pictures of it I could post.

Just had to say something,

Ken

How do you like the Lyman flinters overall? I had a .54 caplock in the 80's but got discouraged after a while with ignition. I realize now that it all started when I began using Pyrodex instead of holy black.

I have a nifty Knight inline, but am getting the itch for a flinter again. The Mortimers are just too dang pricey now, but the Lymans are within reason as are the Pedersoli Kentucky-ish models. I don't really need a large caliber as our ML season is only a week, and on the public land I hunt gets so much pressure during the buck season that seeing a deer afterwards is a miracle. A nice .36-.45 would be good for turkeys and small game and would get some use. I'm also considering a fowler and a decent original SxS percussion double the LGS has.

Pappy, I have about a dozen sidelocks and a half dozen in-lines. The sidelocks are by Pedersoli, Thompson Center (both Hawken and Renegade models in various calibers), Lyman (all Great Plains models), CVA, and one Hawken style by an unknown builder. Of them all I like the Great Plains the most. It just fits my body right. And I like the balance. But you're restricted to either .50 or .54 caliber in all of the Lyman models (Great Plains/GP Hunter/Deerstalker/Trade Rifle). If you want a smaller caliber you need to look elsewhere.

This is what my .50 caliber Great Plains is capable of on a good day.



And the .54 caliber Great Plains.



NOTE: Those are from a bench and both guns have Lyman peep sights. I can't shoot nearly that well with regular open sights.

Very nice.

My Mortimer was very accurate, even with the open sights (younger eyes!). I did have to make up a higher front blade from a Ted Cash blank to bring it down on the paper.