Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Flintlock muzzleloader firing in slow motion

Thought this 50 cal flint going off in slow mo looked pretty cool and thought I'd share it.

https://youtu.be/t_OG90NsWsI

needs to pack his ignition port with 4f. speed his ignition up a little.

I'm no black powder expert but it seemed a bit slow to me as well.

Must not have been much of a main charge either, the smoke cloud released by the bullet exiting was fairly small.

Would be tough to be accurate even in real time.......but I guess in the old days they were.

I need to go visit Kaywoodie, he may have a Flinter laying around he'd sell me, I think I need one.

I shoot a flintlock some and if that first one is real time he either doesn't know how to properly prime or he deliberately staged it by piling powder in the pan and covering the touch hole. Essentially creating a slow burning fuse rather than the near instant ignition it should be. The priming charge should be just a light dusting in the pan and the touch hole open and exposed to the sparks and resulting flame. Properly tuned and properly primed, a flintlock should be only an almost imperceptible sniff behind a percussion.

It's unfortunate videos like this exist and perpetuate the idea the flintlock is actually that slow.

Hangfire

The best tuned flintlocks can, in theory, be faster than percussion because the main charge can light before the hammer finishes its travel. That is a very slow flint rifle in the video. A well tuned flintlock will surprise you.

This. Might be just a show put on for the video, anyone who shoots flinters at all knows how to tune and load a priming charge.

Mine's totally inaccurate! I can't get it to do any better than this at 100 yards! Oh...the two high shots were when I was learning just how much of the front sight NOT to hold at 100 yards!

100yd by Sharps Man, on Flickr

And it ain't slow on ignition!

Any idea on how to post a video on the forum so that the video actual shows in the post instead of just the link?

Thanks in advance!

My first thought as well!
Probably staged just for the video.
What would be really interesting and fun to see is night firing, especially from other angles.
If you've seen one like that, you know what I'm talking about. That flash in the pan goes about 4 feet out of the side!
7mm

This is how a flintlock should work.
7mm

I put an additive called fletch dry on my pan powder when it is wet and I have fired once. It is actually aluminum oxide but looks like cooking flower, but is light like snow flakes. you can pour water on the powder and it rolls off like a ducks back. So the flash powder won't suck up water but it ignites much slower. So there is a way to really slow down ignition, but at least it goes bang. That is a last resort kinda think. The fletch dry is good to brush out the pan to get out the fine after burn that sucks up water.

Some locks are faster than others, but a good lock is pretty fast. A sucky lock is crazy slow. I have a replica lock built recently, but the clone from the 1800s. It is like a swiss watch, and beautiful with color case hardening, and even a safety. The pan is tilted and funneled to the flash hole with that end polished, and the far end roughed to distribute the powder. I never had a misfire in hundreds of shots even when hunting in the wet. Super fast and super reliable. Impressive design and quality. Newer custom locks are pretty fast. Newer CAD designs for cams and hammer angles in the last 15 years make for quick ignition.

Saturday was the last day of filintlock here in PA. Nice 3 week season after Christmas. It is my favorite season.

He needs a flash hole pick.

Ya, WAAAY slow ignition.

A few years back Rog (STXHunter) kindly filmed me shooting a javelina on a hunt he invited me on. Skip to 1:50 to observe the hammer fall, flash in the pan and main charge going off.

Bear in mind the big ol' clunky Chambers Colonial Virginia Lock on that .62 cal fowler with the long arc the hammer falls through is perceptibly slower again than the tuned Siler lock on my longrifle.



And a point of physics trivia, IIRC it ain't the "spark" from the pan that ignites the main charge, its the flash of intense energy in the form of light from the burning powder in the pan that does it.

Those two videos demonstrate how a flintlock should fire.

out standing! why are they always on the other side of barbed wire! i hate barbed wire.
of course there was other pokey stuff you had to contend with!

That was right before I got heavily into bicycles, I ain't nearly as wheezy as that now.

After I step through the fence if you listen close you can hear a soft "ziiiiiip", that was me unzipping the pouch to my Glock 19 in case that little pig weren't hit all that hard True story.

Um.... I do believe that was the first quadruped I ever shot.