Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Flintlock Q&A

So I know that we have several flintlock guys here, Birdy, KW, etc.

I have a flinter I got for a song years ago when I was working at a gun shop. The policy there was that muzzleloaders of any description were less than worthless due to there being no muzzleloader hunting season and therefore almost no demand. Taking advantage of that policy I bought a TC Hawken cap lock for a whole $25 once and more importantly for this thread I gave $50 for a new and never fired Lyman Trade rifle flintlock.

I brought the Lyman with me when we migrated back south with the intention of shooting a deer with it. I feel it’s silly the “Primitive” weapons allowed during our muzzleloader season and have always stuck with a sidelock using iron sights and loose powder. Just my personal prejudices and enjoyment of a little more challenging way to hunt.

I decided that this is the year that I kill a buck with the flintlock but I found last week when checking my sights and load that it may end up being a little more of a challenge than I bargained for. The gun shoots well enough for my uses, 4” 3 shot group at 50 yards using 90gr of Goex 2FG under a patched round ball and a priming charge of 3FG. But my gosh the lag time. Never a hang fire or misfire, just what seems like an eternity from snick to boom. I shot my two cap lock guns with the same load and standard #11 caps and they seemed like benchrest guns in comparison.

I’ve had almost no guidance, only reading a little online and shooting a really nice handmade long rifle years ago that the gent who made it was kind enough to let me try out. I don’t recall experiencing near the lag with that rifle, which was undoubtedly of higher quality than my Lyman. I don’t have access locally and don’t want to get bent over on shipping to source some 4FG or priming powder. Can I gently grind up a tiny amount of 3FG to fill my little priming flask? I probably have cheap “flints”, IIRC they’re agate and not flint. I do knap a little and could probably sort through my flint piles for a chunk of Alibates to try and make a flint, not sure if that would help at all.

So I’m all ears, fill my head with knowledge. Season starts the 3rd week of October so I don’t have a long time but I have a little bit to experiment and the “Range” is less than 5 minutes from my easy chair.

Calling Kaywoodie!!!

If you're getting a good spark from your lock and the pan powder is igniting try a little less powder in the pan. You want the flash to jump through the flash hole not burn like a fuse to the main charge. You might want to try 3F for both the main charge and the pan. If that doesn't help try picking the flash hole after loading. If all that fails you might have to open up the flash hole or even replace the flash hole liner. Good luck. If you don't like it you're not out much money.

I have a GPR flinter. I'm not a fan, but I did have the same type of problems as you are. A few things to get out of the way, like you ARE using black powder? Substitues don't work out in flint locks at all.

Let's start with loading. Once you pour the powder in the bore, lean the rifle so the lock is down hill slightly and tap the side of the gun to settle the powder, specifically to the area of the flash hole. now seat the ball firmly against the powdercharge using as close to the same pressure as you can each and every time you load during subsequent shots.

As klondike said, less is more in the flash pan, 1/4 - 1/3 pan is plenty, (yes, so long as the amount being powdered is small, and the tools spark proof you can make 4F from larger granulations), while 4F is perferred, 3F will make your gun go bang. Now turn your rifle on its' side, lock up, with the frizzen closed, and tap the area of the lock several times to get a little priming powder into the flash hole, then, flick the rifle ,once, brisklly to shift the remaining priming powder away from the flash hole. The flash in the pan can now breach the air space in the pan and reach the flash hole instantly.

This should make the rifle at least have less lag time, at best fire as fast as your caplock.

Another thing you may want to look at is the position of the flash hole in relation to the top part of the flash pan. It will fire faster if the center of the flashole is aligned with the topmost part of the pan in such a way that looking at it the center of the flash hole appears to be "split" by the top of the pan. Too low, the priming powder can cover the hole and act as a fuse, too high isn't as bad, but inhibits rapid ignition sometimes.

Hope this helps you out.

All good advice given. Just enough prime to get the rifle to fire.

But,,,,, I am a bit snobbish when it comes to this subject.

Touch hole placement (when it is installed at factory or by builder) and lock quality is everything. The lock is the heart of a flinter. IMHO when you get a good mass produced flintlock rifle, you have an anomaly. If you want a good rifle, save your money and get a good custom rifle. Used or new. There are affordable rifles out there used that don’t cost much more than a factory rifle if you just watch for them. But on the average a good rifle is going to be at least a $1000 investment, give or take.

Now that being said, I know there are some good quality factory rifles out there. Chances are if you get one it will require some fine tuning by someone knowledgeable that knows flintlocks. I would rather spent my time shooting and tuning a good custom rifle. You will save money in the long run. And you will be much happier.

Just my two cents. Im sure ol’ Prairie Dog Shooter, TerryK, Hdredneck, Flintlocke and a few other dedicated flint shooters here have more good stuff to add. But for me it’s all about a top quality lock and touch hole placement.

Kaywoodie just about nailed it.

To add my two cents, factory produced flintlocks are an exercise in frustration. That flash hole must be aligned properly to the lock and that requires hand fitting. Something that isn't going to happen with a mass produced gun. The frizzen has to be properly hardened, and the geometry of the internal lock parts has to be right. If all that isn't right it will require a good flintlock gunsmith to correct it. If it can be corrected.

If you want to hunt with flintlocks follow the advice I was given a long time ago.

1. Don't buy a flintlock until you can afford a custom gun with a high quality lock.

2. Find an experienced flintlock shooter to help you through the learning curve.

A good quality flintlock properly loaded will not miss-fire. The lock time is just as fast as a percussion gun. I can get instant ignition using 2-f as prime.

Those factory flintlocks are good for plinking and display on the wall. I can't count the number of folks I know who got into muzzle loading with a cheap flintlock and gave it all up out of frustration. If you need to go the factory route due to a limited budget get a percussion gun. Those can be made to work reliably, a cheap flintlock not so much.

I appreciate the response guys. I’ll try it with a little less priming powder and see if that improves ignition at all.

May end up just hunting with on of my TC caplocks again this year.

Nothing much worse than trying to get into the shooting game with a half-ass firearm!

The sour taste of poor performance lingers long after the purchase of a cheap item!!

You can buy a good aftermarket lock for many of the mass-produced guns, but IMO it's lipstick on a pig. Better to get a good one from the get-go. My foray into flinters was with a Pedersoli Mortimer, which only required tweaking the touchhole liner to make it fast and sure. Not sure any coil-spring flintlock can work really fast. If you are serious about a flinter, do as the other guys said and spend the money,

Like many guys, I started with a production gun....a TC "Hawken".


I've killed numerous deer with it after I learned to shoot it.


I'd start with cleaning. 91% rubbing alcohol. Good Fresh flint. Clean the flint and frizzen. Ditch the cheap prepackaged flints. Find some good black english or french amber. If you have to use agates, the German agates can be awesome. Good ones are tough to come by. They are typically a white/clearing color...not the gray/black agates. Even though you are getting it to fire, more sparks can help ignition time.


I'm guessing you have an Allen key touch hole? I'd recommend replacing it with a screw driver sloted one.... actually, call Jim Chambers and order a White Lightning. There are knock offs. If it doesn't come from Chambers, it's not a white lightning. You'll have to order a bit and tap from them. Remove your touch hole, drill the threads out, tap the hole, install the liner. Cut off the excess nub and file it flush. Drill it out to 1/16". I forget the size I used. 90% sure it's their smallest...it worked fine on my 15/16" TC barrel. I'm not kidding when I say the difference is AMAZING. The drill and tap will cost a little bit...the liner itself is fairly cheap.

The Allen key touch holes put your main charge sooooo much further away from the pan. The white lightning is coned inside. Kernels of my main charge are literally right next to my pan. I have no doubt I could get my rifles to fire with now priming powder. Not reliably..but I bet I could do it if needed.

I wouldn't mess around with replacing the lock. I did it. And it wasn't a huge improvement. Ended up building another rifle with that L&R RPL lock I spent near $200 on.


If your frizzen is all gouged up, I'd replace it. Factory frizzens aren't great and need replaced occasionally.



Others are spot on. If you are into flintlocks and hunting with them, it'd be worthwhile to get a GOOD one. The production guns are literally the reasons so many myths and wives tales go hand n hand with flintlocks. They are very reliable, accurate and deadly. I've killed several deer and a spring gobbler in the rain with flintlocks.


Feel free to send me PMs if you have other questions or need more help. I am no pro but I've started building my own and I'm no stranger to them.

The less is more on priming powder is crucial.
You don't really want to get priming powder in the touch hole either.
It is "flash powder", don't make it a fuse.

Think about this.
A spark hits the powder, the "explosion" goes into the hole.
If there is flash powder in the hole, or 1/8 inch powder over it,
That is blocking the "blast" from getting to the main charge.
Now, you lit a fuse that has to burn to the charge.

I shoot a T/C Hawkin and have replace the touch hole, not sure what it is.
Definitely not near the top rung of things, but you would not want to let
me ppoint it at you and try a primerless shot. I have experimented with that
some and 3-5 tries will make it go if it was a flint.

The point is any priming powder that is in or covering the touch hole is slowing
things down. Any more than necessary is just adding to the distracting
flash and smoke in front of you eye.

I guess it's ok to chime in once again with the "fixes" that straightened my GPR out, made it lightning fast ignition time, and more accurate than I thought a flintlock could be. In reality, the only thing remaining of the original GPR is the stock, which also has been "tuned".

Out of the box the lock was horrible, so bad I thought they lubed the moving parts with sand, so first thing was to put an L&R lock in it's place. While dong the inletting to properly place the new lock I took special care to realign the flash pan/flash hole, so they appeared as thoth the top of the pan opening cut across the center of the flash hole. As you read in several posts, it's critical for fast ignition. The original motise didn't allow for this alignment, so I ended up with a little creative use of Accraglas Gel to achieve it, but it doesn't really show with the lock fixed in place.

The GPR I bought was part of the massive recall Lyman had when the barrel/hooked breechs were blowing up, and the replacement barrel Lyman sent me made the original lock look custom by comparison....it was virtually so "rough" it became unuable, the response from Lyman concerning this never came. So after discovering no quality aftermarket barrels available, I shipped the rifle out to Stonewall Creek Outfitters, and had Troy place a Rice barrel on it in place of the Lyman replacement barrel. The rifle I recieved back from S.C.O. was a different animal.

I now have near flawless igition, (I use only black English flints), and if I am able to figure how to post picture the target you will see is 9 shots fired successivelt at 50 yards, using .535 ball, .015 Ox yoke patch, and two different powder charges, Swiss powder, 80grs FFG, and 70grs FFFG. Goex FFFFG was the priming powder.

It said file was too large, and I don't know how to get around that....sorry.

Anyway, what I have now is custom gun performance rather than a headache,but the cost of the rifle, and aftermarket lock and barrel is over $1400, not counting aggravation.

Oh! And a pound of FFFFG will last a while. I still have a pound of Dupont around here somewhere. 🤣 ( but I keep it as a keepsake and use the GOEX I still have). I will also mention I get just a good ignition priming with FFFG too.

But, I generally use the FFFFG as I inherited several pounds. Should last several lifetimes!

"Anyway, what I have now is custom gun performance rather than a headache, but the cost of the rifle, and aftermarket lock and barrel is over $1400, not counting aggravation."

And for that price a good used custom flint lock can be had. Or add $100 and get a custom Hawken built from scratch. My point is, better to spend that money or a little more for a quality gun that works.

Powder Inc. advised me to order one can of 4-f to a case of 3-f ( 24 pounds 3-f to one pound of 4-f ) I haven't ran out of 4-f yet.

All the advice you have been given about priming is a good place to start. But you will need to experiment to see how your gun performs best. My flintlocks are fast when I cover the entire bottom of the pan with the powder level just below the flash hole. And the flash hole must be picked. These are Chambers liners. Getting the flint properly aligned with the frizzen is important.

I have shot in three day competitions where I was the only flintlock shooter who did not have a miss-fire or a hang-fire. I attribute that to three things; I use Chambers deluxe Siler locks. I clean the rifle and lock properly and I load the gun properly.

On one of my first rendezvous with the Dallas Muzzle Loading Gun Club, I watched the flintlock shooters shoot a match where the rifle had to be held upside down above your head. And it was raining all day long. Every one of those rifles fired on the first hammer fall. I learned a lot about flintlocks from those guys.

Kaywoodie and Prairie Dog nailed...nothing more needs said.

I believe Prairie Dog was top shooter at this years Rocky Mountain Rendezvous up at Creede Colo.

We had a great time. Unfortunately for Prairie Dog, we camped right next to his camp. 🤣.

I drilled and chamfered the touch hole on my .54 cal Lyman Deerstalker since I had a few flash in the pans when I first got it. Don't recall for sure the size bits I used, but have read that .059 to .062 is about right for the touch hole. 1/16" = .0625 is probably what I used and something larger obviously to chamfer. I've had reliable ignition since. As for time lag, I've only shot this muzzleloader using 4F so have nothing else to compare that to. I'm sure the premium locks are much better though.

If you plan tweaking your touch hole, Gringo's .0625 is about optimum. May I suggest also that if you chamfer the hole to shorten the length of the flash hole, do so on the inside, leaving a perfectly smooth flat face on the pan side. You may want to avoid aftermarket touch hole liners with female hex or overly large screw slots. My theory is turbulence of the pan charge flame can induce misfires. Some of the lads above stated that the position of the hole is critical in relation to the horizontal line of the pan when viewed from the side...that is very important. The old English gunmakers referred to it as "sunset". With a little patience, you can alter a poorly positioned touch hole by "timing" the threads to an eccentrically drilled touch hole from a stainless alloy bolt. Very little can be accomplished with the geometry of mass production locks. However some of their shortcomings can be reduced by using the finest English flints and possibly a hardening of the frizzen by a gunmaker of known repute. One old man's opinion.

Flintlocke is spot on. .0625 is what I have used!

The rifle in question may or may not have an aftermarket touch hole. It is SS and has a screw slot as opposed to a hex, it is also deeply chamfered on the back side. I would guess that the touch hole is smaller than .062 but I haven’t put a pin gauge in it to verify.

I’ve never had it misfire, probably only shot it 30-40 times but it hasn’t failed to go off. I may just be filling the fan too full of priming powder honestly.