Recently I have been studying two books on English makers: Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740 and Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790. The later of the two books was especially interesting because of the effect the makers may have had on our own colonial guns - especially Twigg, Mantons, etc.
The photos in both books showed lock variations which I will ask about in future topics, but the placement of flints throughout these books caught me off guard. In almost every instance the flints were installed bevel down. In fact, photos showing a gun with the flint bevel up were rare - conspicuous in their absence. Accustomed as I am to seeing flint guns with the bevel up, this surprised me. Any thoughts or comments?
Regards,
Pletch
My perspective.
Thats how they are supposed to be installed. Sometime back someone had posted here or elsewhere that their lock would only spark with the flint bevel up. I posted that I would fix the lock and I would.
Some research will likely find directions specifying bevel down dating to the FL era, I am thinking some military manual but I am running on memory on that. I think George mentions flint installation in "English Guns & Rifles". Bevel up the flint chips differently since they are formed in the same manner from flint to flint in relation to how the flint flakes. IE its impossible to make a flint by trying to spall or flake the flint in the wrong direction so every flint will flake differently and about the same way, upside down as opposed the right side up. Nor can it be efficiently spalled to sharpen it when upside down since the rock flakes differently.
A friend, who has been making flintlock rifles since the 1950s just figures, as I do, that people putting flints in bevel up are putting them in upside down.
I think a lot of this comes from some modern locks having cocks too large for the lock or being otherwise malformed and the flint being too high and/or at the wrong angle when installed right side up. OR cheap mass produced locks with weak coil spring or weak cast leaf springs.
The flint spalls differently upside down this effects chip scatter when pieces of rock break off as the flint scrapes the frizzen. The chips come off the flint at what is now the top and fly all over the place including back toward the shooter's face according to a the same friend who tried it over a clean surface a couple of weeks ago to see where the chips landed. A lot more chips landed behind the lock when bevel up but I was not present and have no details.
And as always, your mileage may vary. But I think documentation will show that historically bevel up is wrong.
Dan