I have to laugh at my self some times. I took out several new shooters yesterday in the evening . The goal was to impress safety and give a comparison between modern pistols and their black powder counterparts. It all went well right up to the point where I brought out my Georgian holster pistol. I have never shot it but my son wanted to give it a go. I loaded it up with 30 gr of 3f goex and a patched round .570 ball. I have only a drilled touch hole, no vent liner at this time in the barrel. Every thing was just perfect but when I went to fire it I only got a flash in the pan. Four times I cleaned the touch hole and re-primed and still no go.
It was late and the icy rain was now coming down in sheets caused a general retreat off the mountain. I breached the pistol barrel after getting home and found out the cause of the problem. Years ago I loaned it out for a display and didn't want it shot. I explained this to the borrower as a condition of the loan. To make sure it couldn't be fired I shoved a shot wad card down to block the vent hole from the inside. Well it work really well. The card popped out with the rest of the load on the work bench.
On a separate note while I had it breached I remembered those vent cone cutters that we all saw in the forsale section. I pulled out one and coned The vent hole wile I had the brass barrel in the vice. Holy cow that thing works sweet. Now with out the shot card in the breach and a vent coning I may just get it to go off.
