Flintlock in wet weather

[wet willy]

How to assure a flinter will fire after being in wet weather?

I've seen numerous posts on cow's knees, poncho, carry-under-your-shirt, etc.

Anyone tried to apply a thin film of: beewax, patch lube, SnoSeal, Crisco, etc around the lip of the pan?

[mark esterly]

i run a bead down the lock side of the barrel/stock joint and around the lock and frizzen and pan.  basically everywhere i think water would run.  i'm careful not to bump the frizzen and i don't open it to check the powder.  while i don't recall ever being in a real downpour the gun has always fired.

[pathfinder]

A little grease around the pan will help. Noting beats keeping the lock area covered. Cow's knee and under my arm or coat.

[Black Jack]

A couple of things that work for some people in wet weather are to dump the priming powder after a couple of hours or so to get rid of powder that may have absorbed enough moisture from the air to become damp and reprime with fresh powder. Also, some folks will substitute 3F for 4F for the priming charge on the theory that 3F, with less surface area due to the particles being larger, will absorb moisture slower than 4F. This is in combination with using the cow's knee as previously mentioned.

[Bill Paton]

I've run grease out of an eye-medicine tube which has about a 1/32" hole in the tip to place it exactly around the pan carefully before closing the frizzen. As already mentioned, the barrel/frizzen junction needs sealing, too. And I've bedded a barrel with hot bees wax to prevent water running down the barrel inlet channel, past the lock plate, and into the vent. Keeping the muzzle always lower than the lock is helpful.  I like the previous suggestions, and , yes, I have had failures. I've even occasionally "converted " a hunt to percussion when the rain was bad.

[Dphariss]

This actually works. Coat with SnoSeal.
Anything less is a Band-aid.

Dan

[elk killer]

instead of keeping the pan primed,,just put a toothpick or feather in the touch hole..
when you need to shoot prime then.
no worrys of damp powder...

[Roger Fisher]

This answer may be deemed to be snotty; but really isn't meant to be....since I agree with the info above.  You will find that as the years pile on to your ol grey head you will tend to stay home when it rains... and many of your old hunting buddies have fallen.


btw. A percussion ignition will drown out also and sometimes quickly.  One drop onto then into the nipple is all it takes...

[Hungry Horse]

 For years I shot at the Tall Trees Rendezvous in Crescent City Calif. For about the first dozen years we shot at a location called Wilson Creek. You could hear the Pacific ocean at night, we were that close. Mornings were so foggy, you could eat it for breakfast. I found that 4F turned to mud before it got in the pan. An old trade call Trade Jack told me to prime from my horn, and forget 4F, since the old timers didn't use priming powder anyway. I did, and never looked back. After literally years, of standing, and waiting, for some nimrod to clean the black mud out of his skeeter nosed priming horn, and having experienced the detonation of a couple of priming horns, and/or flasks, at other venues. I think I made the right decision. Besides I'm so old now I can't flinch fast enough to make any difference.

                   Hungry Horse

[pathfinder]

This answer may be deemed to be snotty; but really isn't meant to be....since I agree with the info above.  You will find that as the years pile on to your ol grey head you will tend to stay home when it rains... and many of your old hunting buddies have fallen.

Agreed! I once set up my bag according to Mark Baker's suggestions,you know,high and tight so when your running through the wood's thing's aren't going to clatter and bang when leaping over those log's?  Well,while sittin there "hunting" it dawned on me that the day's of me "Runnin' through the wood's" are way behind me! My bag and stuff are now comfy!

20- never kept me from the wood's 25 years ago,heck,even 10 years ago. And wet weather didnt keep me home either.

As far as the 3 vs 4f,I've heard that 3f is graphite coated and 4f isn't.

[hanshi]

This answer may be deemed to be snotty; but really isn't meant to be....since I agree with the info above.  You will find that as the years pile on to your ol grey head you will tend to stay home when it rains... and many of your old hunting buddies have fallen.

Agreed! I once set up my bag according to Mark Baker's suggestions,you know,high and tight so when your running through the wood's thing's aren't going to clatter and bang when leaping over those log's?  Well,while sittin there "hunting" it dawned on me that the day's of me "Runnin' through the wood's" are way behind me! My bag and stuff are now comfy!

20- never kept me from the wood's 25 years ago,heck,even 10 years ago. And wet weather didnt keep me home either.

As far as the 3 vs 4f,I've heard that 3f is graphite coated and 4f isn't.

Okay, you guys beat me to it.  For those of us well past the senior citizen bar, comfort does take on a real importance.  I stay at home if the day is breezy, too far below freezing or rainy.  I use to hunt those days regardless but not for a while, now.  I'll still go out into fog, sprinkle or misty rain but that's it.  My days out hunting are scarcely half what they were even five or six years ago.  I do remember being out in pouring rain with a ML in my youth; no more.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I had the occasion to chase down a wounded deer a couple years ago.  It had snowed heavily the night prior, and was now melting.  Wet snow was dripping and falling in sheets from the trees, and there was no way to keep my flint rifle dry except with a cow's knee, or a cover like Dan's.  My 'knee' is made from soft leather well oiled with sno seal.  Also imperative, carry a pan brush.

[Dphariss]

This answer may be deemed to be snotty; but really isn't meant to be....since I agree with the info above.  You will find that as the years pile on to your ol grey head you will tend to stay home when it rains... and many of your old hunting buddies have fallen.

Agreed! I once set up my bag according to Mark Baker's suggestions,you know,high and tight so when your running through the wood's thing's aren't going to clatter and bang when leaping over those log's?  Well,while sittin there "hunting" it dawned on me that the day's of me "Runnin' through the wood's" are way behind me! My bag and stuff are now comfy!

20- never kept me from the wood's 25 years ago,heck,even 10 years ago. And wet weather didnt keep me home either.

As far as the 3 vs 4f,I've heard that 3f is graphite coated and 4f isn't.

Granulation does not change the coating on the grains. Goex is graphited, Swiss is not. Mad Monk might have more on what is and isn't at laflinandrand.com
Graphite is a way get a polish on powder that is not really polished all that well.

Dan

[Dogshirt]

This answer may be deemed to be snotty; but really isn't meant to be....since I agree with the info above.  You will find that as the years pile on to your ol grey head you will tend to stay home when it rains... and many of your old hunting buddies have fallen.


btw. A percussion ignition will drown out also and sometimes quickly.  One drop onto then into the nipple is all it takes...

Ain"t never in near 40 years EVER had a wet related misfire with percussion. Which, judging from the rate of fire at more than a few WET rondys I go to is WAY more than can be said of the rock clunkers I've shot against.

[Don Getz]

Dogshirt...........you should make the trek down to Tennessee to the Alvin York chunk gun shoot.   They usually have over
200 shooters, shoot in two relays with about 100 in each.   You will shoot ten, one shot targets, no time limit on any target.
I have found that the only thing that holds up shooting is a percussion gun that won't go off..........Don

[smylee grouch]

If my flinter doesnt go off its easy to fix but I have had less luck getting a perc. gun to fire if it gets wet.  Flintlocks Forever   my moto

[Old Bob]

In the process now of converting a percussion rifle I built to flint. It was supposed to be a companion piece to a flint rifle I'd built earlier (both .40s), but now I'll have two flint .40s.  If a flint gun does misfire, it's a heap easier to clear than a cap gun.