Do I have a Frizzen Spring Problem or a flint Problem?

[Burgess_rudy]

I took my Chamber's Virginia rifle out to shoot today which I built a little over a year ago. I haven't shot it much because of few places to shoot black powder firearms. It works flawlessly on the work bench. Great sparks, and all parts working right.  In the field is a different story.

Today after the fourth shot I was having ignition problems. I dry fired the gun and noticed that the flint was striking the frizzen and as the frizzen was opening, the top jaw would strike the heel of the frizzen and preventing it from opening all the way. The frizzen spring has always felt very stiff/heavy to me (Large Siler). I turned the flint over (Bevel up) so it would strike the frizzen higher and that stopped the problem. But I wonder if it is a flint or frizzen spring problem with a little dirt making the frizzen not swing open with bevel down flints.

[Randy Hedden]

Your frizzen should open on its own after it is about 30 degrees open from being struck by the flint.  Check this first, but I think maybe your problem would go away if you used a bit longer flint or placed your present flints a bit farther out in the cock jaws.

Randy Hedden

[Acer Saccharum]

Is this a roller frizzen, or traditional tit?

On halfcock, I like to have the flint just about touch the frizzen on my large Siler. This lock is fussy about flint location. On the John Bailes lock, I have a lot more leeway about flint placement. Experiment at home in dim light for best flint location, and record it, maybe on a slip of paper in the patchbox or something. This is especially important if you shoot several guns and are forgetful on top of that.

Acer

[T*O*F]

Randy is totally correct.  I finally had to replace a really good flint last week because of the same problem.  It only had 100 shots on it, but it started hanging the jaw on the frizzen.  I'll use the flint on a different gun and get some more use from it.

If you don't hand pick your flints, you will always have problems.  Each gun has an ideal flint configuration.  Once you find that ideal flint, you should hand pick your flints to match it.  The ideal flint is usually flat, both top and bottom.  Out of a bag of 100 flints, I would find 20-35 ideal flints.  The rest I sell to guys who don't know any better.   

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Flint length and it's proximity to the frizzen face at half bent, is often critical.  Also, when I tune a lock, I try to have the frizzen open by itself or rather under the compression of the frizzen spring, when it reaches 3/8" off the pan.  This involves any one of a number of approaches including filing the frizzen's tit (very careful here) changing the angle of the tip of the top leaf of the frizzen spring, increasing the pressure of the spring, moving the cam lump either forward or rearward so that the tit goes over the top sooner or later.
Chamber's locks usually don't need anything, but occasionally I can improve the action just a little by futzing for several hours.
Great flints are about 1/4" thick for a big lock like the Virginia, flat on top and 7/8" in length, again for that lock.  Flints that have a bit of a peak can sometimes be ground on a green stone slowly and carefully too remove the peak and make them flat.  Don't overdo this, cause the flint will suddenly shatter.  I sometimes CA a piece of pine to the top of a flint, and then grind it off to make the flint flat.  I put these special flints into the shot bag that is allocated for that rifle.  I like to have a bag and horn for each individual rifle or gun, complete with everything I'll need.  Making up these sets is great fun.

[Burgess_rudy]

I just measured the flint length from the flint used yesterday and it's just at 7/8ths inch. It's an English flint. The problem stopped when I turned it bevel up which still leaves the possibility that by striking higher on the frizzen it has given the frizzen that fraction of a second it needs to open far enough before the top jaw can strike the heel.

I guess I'll have to shoot it again using only bevel up and see what happens to try an eliminate variables.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Another way to ensure the frizzen opens fully, bevel up or down, is to have only the smallest gap between the edge of the flint and the face of the frizzen at the half cock position.  My Chamber's round faced Virginia lock functions perfectly without interference bevel up or down.  Ignition is faster and surer bevel up.

[rich pierce]

I find that on a fair percentage of locks the frizzen "cams open" late.  I don't like having a lock that has a very narrow range of flints it will use, and that requires special care in instaling the flint.  On a couple of locks on rifles of my own I've adjusted the timing of the "flip open" by changing the shape of the tit on the frizzen, where it rides on the spring.  It's tricky business.  To do it you need to move the pivot point on the tit closer to the pan, further from the nose of the lock.  And it must be done without too much stock removal or making the tit pointy.

As a rule many locks go under-lubricated much of the time.  It helps to lube the pivot bolt and the tit and spring.

[bob in the woods]

My brand new .62 early rifle had it's first trip to the range yesterday. Frizzen was sometimes slow etc in flipping open.  Carefull file work and polishing today fixed it.   I like them to flip open after about 30 % open
and adjustthe bottom "foot"  accordingly.  After a lot of tinkering, the lock is not that picky about flints.
I'm not sure why, but this seems to be coming up on the last few locks I've had.

[Roger Fisher]

Your frizzen should open on its own after it is about 30 degrees open from being struck by the flint.  Check this first, but I think maybe your problem would go away if you used a bit longer flint or placed your present flints a bit farther out in the cock jaws.

Randy Hedden

I'd near bet the farm that ol Randy is right.  Move that flint out a leather shim behind the flint in the jaws will help do so.... A flinter will work w/o a frizzen spring.

[Burgess_rudy]

I forgot to check the angle at which the frizzen under spring pressure will open on its own. Mine measures at 40 degrees. This might account for some of the problem.

[Artificer]

I've reworked a fairly good number of of Brown Bess, Charleville and even a couple of Austran Musket locks for re-enactors.  When I came back to Revolutionary War reenacting in the late 90's, I found a whole lot of "this generation's" reenactors didn't know as much about choosing flints as when I began in the 70's.   Recently, many of them go to the expense of buying the original French Musket Flints and found those flints didn't work in their muskets because the flints were just too big.  Most reenactors are not "live shoot" competitors, so they often don't have the expertise that shooters do. 
 
What is unusual is the flint size the Japanese Brown Bess seems to prefer is a 7/8" flint with leather backing and setting them up so they are close to the frizzen on half cock as others have mentioned.  Pedersoli muskets seem to like the 1 inch flints.  The Austrian muskets like the 1 inch or even larger.  A whole lot has to do with the shape of the cock/hammer in each lock and in some cases, when the guns were made.

I reworked some frizzen tails so they would work with some sized flints and then a lot of the reenactors would buy the wrong size flints...........talk about wanting to pull your hair out.  So what I wound up doing for many of our folks was to set the lock for one size and record the size and thickness of the leather.  I would also cut three or four leather pieces that worked well for their locks with that flint size and give the leather pieces and a few flints of that size to them - meanwhile warning of dire consequences if they didn't use the leather and flints I gave them. 

[Burgess_rudy]

I just got finished filing the frizzen. It now opens on its own at about 30 degrees. It feels much smoother than it used to probably because there is less drag over a shorter distance. It sparked great on the bench. I'll have to field test it to see if it cures or lessons the problem. Thanks everyone for the input!

[clint e]

I agree sounds like the flint is to short.