Black powder for a flintlock frizzen

[Captn Jack]

I have lots of F1.5 and fff black powder. Would it be safe if I ground small amounts at a time up in my granite mortar & pistil fine enough for use in my frizzen?

[rich pierce]

3F works fine. I use 2F in my .69 smoothbore. I’d not mess with it. Id be concerned that grinding finished powder makes it take up moisture more.

[Seth Isaacson]

In a pinch, we've poured a bit of 3f into the cap of a bottle of powder and ground it a bit using the flat end of a powder measure when the 3f wouldn't set off a flintlock rifle reliably. We subsequently drilled the vent out just a tad more and no longer had issues. As Rich pointed out, most of the time 3f should work just fine as priming powder.

Also just a bit of info on terminology since you're new, the powder goes in the pan. The frizzen is the pan cover/steel that is struck by the flint. There are/were frizzens built as powder reservoirs though that automatically primed the pan when the frizzen was closed, but those were never remotely common.

[smylee grouch]

I got out to a hunting stand once and found I had left my prime back in camp. I used 1&1/2 Swiss in the pan ground up somewhat with the end of my short starter. Two hrs,. latter I got a shot on a nice Bear and the lock fired as fast as with regular prime.

[walks with gun]

   I prime with FFG and have for 25 years.  If your gun is functioning properly you won't need FFFFG.