Picking the vent

[Daryl]

Something I don't understand.   I never pick the vent hole.   Jim Chambers went to
great lengths to produce his White Lightning touch hole liners.   These liners were designed to get more powder close to the pan powder.  You get a lot of powder to within a 1/16" or less to the pan powder.   Now, I see that many of you guys want to
push that powder away.....why?..........Don

Good point, Don. 
When loaded, as Dan noted, the powder is visible at the vent, with those liners.  If it isn't, something is blocking it and then one needs to pick the vent to remove the blockage. The flash then sets her off perfectly.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

From time to time, when you seat a ball, for some reason, a little chunk of fouling sometimes is blown out into the flash channel, and blocks the vent.  This is what causes a misfire or a flash in the pan.  In order to get the rifle to discharge, the blockage must be removed.  Most times, when I load, I can see the powder inside the barrel at the vent.  There is no need to pick the vent in this case.  If you pick the vent, be sure your pick is smaller than the vent, and not tapered, or you will certainly enlarge your vent by wear or swaging.  There is very little web material in a WL vent and it is easy to damage it.

[smokinbuck]

Seems to me that picking your vent is like picking your nose, it clears the way for a discharge.
Mark

[Hungry Horse]

 I'd be hard pressed to narrow it down to the nearest mile, if asked where my vent pick is at this moment. A well engineered liner ends most of the vent problems.

                       Hungry Horse

[Don Getz]

Actually, I have a pick attached to the trigger guard with about a 6" piece of fake sinew.   I use it to make sure the touch hole is not plugged, before I pour the charge
down the barrel........Don

[Natureboy]

  I've made an experimental vent pick that I'll try the next time I shoot.  After wiping the bore and running my usual pick through the vent to clear out any fouling crud, and then using a pipe cleaner to polish the vent, I've made a vent device of 1/16 wire which I pushed into the vent until it ran up against my cleaning jag, and then bent at 90 degrees.  It will be held in place by the pan cover while I load, and then extracted, hopefully leaving a clear space to the main charge.  If a few grains follow it into the vent when I pull it out, that should be OK.  I'll let you know.  I'm suffering from "black powder withdrawal" right now, so I plan to shoot soon.

[Hadden West]

The key to success with a flintlock, is clean and dry. It's that simple, provided you have a good flint, frizzen, lock, powder, etc. But if the rifle is set up correctly, then it's just clean and dry. You can pick, before loading, if you want, but take time to wipe the frizzen, the flint, and the pan, with a clean dry rag. I have fewer FTF when I follow this routine. If you wipe out the bore, you might shove fowling down the barrel in front of the touch hole, this is the time to pick the hole. Sometimes I just touch the pick trough the hole and feel for the powder charge, trying not to move anything around, and drop a little ffff in the touch hole. All might be unnecessary but I have people tell me they thought a flintlock was supposed to have a delay, but did not hear one when I fired. I must be doing something right.

[Natureboy]

  I use a dry patch to wipe the flint, frizzen and pan.  It can be used later for cleaning, but it might be better to just toss it, in case there are flint fragments which would scratch the bore.  I've also noticed that 4F priming powder tends to leave a film of carbon on the pan, so after wiping and picking I run a bristly pipe cleaner into the vent and twist it, and sure enough, it comes out with black stuff on it.

[Herb]

I have shot thousands of  shots through flintlocks from the bench.  I do not wipe the bore between shots, though I usually have a cleaning patch on the seater jag.  But sometimes there are flashes in the pan and a failure to fire, even with a large enough flash hole.  I think this must be due to a kernel of powder blocking the flash hole.  I know it sounds impossible, but I have no other explanation.  So if I want to be certain the rifle will go off, as in hunting, I pick the vent.  This tells you four things:  if there is no powder there (you can feel the pick crunch the kernels), you have not put powder down the bore.  If the powder is loose (just had this happen), there is no ball seated on the powder.  If you hit the ball, there is no powder and you have dry-balled  (of course, I have never had this happen....)  And if you feel the pick crunching the powder kernels, you are poking a hole into the powder to have more edges for the flash to ignite.  I just finished a mule deer hunt with my flintlock .58 plains rifle, and each time I got out of the truck (where it is illegal to have a loaded (primed pan) rifle)  to scout I primed the pan, having picked the vent when I loaded the rifle.  Each time I got back in to move on, I dumped the prime.   Yes, you might fire a flintlock dozens of times without picking the vent, but when I want absolute certainity, I pick the vent and tip the 4F priming powder into the vent hole.