Liner vs coming the inside of the bore

[Hungry Horse]

 I shoot plenty, but if I have a misfire ( which is a rarity) I often have to hunt for my vent pick. It not something I use on a regular basis. I always figured that if you need a vent pick on a regular basis there is something wrong with your gun. If you pick every time you shoot, you aren't burning out your vent liners, your wallowing them out with your vent pick.
  The last time I went to a big shoot there was a guy there spraying everyone with fire from his touch hole. When other shooters complained, he apologized, and said his gun burned out vent liners like crazy. So, I watched him load,and when he did, he stuck his pick in the touch hole, and then loaded. Upon examination of his vent pick it turned out to be made from a welding torch cleaner. No wonder his vent was alway getting oversized.
 I will concede that the internally coned touch hole liners are quite thin around the actual hole, but that make them vulnerable to vent pick damage as well as burn out. Think about you loading routine, and if you load like an automaton and pick every shot you are going to go through a lot of liners, and it's not burn out.

  Hungry Horse

[bones92]

What about using a feather or a toothpick in the vent while loading?  Surely that won't wear out a vent hole quickly, correct?

[Hungry Horse]

If your flintlock is in good working shape you don't need anything in the vent. Why does everybody have to add steps to everything? Flintlocks are simple guns, from a simpler time, for heaven sake keep it simple.

  Hungry Horse

[bgf]

Even it you don't sin against flintlock vents like I do, liners will burn out.  The softer steel of a barrel with a coned touch hole will likely burn out 10x faster.

For correlation, this poster relates some information supposedly directly from Jim Chambers:
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22391.msg214389#msg214389

Of course, one man's oversized touch hole is another man's secret to fast ignition and self clearing .  So each person has to decide on such things for himself.  I let them go a little bit more than I did back then, probably because my shooting has gotten so bad it really makes no difference , at least offhand.

[bones92]

bgf, I think you may be right.   Mike Brooks and I discussed this via PM, and he also thinks the barrel metal would erode faster than would a steel vent liner.

I spoke with Marvin Kemper yesterday.  He already installed a steel Chambers White Lightning liner, and is browning it to match the original browning finish his dad put on it.   

I'm excited to try it out.  Between a bit faster ignition and (hopefully) fewer misfires due to fouled vent, I think it will help my aggregate score somewhat.

[bgf]

That sounds like a good idea.  If you like the liner and it helps (very unlikely it won't), you're already set up for one, but the browned steel won't stand out badly.  If the steel liner wears too fast, you can always put stainless in while it's a working gun! 

One thing I've been mulling over lately is starting with even smaller hole in liner and giving it a few chances to "burn in".  My theory is that at the apex of the cone, where the web is thinnest will burn fairly quickly.  What I find on my chunk barrels is that there's only so much perfect performance between a hole drilled out for perfect ignition on the first shot and the point where the hole is big enough to affect fine accuracy.  The first match with a new touchhole is best.  I think a factory hole may take 10 or 20 shots to burn out enough, but might last 2x as long in sweet spot.  Of course, that is higher pressure and more compulsive picking than offhand needs, but I'm going to give it a try.

[bones92]

Just curious, but can one treat the steel to withstand erosion better?

Clearly an academic question.

[Black Hand]

Just curious, but can one treat the steel to withstand erosion better?

Clearly an academic question.

Chrome-plating comes to mind. Or use a stainless steel liner...

[bones92]

I got the Barrel back from Marvin Kemper with the vent liner installed. He browned it so well that it is difficult to tell there is a liner. Yesterday, I tried it out at the North Carolina State muzzleloading rifle association annual competition. The rifle does seem to shoot a wee bit faster, but even better is that I had no misfires ( flash in the pan).

I have a suspicion that I'm still using a bit too much primer powder. However oh, I was competing yesterday, therefore had no option of playing around with different priming levels. I do think I will play around with using a bare minimum priming powder when I have time to focus on practice.

[Mike Brooks]

They will go off quite often with no priming powder at all.

[bones92]

Mike, I'd still like to see some photos of how much powder some of the members here use in the pan.   But ultimately, I need time to try different amounts to see how little I need to actually achieve consistent, fast ignitions.

[Daryl]

I fill the pan with prime - probably count on the fingers of one hand, how many flashes in the pan I've had over the last several pounds of 3F I've used in my flinters.

The only time I've had that happen in recent memory, is when using 2f in my .40 - that would be a couple years back - it's lock used to scrape some fouling off the side

of the barrel and block the vent with a chip of fouling. 

Even that happens so infrequently, that I never re-check (close/open then prime) to see if the vent is clear.