For Pure Enjoyment Of Shooting - Flint or Cap?

[Candle Snuffer]

I own and shoot both flint and cap lock muzzleloaders.  I enjoy shooting both ignition systems, and I have found that I get the most enjoyment out of shooting my flintlocks over my caplocks.  I'm not as accurate with my flintlocks, but I enjoy them a lot more.

How about the rest of you out there.  What's your favorite?

[hanshi]

C. S., I'm with you on the flintlocks being more fun.  They require much more of the "human element".  Percussion guns are pretty straight forward and not much variability shooting them.  You have to make friends with a flintlock and learn its quirks.  That's what's so great.  I have my favorite caplocks, too.  Having said this, I think "fun" has a lot to do with the individual gun as much as ignition type.  I shoot flinters overwhelmingly and hunt almost exclusively with them (rare occasion will take a percussion into the game fields).  I guess I come as close to being a flint purist as possible & still drop  hammer, one in a great while, on cap.

[northmn]

I quit shooting caplock shotguns and use BP cartridge in a double hammer gun as that is just as enjoyable to me.  Same for percussion rifles in that I use a BP 45-70 load.  If I shoot ML's I shoot flint even wing shooting.  I have to get the parts together for a double flint shotgun.

DP

[roundball]

I settled exclusively into Flintlock shooting and hunting almost 10 years ago...both rifles & smoothbores...and once I made the switch, I just never got any satisfaction out of going back and shooting a caplock again...as a result I've gradually sold off every caplock I had except one beautifully stocked .45cal I've had for a long time...but its laid oiled in its case for years.

I sometimes wonder if I'm still in such a state of awe that the dang contraptions work as perfectly as they do, that I just keep going back to the range to be sure
 

[ottawa]

i started in flint then switched to cap when BP was so hard to find now that ive found this site a flinter is in the near future but i like them both just wish i had the time a space to shoot as much as i would like

[Rich]

When I first started shooting, I wanted a flinter. I was talked out of it and went with a cap gun. A few years later I got a flinter and now that's all that I shoot (other than some modern stuff on occasion).

[Daryl]

Started with cap - hated the thought of a flint - tried to shoot a flint rifle I made back in the 80's & wouldn't stick withit and make myself shoot the flint so I had Taylor convert it to cap.  Afterall, shooting a cap lock is like shooting a modern rifle (or shotgun) that holds pefectly.  I've beren shooting nothing but flints for a number of years now and am doing better all the time - yet, when the opportunity arose, grabbed up a 'Musketoon' for some tests I've wanted to conduct for many years.  Now, where the heck is the potassium chlorate? 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

With all those musket caps I gave you, surely you aren't considering what I think you're considering.

[Daryl]

I would never do anything dangerous- hahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaha!

[hanshi]

Oh, and another reason I love flinters is that I've never been bothered by the pan flash; but I have had caps "spit" back on me fairly frequently.  Good reason to wear glasses for shooting either.

[Roger Fisher]

Well now I shoot both and don't mind admitting it!

[Larry Pletcher]

I started with cap because it was a cheap way to start -Dixie parts.  I thought flints were too expensive and unreliable.  Times change.  I still have a LRML for Oak Ridge that's cap.  About everything else is flint.  For a long time I have saved for a flint gun put together by someone much better than me.  (I like pretty guns and can't make one.)  I'm on a waiting list for what Mike Miller calls a cousin of a J. Dickert rifle.  Can't wait.  Ya, I vote for flints.

Regards,
Pletch

[David Rase]

The noise from the cap snapping bothers me more then the flash in the plan from a flintlock.  Though I do have one percussion Hawkin that I take out and shoot once a year at an annual local tri-club shoot just so I have a reason to clean and oil it.  Shot it pretty good this year if I do say so myself.
DMR

[ehoff]

I shoot my cap lock alot more than my flinter, but having built them both I can't say I enjoy one more than the other.

[Mike R]

I shoot my flinters more now [like others I started with a caplock], but still enjoy traditional caplocks--and when I go squirrel hunting, and dream like I am  my gr grandad alone in the southern woods, I'll take along my caplock Tenn rifle like he used [just an old man's fancy]...

[Candle Snuffer]

I should have added that like many, I also started out with the caplock rifle, then got into the flintlocks about 16 years ago.   Over the last 6 to 8 years I have really turned most of my interest towards the flintlock, but I still maintain a soft spot for my caplock rifles.  They still have a place for my enjoyment in shooting traditional muzzle loaders.

For me, I think the switch from cap to flint was a progressive thing that happened during the time when us buckskinners started to sway away from the caplocks and took up the flintlock rifles as a more PC firearm of the fur trade era of what we recognize as an 1840 cut off date.  However, both ignition systems are more then welcome at the doins, but these days we see (at least the doins I go to) more of a 40% caplock -vs- 60% flintlock turnout.  Back in the earlier times of buckskinning those numbers would have been reversed if not maybe 20% flint -vs- 80% cap?

It traditional muzzle loading, and it's fun!!!

[hanshi]

Yep, all traditional and that's what's important.  Like most I also started with caplocks and still enjoy & shoot them.  But I'm more likely to be found with a flinter in my hands, especially when hunting.

[Mike R]

candle snuffer---an interesting observation about the spread of the caplock--in 1831 merchants in St Louis [who were supplying alot of the western trade] advertised they had over 2 million perc caps on hand to sell--someone was buying them.   On the other hand the flintlock held on unitl the civil war in many backwoods areas of the south--at which time most were updated to caps.  JJ Audabon who traveled widely said the first caplock gun he saw was in 1830 in New Orleans--he was duly impressed when its owner demonstrated it would fire with the lock under water.  I believe the caplock took over pretty quick in the 1830s-40s.

[hanshi]

Also remember that even in the early days of the war "Tween the States" some units were armed with flintlock muskets.  There just weren't enough rifles at first to arm that many soldiers.  And caps weren't like .22s and found in every corner store.  We were mostly rural until well into the 20th century and some people might be a long way from a source.

[Daryl]

Seems to me I remember reading about Bedford County Flinters being made well into the '70's and '80's, also those possibly made in Tenn. and Kentucky.
The US Military itself didn't abandon the flintlock until 1842, seems to me, - this noted in Firearms of the American West books.

[Candle Snuffer]

Mike, yes there were a lot of caps available in St. Louis, and if my memory (of what I read) serves me right,  there was quite a few that made their way up to Ft. Union.

Having them on hand and selling them however, I don't know if many would be that axnious to switch from what they were using?  I think it was one of the Henry's that made an attempt at a percussion Northwest gun sometime in the early 1830's that did not do well at all.  They couldn't sell/trade it to the Indians as the Indians preferred their flintlock Northwest guns.

Eventually the percussion system caught on and during its  introduction time there were flintlocks converted to caplocks.  In what numbers I think would be anyones guess?  But it did happen.

My feelings are that yes, there was the potential of a percussion cap zenith trade to be had in St. Louis and up at Ft. Union in the 1830's, but my guess is that it was a slower conversion prossess that didn't take a real hold until the opening of the Oregon Trail.

That's not to say caplocks weren't at Rendezvous, as we know they were.  I just don't think they were there in great numbers.

[JCKelly]

Flintlocks put the Fire back in Firearms

[Daryl]

The Fint reigned supreme for a couple hundred years, then caps arrived in about 1820, to be pretty much replaced with central, pin and rim fires by 1866, although muzzleloading rifles were still being made for regular trade in some parts through until the 20th century.  The cap-gun's reign was short indeed, which lends more 'tradition' to shooting the flinters at their peak of development even the more enjoyable.

Caps are OK - but kind of simple, easy to use and shoot almost without thought.

[Tim Crosby]

 If God had intencded man to shoot a percussion gun he would have scattered caps on the ground instead of flint.

Tim C.

[Majorjoel]

Here! Here! Well said Tim! Not only are flinters more fun to shoot, but they are a real MAN'S weapon of  choice! I have to also add, when I look at a percussion rifle, there is just something missing. The flintlock gives a Kentucky it's balance and a head start to great architecture. Thats my 2 cents on this.