Do you beleive that a resting flint should point right at your vent? If so, and your flints are oriented in the cock for this, do you need to "shim" the rear underside of your flints to accomplish this? If not, does the geometry of your lock naturally promote such an alignment? Mine don't.
I find my flints on my guns want to rest forward of their vents. I've used wood, extra leather and so forth to shim them in a way to get them to line up with the vent when at rest. When found this, I think the angle of the flint to the frizzen is awkward to say the least. That's why I ask.
Any pictures welcome.
Look forward to your thoughts on this as I'm hoping to speed up ignition on one particular gun and am running out of ideas.
Thanks and best regards, Skychief
I have never "shimmed" a flint and I started shooting FLs in the 1960s.
Where do the sparks land?
If they go right in the pan its probably working OK.
I have significantly improved a lock's speed by tipping the cock down a few degrees to change the angle to the frizzen. I have also SLOWED a lock doing this and had to put angle back where it was.
Now. Are the springs weak? Does the spring pressure increase or stay the same as the cock moves to the at rest position? If the force drops too much the flint drag on the steel may slow the cock fall and slow pan opening and so sparks to the pan.
Do you get white or pale yellow lively sparks? Sometimes some chrome and/or molybdenum alloy gets into the castings and this will not spark well on a belt sander much less in the lock. So its could be that the frizzen needs to be faced with 1070-1095.
Does the cock travel all the way down? There are otherwise good locks on the market that have been changed for whatever reason so the the cock, IMO, stops too soon. If the mainspring is well away from the bottom of the lockplate when the cock is at rest there may be issues here. The sparks don't just fall into the pan. They need to forced there by the flint as it comes off the bottom of the frizzen. If most go to the front of the pan the frizzen may be opening too soon of the cock stops too soon or has the wrong angle.
The frizzen spring needs to be string enough the give the flint a good bite on the steel.
Is the steel to hard? Sometimes a REALLY hard steel will not spark well. I would put it in a preheated 375 degree oven for an hour (degrease well). Make SURE its not over 380 degrees. I use TWO oven thermometers to check the temp.
We also must remember that a large percentage of the original rifles we see were RECONVERTED the flint or otherwise changed with whatever parts could be found the kinda sorta fit. This was done to (take your choice) replace a missing lock or parts, correct a really ugly conversion, make the rifles worth more on the collector market or to give the collector more FL rifles for his collection. As a result the parts used may have very poor geometry from the standpoint of actually working. So trying to recreate the cock/frizzen/pan on and "original" rifle can be a mistake. I would also point out that some of the cheap locks from Birmingham England at least in the 19th c had very poor geometry and were made to sell really cheap. As a result we need to use locks of proven utility or those made of castings from a GOOD original lock that has not been "improved" or changed but someone at the foundry or by the "lock maker" for some unknown reason.
Dan
