Left hand shooter right hand flintlock

[dsully]

Any left hand shooters out there shooting a right hand flintlock? Any problems or issues. I am building a rifle on a tight budget an have been given a new L&R durs egg rt hand lock and will use it if it wont cause too many problems,me being a southpaw

[Robin Henderson]

I had a friend who shot a right hand flinter from the left shoulder and he was always one the ones you had to beat. If I remember right, he had a rifle built as for a left handed shooter but used a right hand lock on the correct side.

[sqrldog]

Maybe EC121 will chime in he does it all the time. Tim

[smylee grouch]

Hi dsully and welcome to the forum. There are a lot of people who do that and I have done so in a hunting situation at least three times. You make do with with what you have sometimes. Would it be possible for you to sell the lock you have and buy a left hand lock?

[rich pierce]

On a double barrel flinter, one of the locks is going to be on the "wrong" side.

[EC121]

If the stock is fairly straight, LH or RH doesn't really matter.  Only problem is sometimes there is a lot of castoff in the RH stock, but you can usually work around that if the gun fits you.  I have found that your nose blocks a lot of the pan flash and movement when you shoot wrong-handed.  Also easier to service the lock.  Just don't look in the touch hole if it doesn't go off.  Give it a few seconds.  I met a man at the CLA who had about 100 or so specks of blackpowder removed from his face from doing that.  Luckily he was wearing glasses.
       I shot beside Houston Harrison one time.  He commented that it was sad when a gun builder had to borrow a wrong-handed rifle to shoot a match.  I told him that he would like it for the above reasons.  About two targets in he looked over with a big grin and said "You are right.  It is easier."

[dsully]

Thanks for the replies. Yes there might be a chance to trade or sell the lock, it will be my winter project so no hurry

[Tizzy]

DSully, as long as you practice with the right handed lock, and you do not build cast off into your rifle geared to a right handed shooter you will be fine. The sighting plane of the rifle will remain the same. I am a firearms instructor for a profession. I have coached multiple left handed shooters to effectively shoot the predominately  right handed AR-15 platform. It all boils down to practice. As a plus, I hear that correct handed rifles maintain better value😁! With practice, all will be ok!

[Don Steele]

I'm a lefty.
I use a right hand T/C flintlock on my Chunk/Table shooting rifle. Shooting from a rest I've found no issues at all using the right hand lock. Well, almost no issues..  While working up a competition load from the bench, I found out the hard way how easy it is to forget to keep my right arm out of the path of the ejecta from the touch hole. My right forearm has a nice pattern of those "black spots" well imbedded in it. It only bled for a little while, but from a lot of spots. 
When I shoot a right hand flintlock offhand, stock fit, trigger pull weight, sight choice [old eyes you know] and the quality of the lock are considerably more important factors than which side the lock is on. Concentrate on sight picture, target image and follow through and the lock-side isn't going to be much of a factor.
All that said...If you build a left hand rifle(cheek piece and cast) with a right hand lock on it, you'll have an oddball for sure, but I've seen them before. Another option would be to build it straight. No cheekpiece, no cast...more "universal" if you will.
As you might can tell...I think about this a lot.  I'm currently looking around for a new flintlock to add to my battery and despite all the "wisdom" I just posted I will admit that I'm wanting to find a totally  lefthand build. 

[taco650]

DSully, as long as you practice with the right handed lock, and you do not build cast off into your rifle geared to a right handed shooter you will be fine. The sighting plane of the rifle will remain the same. I am a firearms instructor for a profession. I have coached multiple left handed shooters to effectively shoot the predominately  right handed AR-15 platform. It all boils down to practice. As a plus, I hear that correct handed rifles maintain better value😁! With practice, all will be ok!

Agreed!

However, do you know which eye is your dominate eye?  I was trying to teach someone to shoot an AR once and they were right handed but couldn't seem to get the sights lined correctly so their shots were like a 40yd shotgun pattern but we were shooting at 15yards!  I then had them shoot it left handed (which they were reluctant to do because it felt really weird to them) and suddenly their groups were the size of an orange.  It was all caused by being left eye dominant.

[EC121]

We were shooting the other day, and one fellow was having trouble hitting with his new flintlock.  I happened to notice that when he used the spotting scope he used his left eye.  After we had him do the dominant eye test.  Turns out he is left eye dominant.  But we couldn't convince him to try it lefthanded.  Too awkward he said.  You can lead a horse to water....!

[Jerry V Lape]

As a hunter education instructor I always taught the dominant eye test.  Amazing how many students were opposite eye dominant, including two of my grandkids.  We would switch them at the range during the firing of .22s and the kids were always surprised how quickly they got the handling feeling familiar and how much better they shot.  With shotguns the switch was even more important.  Many adults weren't willing to switch shoulders however, they just closed the dominant eye which isn't an especially good situation with shotguns.  As I warned the kids in the class, the adults would be the slow learners and we  would need the kids to be patient us while we worked it out for them.  Never had a female of any age resist the switch so the problem must be testosterone.   

[dsully]

Thanks everybody for the advice,i am left eye dominant and the stock has very little cast off

[Bob Roller]

On a double barrel flinter, one of the locks is going to be on the "wrong" side.

Rich,
You beat me to the key board.Did you get that lock I sent?

Bob Roller

[Darkhorse]

Thanks everybody for the advice,i am left eye dominant and the stock has very little cast off

Then I would do it the correct way and trade the lock for a quality LH Lock. I want a stock with cast "on" but a straight stock would be preferable to one with cast "off". I am left eye dominate and own several LH bolts and 2 LH flintlocks.

[Daryl]

We were shooting the other day, and one fellow was having trouble hitting with his new flintlock.  I happened to notice that when he used the spotting scope he used his left eye.  After we had him do the dominant eye test.  Turns out he is left eye dominant.  But we couldn't convince him to try it lefthanded.  Too awkward he said.  You can lead a horse to water....!

As long as he closes the left eye, there is no problem using his right eye. If he shoots both eyes open- he'll likely miss all the time.  I am somewhat cross dominant, that is, my dominance shifts from

right to left and back if I shoot with both eyes open with sights.  The dominance test always shows me right eye dominant. I'm just getting ready to touch her off and then I am looking at the side

of the rifle. Dang! Close the left eye and No Probmem!  When wing shooting with a smoothbore, I usually shoot both eyes open - swing fast, pass by a foot and slap the trigger(flinter) - dead bird or clay dust.

[Carney Pace]

Having been left eyed dominate and right handed and a flint lock shooter all a left handed gun does it confuse,  me total awkward.

Use a right hand built gun with NO cast off.  No problems, totally confuses people taking pictures.  You will be told that the flash will bother you. If you watch the sights, like you are supposed to you never see the flash.  If you see the flash you miss what you are shooting at, a lot of right hand shooters cannot shoot a flintlock because of this.

Carney

[Dave Patterson]

We were shooting the other day, and one fellow was having trouble hitting with his new flintlock.  I happened to notice that when he used the spotting scope he used his left eye.  After we had him do the dominant eye test.  Turns out he is left eye dominant.  But we couldn't convince him to try it lefthanded.  Too awkward he said.  You can lead a horse to water....!

Sounds like The Bride:  right-hand shooter, but STRONGLY left-eye-dominant... and you just AIN'T gonna change one little thing about what or how she shoots, whether pistol, rifle, or bow! 

On the other hand, I'd sure never want to have to compete against her rifle shooting.

If it ain't broke...