To pick or not to pick, that is the question

[Daryl]

I have seen here oft times of guys noting their guns fired with ZERO powder in the pan. I do not say it cannot happen, but have attempted to get it to happen
a number (lkike20) times and it never has, for me.  That is, I pricked the vent after loading, to make sure no powder was poking in the flash channel, then made sure no powder granules were
any where around or in the pan, then 'dry fired' the lock 20 times, knapped the flint on about the 8th attempt, when I saw no sparks, then continues dry firing the lock to the 20th attempt.
It did not go off, and from this, I am not saying it could NEVER go off, just that it does not or has not happened for me as often as it was reported to happen - here.

An overly large vent hole would certainly assist in a non-primed gun going off.

I would suggest that is your lock had an exceptionally deep 1/2 cock notch, or a a dog-lock or 1/2 cock safety, that was applied after closing the frizzen, that the gun would be quite safe loading
if 1/2 cocked - indeed, loading at 1/2  cock with hammer closed was the method most often used, especially with self-priming pans.

I am still not suggesting we or anyone does this, just trying to address the reasons for the criticism of this method of loading.

[Arcturus]

Unless in a big hurry, I generally drive a thin wire pick through the vent right before priming and very rarely ever have misfires. 

As to guns firing with no prime, one of the very few flash-in-the-pans I ever experienced happened a few years back while squirrel hunting.  Whoosh! Prime burned up but no shot.  Squirrel still cutting a hickory nut in the same spot, never moved.  So I just quickly re-cocked without ever taking my sights off the squirrel and fired again.  BANG.  Dead squirrel.  A few moments later I thought about how I hadn't re-primed... (and how one needs to be careful even with an unprimed pan.)  This was admittedly with a Caywood lock with an outside-coned touch hole, so I'm sure that increased the chances of a lucky spark doing the job with no powder in the pan.

[little joe]

Many years ago I had a 20 ga. fowler. The lock was a sparker. You could work with the lock and get the sear up on the half cock shoe and the gun would go off about   1 in 7-8 times with no powder in the pan That,s the story, take it for what its worth.

[Dennis Glazener]

I have seen here oft times of guys noting their guns fired with ZERO powder in the pan. I do not say it cannot happen, but have attempted to get it to happen
a number (lkike20) times and it never has, for me.  That is, I pricked the vent after loading, to make sure no powder was poking in the flash channel, then made sure no powder granules were
any where around or in the pan, then 'dry fired' the lock 20 times, knapped the flint on about the 8th attempt, when I saw no sparks, then continues dry firing the lock to the 20th attempt.
It did not go off, and from this, I am not saying it could NEVER go off, just that it does not or has not happened for me as often as it was reported to happen - here.

An overly large vent hole would certainly assist in a non-primed gun going off.

I would suggest that is your lock had an exceptionally deep 1/2 cock notch, or a a dog-lock or 1/2 cock safety, that was applied after closing the frizzen, that the gun would be quite safe loading
if 1/2 cocked - indeed, loading at 1/2  cock with hammer closed was the method most often used, especially with self-priming pans.

I am still not suggesting we or anyone does this, just trying to address the reasons for the criticism of this method of loading.

I read about guns sometimes fireing without a prime in the pan and seriously doubted it would happen without having a huge vent hole. I decided to try it in my Early Dickert rifle with a Chambers Siler lock and Chambers white lighting liner. The lock has always been very reliable. I had drilled the vent out to .625 and had less than 200 round through the rifle. I had it loaded with my normal load of 75 grains of Goes 3F. I tried it with out priming and it fired as normal as if I had primed it! I was shocked. Tried it a couple of other times and it did not fire. So I believe they will fire without priming but I would no bet on it.
Sennis

[Pukka Bundook]

Not to be tried at home, but I once had a 16 bore fowling piece in the workshop, and thought I'd check the spark.  Was sitting down and watching the pan, gun on its side.
If you are up to speed you will have gathered I'd forgot it was loaded, (but not primed) and yes, it did go off.   Face full of powder and fortunately a big oak plank caught the charge.
Foolish yes, but the truth.   

[Mike from OK]

It is my thought that the early flint locks did not have touch hole liners, just a hole bored into the breech end of the barrel at the pan.  Over time with shooting, the flash hole enlarged due to the softer steel used in fire arms of the era.  Putting a quill or pick into the touch hole prior to loading helped to keep the powder from blowing out the flash hole when the ball was seated.  This is just my reasoning for this old method.  as stated in an earlier post, it is generally not needed with today's firearms.

This makes sense.

You can't get a feather quill in the touch hole of my rifle... Well, I suppose you could if you hunted and hunted for a feather with a small enough quill. Or if you carefully whittled one down. But that seems like a colossal waste of time and effort for something that would break or fall out and get lost.

Now if the touch hole on my rifle had eroded enough to accept a quill... My sister's Australorp rooster would always be missing those beautiful black and green tail feathers. Lol

Mike