Flash hole liner

[Daryl Pelfrey]

If i go with a small liner which i believe is 1/4in. Will any of them be ok? I dont think the white lightning comes in quarter in.
So would you reccomend the. WL  or  1/4in? The ones with the screwdriver slot looks like to me the slot could interfere with ignition.

[Stoner creek]

Chambers makes a White Lightening liner in 1/4 x 32.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Chambers makes White Lightning vent liners in 1/4", 5/16" and 3/8", all with 32 tpi.  They require a special tap and tap drill, just as all taps do.
You won't be happy with a screw driver slot liner.  A liner is not supposed to be removed until it requires replacement.  The slot will get buggered immediately, and you will still need an easy-out to remove it when the time comes.
Get the WL from Chambers...the 1/4" liner is fine, especially on a 13/16" bbl.

[Daryl Pelfrey]

Thanks , i just saw the wL in 14/32. Didnt think it came in that size. Do i need to center it on the flat and position the lock to it.  Or can the liner be position a little above center , but that would make the beveled edge set a little higher thant the top edge of te barrel flat.

[M. E. Pering]

Daryl Pelfrey... It is more important that you position it where it should be in relation to the pan.  It should be centered between the limits of the edges of the pan, and in the 'sunset' position vertically, though a tiny bit higher than this is usually acceptable.

Matt

[Mike Brooks]

The TH liner is the last thing I put in a gun. I like them at the "just sun set position". bottom of the hole right at the top edge of the pan. I used to split the hole in 1/2 but have changed.

I just put a center punch where I would "like" the hole to end up. It doesn't always end up right where that punch mark is originally..

[flehto]

The Chambers 1/4-32  WL is used on all my builds irrespective of bbl size. On the Bucks County builds, the TH is placed high on the bbl flat so the 1/4 dia fits in better. The TH is at the top of the pan and centered on the pan......Fred

[rfd]

... You won't be happy with a screw driver slot liner.  A liner is not supposed to be removed until it requires replacement.  The slot will get buggered immediately, and you will still need an easy-out to remove it when the time comes.  Get the WL from Chambers...the 1/4" liner is fine, especially on a 13/16" bbl.

+1 and oh so true in every respect ... and good luck using an easy-out!

[rfd]

Daryl Pelfrey... It is more important that you position it where it should be in relation to the pan.  It should be centered between the limits of the edges of the pan, and in the 'sunset' position vertically, though a tiny bit higher than this is usually acceptable.

Matt

i wonder about that "sunset position" for a touch hole.  larry pletcher's testing and online results shows that pan powder position is far more important that the touch hole's vertical location.  Larry's test conclusions shown below, though he does not quantify the differences between low and high for the touch hole's location .......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Conclusions:

These conclusions are those of the experimenter. You may have different opinions.

I wish to point out that every trial produced a report that sounded as one sound. The fastest (.032) and the slowest (.060) sounded the same. Even though one was almost twice as fast as the other, the sounds were indistinguishable. So my first conclusion is that the human eye and ear are terrible tools to use to evaluate flintlock performance. If differences can be determined by human senses, then the trial was indeed very slow.

The idea to bank powder away from the vent to improve flint performance is flawed thinking. In every test I conducted, the banked away trials came in last. Percentages varied, but banking the powder away was always slower. I found no evidence to support the old “bank the prime away from the vent.” (In the low vent test, banking powder away was 17% slower; in the high vent test, banking powder away was 23% slower.)

The idea that one should not cover the vent with priming powder because of having to burn through the vent instead of flashing through seems equally flawed. While I did not try to fill the vent, covering the vent did not cause slower times. The closer I could get priming to the vent, the faster and more consistent the results. In fact the consistency I found in positioning the priming powder close to the vent occurred at all vent positions – low, level, and high.

The last conclusion involves the reason for this whole experiment – proper location for the vent in relationship to the pan. I found that the location of the vent in relation to the pan is far more forgiving that we have believed. Tests when the vent was extremely low or high both gave quick reliable ignition. A look at the chart below shows that all vent positions gave fast ignition when primed close to the vent (This is what we learned in the preliminary tests.) Also all vent positions gave uniformly poor performance when the priming powder was banked away from the vent.

————————–Banked way—————-Level Prime—————-Close prime

Low Vent—————–.046—————————.037—————————-.038

Level Vent —————.043—————————- * —————————–.036

High Vent—————–.048—————————.043—————————-.037

*I did not time level priming when testing the level vent/pan position.

I began this series of test thinking that the big variable would be the vent location. However, I am now concluding that it is of minor concern compared to the location of the priming powder in the pan. I still like a vent level with the pan flat - i won’t loose sleep over a pan a little high or low.

All of the work represented here was based on igniting the powder “artificially” using a red-hot copper wire. This was done intentionally to remove the variables in amount, quality, and location of the sparks. In reality the flint shooter must manage his lock to minimize these variables. Regardless of what the experiments show us, the shooter must place priming powder where his sparks will land. Time with his gun will determine this. However the shooter need not be afraid of priming powder too close to the vent – that is to be encouraged. It is far better to have the prime too close than too far away.

[Joe S]

Or, you could just drill a historically correct hole in the barrel and be done with it. Pletcher's data also show no difference in ignition time for a straight hole compared to a coned liner.

[rfd]

i'm also in favor of just drilling a 1/16" hole and no liner.

[RichG]

I've used removable liners for years and never had any problems. screw slot or socket ,both work. Also I don't think the whole location is all that important,as long as its anywhere the primer flash can hit it. Also,how do you remove a white lightning liner without an easy out? .

[Mike Brooks]

I've used removable liners for years and never had any problems. screw slot or socket ,both work. Also I don't think the whole location is all that important,as long as its anywhere the primer flash can hit it. Also,how do you remove a white lightning liner without an easy out? .

Why would you want to remove a liner?

[rfd]

I've used removable liners for years and never had any problems. screw slot or socket ,both work.

i've found the white lightning liners to be much more consistent in ignition.  took me awhile to come 'round to them, but i do now believe they're much better than the slotted or allen socket liners.

Also I don't think the whole location is all that important,as long as its anywhere the primer flash can hit it.

i agree - i think there's a general area for the touch hole and there's no panacea for achieving the "sunset" location.

Also,how do you remove a white lightning liner without an easy out? .

the ez-out is mandatory but it's easy peasy as long as the liner goes in whith a quality anti-seize grease.  but there'll be many thousands of ignitions before that's needed.

[frogwalking]

I drilled a 1/16 hole in a Rice .40 Tennessee barrel in a rifle several years ago.  It was slow to fire, which did not bother me much as I am so slow these days I seldom flinch.  I did object to the fact that the rifle was not reliable.  I coned the outside twice,  using two different angles, with little improvement.  I finally installed a white lightning liner, filed an appropriate notch out of the breechplug, and the rifle was thereafter fast and reliable.  (Late Ketland lock) The reason I did not install the Chambers liner to begin with was I tried to set the lock a little too far back to look like the original guns, and did not want to notch the breechplug.  This is only one instance, but it sold me on white lightning liners.  your experience may be different.

[Joe S]

With a straight hole, the trick is to keep enlarging the hole until you get reliable ignition. My 10 bore has a 0.078 flash hole, and it's every bit as fast as my guns that have White Lightening liners and 0.062 holes.  As far as reliability goes, I never have to clean the hole with the Chambers liner, but with my 10 bore, I need to clean every few shots, but that's shooting very dirty 1F powder too.

I'm primarily a hunter so all I really care about is the first shot, and I find a straight hole to be 100% reliable and fast for the first shot.

[frogwalking]

I mentioned the barrel in which I direct drilled the flash hole to give an idea of the barrel thickness at the hole location.  In  not mention this because I don't remember the final size of the flash hole before installing the liner.  On a small flash hole, a few thousandths in diameter makes a significant increase in the area of the hole.  My experience when using a thin walled barrel, is that a direct drilled hole works well.  This note is just for clarification and is only my very limited experience.  A direct drilled vent may work for you.  Apparently it worked for many colonial era shooters.

[Notchy Bob]

This is an interesting topic, with some great posts.  The video and commentary by rfd in Reply #8 above shows excellent science.  However, the person in the video mentioned that the test barrel had a White Lightnin' vent liner installed, and it looked to me as if the flash hole had been enlarged.  Any comments on this?  I've heard of enlarging the hole in the WL vent liner, which would result in some loss of "performance" due to the increased gas leakage, but I don't know how significant that would be in practical terms, in the field.

Jose Gordo's post (Reply #9, I think) mentioned "Pletcher's data," comparing vent liners coned on the inside versus straight holes, and showing no difference.  Where can I find these data?

I had a rifle (subsequently sold) which had a 7/8" straight octagon barrel in .50 caliber.  The builder installed a WL vent liner, which looked fine on the outside but protruded into the bore.  This created a fouling trap and also made it very difficult to clean the breech.  I was not happy with that arrangement.  One individual told me the builder "should have" radiused the protruding material to match to radius of the bore... Maybe so, but whether the builder should have or shouldn't, he didn't.  That rifle was a pain to clean.

I have four flintlock smoothbores with unlined, straight-drilled vents, and could tell no difference in lock time between these and the rifle with the vent liner, with the caveat that I might not be sensitive enough to detect a difference measuring in hundredths or thousandths of a second.  Of the four smoothbores, one (a Caywood NW gun) was deeply coned from the outside.  One (a fowler by Jackie Brown) was very lightly chamfered on the outside.  The other two just have plain drilled holes.

So, my experience with this is admittedly limited, but I'm thinking the vent liner, coned from the inside, may be an advantage for a barrel with a very thick wall at the breech, but may not be as necessary and may even be a disadvantage in a thinner barrel.

Finally, in reading some of the period literature of the early 19th century, I've found a few references to "self-priming" flintlocks.  Obviously, this means some powder from the main charge leaks through the touchhole during loading.  This was actually considered an advantage, back in the day, especially when running buffalo.  Palliser specifically stated a "self priming" flintlock was the preferred weapon for this purpose, as percussion caps could be difficult to handle while on the back of a running horse.  In addition, a few people on various forums have commented on the paucity of surviving original priming horns, suggesting that the old-timers primed from the main horn.  I saw a painting by Charles Deas which showed a trapper doing this very thing.  However, maybe some of them didn't have to prime at all, as a separate step, if powder from the main charge leaked out the touchhole during loading.  I think this may also help explain why the Canadian natives held on to their flintlock northwest guns for so long... If the guns self-primed, there would be no need to handle percussion caps with cold fingers or mittened hands.

Best regards,


Notchy Bob

[Joe S]

Frogwalking – My 10 bore has a wall thickness of 0.484”, so fairly thick walled by current standards. Incidentally, with a 0.062 flash hole, the gun would go off every once in a while, maybe one out of three tries as I recall. I just kept enlarging the flash hole until I got reliable ignition.

Notchy Bob - All of Pletcher’s date through 2014 is referenced here: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=32160.0

For straight hole vs. White Lightening, here’s a summary:
Straight Hole N=20   
Flash hole diameter = 0.0625   
Average = 0.044
Standard Deviation = 0.032

White Lightening Liner
N=60   
Flash hole diameter = 0.0625   
Average =0.032
Standard Deviation = 0.021

The White Lightening average was 0.008 seconds faster than the straight hole. However, this difference was not statistically significant, which means that if you ran the experiment again, the straight hole average could be faster than the White Lightening average. In any case, even if the difference was real, we normal mortals couldn’t tell the difference anyway. 

I've heard of enlarging the hole in the WL vent liner, which would result in some loss of "performance" due to the increased gas leakage, but I don't know how significant that would be in practical terms, in the field

There are some data and discussion here: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=32573.msg312716#msg312716

[flehto]

My .45 squirrel LR has shot 100s of squirrels and a couple of  thousands of shots have been fired since I built it in 1976 and it has a SS 1/4-2o  Allen set screw liner  w/ the hex towards the bore. The TH dia is 1/16 and in lieu of a screwdriver  slot, 2 angled slots 180 degrees apart on the  OD  allow a small spanner wrench made from a screwdriver to be used. 

If the flint is fairly sharp, this LR has never failed to fire and  all of my builds since then  have had WLs installed w/ the same results.  Never had to be concerned about the amount or location of the prime and seeing I use a wire brush to remove fouling, have never had a clogged TH.  A lot  has been written  about prime location in the pan , but when hunting , the LR assumes many different positions {w/ the attendant prime shift}   of which I  am not  concerned about because the LR always goes bang.

Would I consider a plain drilled TH?  No,  and the reason is that  I don't want calls from the customers complaining that their LRs  fail  to fire every so often.

This is not an attempt to convince some to use a TH liner....just my experience in using one.....Fred

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Fred, can you post an image of this liner?  Sounds interesting.

[flehto]

Hi Taylor....Hopefully the dwg  explains everytthing.  I now use the Chambers WL but it isn't any faster or more reliable than this homade set screw liner. ....Fred


langston hughes mother

[bgf]

I use the screw slot liners with a cone and don't have any problems with them.  They probably wear a little faster than WL because of the slot, but it takes no time to change them with a screw driver, and I've never had to use an ezout!  I've also removed them for a dry ball at the range...handy.  I only remove them in emergency or when they need changing and use choke tube lube when installing.   The chunk barrels take them full length but enlarge the hole fairly quickly, so I take them out, cut to length and install in my offhand rifle.

Flehto,
That would be something I'd buy, just because the hole would last a little longer.  It would be worth the extra tool in my shooting box!

[rfd]

... The builder installed a WL vent liner, which looked fine on the outside but protruded into the bore.  This created a fouling trap and also made it very difficult to clean the breech.  I was not happy with that arrangement.  ...

this is why i pull the breech plug when installing a vent liner.

[Mad Monk]

I use the screw slot liners with a cone and don't have any problems with them.  They probably wear a little faster than WL because of the slot, but it takes no time to change them with a screw driver, and I've never had to use an ezout!  I've also removed them for a dry ball at the range...handy.  I only remove them in emergency or when they need changing and use choke tube lube when installing.   The chunk barrels take them full length but enlarge the hole fairly quickly, so I take them out, cut to length and install in my offhand rifle.

Flehto,
That would be something I'd buy, just because the hole would last a little longer.  It would be worth the extra tool in my shooting box!

Some of the .451 shooters I have dealt with found platinum liners.  They will outlast any other metal by a wide margin.
The thing about how fast a vent liner erodes has to do with which brand/type of black powder you are shooting.  What is the grain size and how big of a charge are you using.  The gas temperature during the powder burn will determine how fast the liner vent erodes and grows larger.  A rifle type black powder can produce a maximum of about 1800 degrees on the surfaces of the burning grains.  A very fast and hot sporting type powder is able to produce a combustion temperature up around 2200 degrees.  That will  have a lot to do with how fast the vent liner hole is enlarged due to the heated gases and their scouring action.  Why stainless steel vent liners generally outlast those made with softer steels.  You see these platinum vents commonly used in good European flintlock guns.  They used some very fast and very hot burning powders in those guns.

Bill K.