Grooved frizzen face?

[Chuck Burrows]

Over the years I have seen several originals where the frizzen striking face is vertically grooved - has anyone done any fairly extensive testing of the difference between an ungrooved face and a grooved face? I've thought about doing this on a frizzen just because but figured I'd ask first.....

One reason I ask is with fire strikers generally the narrower the striker the better/more efficient the striker for starting one's fire and from a mechanical engineering standpoint this makes sense so ........

[jerrywh]

 The reason a narrow striker gives off more sparks is because you are concentrating the force of the strike on a small area.  This causes the flint to scrape off more steel fragments than it would if the force were dissipated more.  BUT. This also wears out the steel faster.  A grooved frizzen has more surface exposure than smooth one. This dissipates the force of the strike more so than a smooth one.  My theory is , you would get more sparks from a grooved frizzen only if you increased the strength of the mainspring and the frizzen spring.  But you do not need a grooved frizzen to get the same effect by doing the same thing without grooving the face of the frizzen.  The idea of the grooved frizzen has been around for hundreds of years but never really caught on big-time.  I suspect there is no great advantage in it for that reason alone.
 

[Acer Saccharum]

Back in the day, you would put this on a gun where you wanted sure fire ignition. Dealing with dangerous game, such as boar in close quarters, or a pistol for personal defense, would be two instances where you would groove the frizzen. It was a search for higher reliability at the expense of the frizzen steel.

Did it actually prove out to be a better sparker? I don't know. Larry Petcher?

If you have a frizzen where you can get easy replacements, it could be worth experimenting with.

[Birddog6]

A grooved frizzen has more surface exposure than smooth one. This dissipates the force of the strike more so than a smooth one.  My theory is , you would get more sparks from a grooved frizzen only if you increased the strength of the mainspring and the frizzen spring.  

I may be visualizing this wrong. I do that often.....  

Seems to me if you have a vertically grooved frizzen face you would have less surface area exposed to the flint (because of the grooves cut out), thus the flint hitting  the frizzen would dig in more (less surface contact), cut more metal & give more sparks as it has less surface area.   Perhaps you would have to lessen the mainspring pressure to keep the flint from diggin in too much & hanging up ?

Then if you have to lessen the mainspring, then ya get less sparks now, as it is not hitting as hard,  it doesn't hit as hard now so less sparks, and we are back at  To  Groove or not to Groove.....  

[Ben I. Voss]

Birddog, i agree with you, grooves would increase the pressure of the flint! Would also increase wear on both flint and frizzen. Sounds like someone should do an experiment, though!

[Don Getz]

Jerry....you're all wet, but, like me, at this age you entitled to be.   I was thinking along the same lines as Birddog.   There
will be less metal exposed to the flint, and it will probably create more spark, but will also wear out the frizzen quicker.  If you are going to decrease the spring tension after ribbing the frizzen, why bother to do it.  As Acer said, it might have been done on a gun that you wanted to be sure it would go off, especially if you are facing a charging lion............Don

[Bill of the 45th]

Couple of thoughts come to my feeble mind.  Was this an innovation that came around just prior to percussion, and did not have a chance to become popular, or was it a fix for a non existent problem, that was better cured with a properly hardened frizzen, or better lock geometry.  I wonder if the process was applied to military guns.  My thought is that while you might get more spark in the short term, you'll wear out flints faster.  Maybe it was a fad like tail fins in the early 60's, they were cool looking, but didn't make the car go faster.

Bill

[Leatherbelly]

  Probably be real good on a set of duelers.

[T*O*F]

Probably be real good on a set of duelers.

Only on the one I used........the other guy's would have a soft frizzen.

Actually, I think they were used often and early.  I seem to recall some early French guns that had grooved frizzens.  Would have to scan a bunch of books to find em though.

[jerrywh]

Mine is not the vioce of final fact just personal opinion.  True that the contact surface would be less the first few strikes. But the flint would soon seat into the grooves. That is my theory anyway.
  Maybe all they cared about was the first 5 or 6 shots. Why not just make a narrow frizzen?
 All the original English locks I worked on , most of them were Mantons or Mortimers, had extreemly strong mainsprings and frizzen springs. To me that seems to be the best combination. Evidently the ythought so also.
  Don Getz and I are the same age. We need to be humored some at times. But remember, there isn't much we haven't delt with. Together we been doing this over 100 years. I'm going back in my dungeon now. PS. a narrower flint does the same thing.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I think it was a fad - a gimmick.  It was likely thought up as a sales pitch.  My experience with flintlocks tells me that a polished smooth frizzen face with a freshly knapped flint produces ignition to rival a percussion lock.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Hey Taylor,    
:o are Don and Jerry getting their groove on??? [

[Daryl]

I see Jerry's point full clear, that after a number of strikes, the flint would/could be contacting more steel - however, the gist of this 'improvement' I suspect and surmise, is to reduce the initial surface area for more sparks, as noted by the other oldsters here - most of them, anyway - HA!
The initial shower of sparks should be much greater with a vertically grooved frizzen, however, and more 'certain' in 'rough' times.  I suspect if going after Cape Buffalo or hippo with a flinter, I'd want the grooved surface myself - with a new, flat across the leading edge flint, freshly sharpened but probably just use the 14 bore 'capper' and bust him - 

[Acer Saccharum]

I have seen a flintlock 'inline' from the 18th Cent, and if I remember correctly, that frizzen was grooved. The flint was inside the action, and rammed forward toward the frizzen(which when closed, was smooth octagonal with the barrel flats). Perhaps the action was not as positive, and the grooving was an attempt to get more spark?

Acer

[Larry Pletcher]

Back in the day, you would put this on a gun where you wanted sure fire ignition. Dealing with dangerous game, such as boar in close quarters, or a pistol for personal defense, would be two instances where you would groove the frizzen. It was a search for higher reliability at the expense of the frizzen steel.

Did it actually prove out to be a better sparker? I don't know. Larry Petcher?

If you have a frizzen where you can get easy replacements, it could be worth experimenting with.

HI Acer,
A fair number of years ago a shooter in the Primitive area at Friendship contacted me about this type of modification.  He had an L&R Manton that he wanted me to time.  He felt the grooved frizzen that he designed made the lock faster.   I had numbers on a stock Manton I tested for a MB article, so I agreed to do the test.  I took the lock home and timed it.  His grooved frizzen Manton was slower than the stock Manton I timed earlier.  I advised him to order a new frizzen and replace the grooved one.  (I haven't heard from him since.)  Moral - Human eyes and ears are a terrible tool to detect small differences in speed.  If you heard a difference, it was probably 2-3 times slower.

I can't speak to the life of the frizzen or the flints when done this way.  However, to paraphrase TOF, ---My dueling pistol will have a smooth hard face - the other pistol will have the grooved face.

Regards,
Pletch

[Dphariss]

I think it was a fad - a gimmick.  It was likely thought up as a sales pitch.  My experience with flintlocks tells me that a polished smooth frizzen face with a freshly knapped flint produces ignition to rival a percussion lock.

Ditto. I think Taylor has it right.

Dan

[Don Getz]

Hey Tim.......I'm going to have fun next week-end at the CLA, while you're working....ha, hahaha, ha.........Don

[Greg Field]

Long barrels were a fad, too.

[Long John]

I have seen grooved frizzens on blunderbusses and other close defense weapons.  I think that the first shot with a fresh flint would enjoy bigger, hotter sparks because the pressure the flint exerts per unit of area is greater.  However,,,,,, after a shot or two the flint would have chipped back some and any advantage would be lost unless and until the flint was repositioned so that it, once again, concentrated the pressure on the ridges between the grooves.  The bottom line would be a gun that would fire more surely on the first shot but eat flints ad a horrendous rate.

Best Regards,

JMC

[Acer Saccharum]

You got it John.

The volume of sparks would set off damp prime when a standard shower of sparks might fail. Reliability under duress is what they were looking for.

[Levy]

Grooved frizzens may have been unusual for some countries, but not for Spain.  All of the Miquelet guns that I have seen (recovered from shipwrecks off Florida, or Spanish Mission sites), have had deeply grooved frizzens.  The locks have very heavy external mainsprings.  Many of the frizzens are made to have removable/replaceable faces.  We put together one escopeta using a Lavin miquelet lock from TRS and it sparks well, but the sparks tend to simply go everywhere.  A flint is worn out when it gets too small to be held in the jaws of the cock.  Take a worn out flint from a Bess or Charleville and it will continue to work in  a miquelet lock.  If it stops sparking, just loosen the jaws and turn it slightly.  Used up flints from a miquelet lock look round.  We tend to forget that these locks could be found all across the south from Florida to California at one time.

James Levy

[hammer]

Yes, James, that is how I remember it too.  The typical Spanish lock owed much to the Mediteranean snaphaunce design that preceded it.  I don't think the grooved frizzen was peculiar to Spain but it hung on there longer due to the ruggedness, poverty and isolation of Spain in that period.   I have always assumed the grooves  improved sparking with the poor quality flints/rocks  that they would have been forced to use in that region and that the replaceable frizzen face recognised the rapid wear that would have resulted. 

Peter.

[eagle24]

As Acer said, it might have been done on a gun that you wanted to be sure it would go off, especially if you are facing a charging lion............Don

I would use a pistol on a charging lion with or without the grooves.  Throw it at him and pray it gets caught in his windpipe.

This is an interesting thread.

[flintriflesmith]

I'm not going to argue with all the reasons for grooving a frizzen (steel) from the shooters standpoint but there is another from the lock maker's point of view. The great majority of steels were case hardened wrought iron and cutting those deep grooves in the face allowed more carbon to pentrate more quickly. The carbon can migrate into the iron from both the face and the standing walls of the grooves.

A lot of gunsmith's account books have then re-hardening steels after the case surface wears through. While it may not have been worth the effort to groove the steel, I am confident that the high carbon content would go deeper in one with that surface.

Maybe gunsmiths didn't push this feature because they didn't want to lose out on the re-steeling business!

For the best sparks -- white hot (or at least pale yellow in color) that burst and burst again -- you need a carbon content about the same as a file. Spark test an old file on a grinder and you will see what I mean.

Gary

[Artificer]

Grooved frizzens were also found on Military Muskets from Austria, Prussia and some Dutch examples and used here in the American Revolutionary War.  I'm pretty sure they were older muskets at that time, of course, and the idea of grooved frizzens was out of favor for most new made European Military Muskets by the time of our Rev War.