slow ignition

[RichG]

just finished 12ga trade gun and shot it for the 1st time. goes off every time, but with noticable delay. .062 vent hole and coned internally. Since I'll be using 1 or 1.5 f powder, would a slightly larger vent help more or coning deeper? Both?

[rich pierce]

I’d go to about 0.070. Where’s the touchhole located? Picture?

[Standing Bear]

What r u using for priming powder

[smylee grouch]

If the pan powder goes off right away your problem is not the grade of prime powder BUT if you dont have powder close to the vent on the inside and a big enuf vent hole you might get slower ignition. If you open up the vent and use 4f with some of the 4f trickled into the vent I would think ignition speed would be more consistent. JMHO

[Daryl]

just finished 12ga trade gun and shot it for the 1st time. goes off every time, but with noticable delay. .062 vent hole and coned internally. Since I'll be using 1 or 1.5 f powder, would a slightly larger vent help more or coning deeper? Both?

Appears Rich is using 1F or 1.5F for prime.  This in itself can be your answer for delay.
Pletch's timing tests show Null B to be the fastest, then ignition timing getting slower & slower as he tested 4F, then 3F then 2F. Stands to reason.
If the OP wants to use his 1F or 1.5F for prime, then a larger vent hole is a solution, however making it to large will promote main charge powder squirting out the vent when the
patched ball or wads are seated.

[RichG]

4f prime and the vent hole in sunset position. 1 or 1.5 f will be main charge. the 4f goes off right away. the lag is between prime going off and main charge.

[Daryl]

OK - got it. A 1/16" flash hole should work perfectly. I suggest after dumping in the powder, slap the side of the barrel breech, lock side with your palm.
If that doesn't work, then enlarging the vent to somewhere under  or around .070" will help. Try the slapping bit first, though.
With every one of my flintlocks using White Lightning liners, once loaded, I can see powder at the vent. Can you? If not, then deeper coning from the inside should help.
I don't think the WEB is more than .062", maybe .031"

[smallpatch]

What Daryl said!

[RichG]

well I enlarged the vent hole to .070 and the ignition seems a little quicker. I can't remember how thick the barrel is at the cone but it looks .050-.060 thick. Might need to cone the vent a little more.

[Don Steele]

Rich,
Are you wiping between shots ? Early on, in my experience shooting flintlocks with a flat breech face ( vs. "patent" breech rifles) I had some issues with the type of delay you're describing. Turned out that when I wiped between shots with a slightly damp patch, I was pushing fouling onto the breech face. Turning down the diameter of the jag just a bit resolved the issue.

[RichG]

I have noticed that the 1f fouls a lot. tried using a wet felt wad over powder wad ,but it was blowing the pattern. Picked a couple of the felt wads off the ground in front of pattern board at 30yds. when i wipe between shots I get a lot of fouling coming out the vent and it's hard to get it out of the cone inside. I've never had this problem with rifles.(low pressure?) might try some 1.5f next time out. Also a wire brush might work to keep hard fouling at a tolerable level. As to ignition, It's slow from the first shot, but I can see how fouling might be contributing to my ignition problems.

[smallpatch]

Fast ignition is determined mainly  by how close the main charge is to the priming charge. Maybe thinning down the wall of the cone is the solution. A white lightning wall is no more than .025, with a 1/16” touch hole, VERY QUICK.

[bob in the woods]

How much powder are you using ?   What barrel is it ?  [ breach dimension info ? ]   
My 10 bore has a 5/64 vent , and is a model of reliability.  I'm wondering also about what sort of breaching you have ?   If other than a standard conventional breach, it could be the cause of the problem. As far as the fouling issue is concerned, I have used 1F in my gun without any trouble. I like it for heavy shot loads, and also at times when loading 140 gr under my .735 ball.
Light , or loose loads [ eg  bare ball , or a thinly patched ball ] will aggravate fouling. 
Even when shooting my paper cartridges, I can load and fire a good # of them before the fouling becomes really noticeable , at which point a sloppy, soaked patch and ball load will clean it out.

[Marcruger]

One thought is to make sure the bore is oil-free and dry before loading.  I also got rid of tons of issues when I went to wet-lubing (thank you Daryl) and stopped wiping between shots.  1-1/2F as main charge and 4f in the pan should go off right now. 

[Dphariss]

just finished 12ga trade gun and shot it for the 1st time. goes off every time, but with noticable delay. .062 vent hole and coned internally. Since I'll be using 1 or 1.5 f powder, would a slightly larger vent help more or coning deeper? Both?

If you can see the main charge powder in the vent and its within .030”-.040” of so of the pan then its probably not a vent issue. Also in my experience with RB in a Brown Bess Musketoon I once owned, Fg gonna need a lot of powder to get the velocity up.
I have a swivel breech (years in the making ) that I have shooting at last and its slow, but I think its a chromium steel frizzen problem. Will face them both with 1095 and try it again one of these days.

[Dphariss]

In getting into facing them I found I had cracked quenching it in water, since oil quench failed twice     Fortunately they were not engraved like the last time a few years back.

I found another pair in a drawer and thinking they were most likely from another casting lot heated them hotter, heated the quench oil hotter and they seemed to harden better not as hard as I would like but they spark a little better. Danged chrome steels. Still clank sstt boom since I had the barrel off for cleaning I took the action with the “front lock” attached to the shop and REALLY looked at things. Snapping it and looking and head scratching. This uses L&R 1700 frizzens and small siler frizzen springs. I decided the frizzen was kicking all the way open to slow/late causing the sparks to land later than they might. So I brazed a small piece of spring steel on the spring in the appropriate spot, hardened, tempered shaped it to a tiny little slow slope mountain thus a ramp to kick the frizzen open. Ground the spring and finally slightly rearched it to lessen the tension. Got the ramp peak in the spot I liked. In testing it no longer goes clank, sssttt. But the pan goes off with a nice poof that masks the clank of the cock falling/frizzen opening. When I rotate to the other frizzen its still doing the clank ssstt thing. But I can’t shoot it until maybe tomorrow afternoon. Time will tell. Its NOT the vent. Powder is within .030 of the pan in the liner. Vent is about .070”. POed I enlarged them the other day. But it was an easy try at a fix.
If its good I will do the other then use a flat graver to make the braze line vanish, maybe.

[Daryl]

How much powder are you using ?   What barrel is it ?  [ breach dimension info ? ]   
My 10 bore has a 5/64 vent , and is a model of reliability.  I'm wondering also about what sort of breaching you have ?   If other than a standard conventional breach, it could be the cause of the problem. As far as the fouling issue is concerned, I have used 1F in my gun without any trouble. I like it for heavy shot loads, and also at times when loading 140 gr under my .735 ball.
Light , or loose loads [ eg  bare ball , or a thinly patched ball ] will aggravate fouling. 
Even when shooting my paper cartridges, I can load and fire a good # of them before the fouling becomes really noticeable , at which point a sloppy, soaked patch and ball load will clean it out.

That is exactly what I did with the .69 rifle and paper ctgs. I could easily load and fire 10 rounds, then load and fire a tight wet patched ball for a cleaning load, then back to paper ctgs. again, for another 10 shots - then repeat.

[duca]

Rich, how did you make out? Just seen this post. How about trying to 2f for the main charge and see what happens.

Anthony

[RichG]

drilled the flash hole out to .070 and deepened the internal cone. hard to measure accuratly but approx. .050 wall thickness. It's better but still a bit of noticable lag between the flash and the boom. I was thinking about trying 2f just to see if it ignites faster than 1f, but ran out of time before turkey season started. More work to be done.

[Daryl]

Flintlocks do not fire as quickly as caplocks. Even REALLY fast flintlocks are lagging behind caps.

[Waksupi]

I would say you are over priming the pan, and it is burning down to the vent, rather than flashing across the top of the powder. You shouldn't need more than half of the pan filled level.

[Daryl]

I always fill the pan - ignition as fast as possible.
In Pletch's testing, holes at the bottom of the pan, not at the sunset location, were the fastest,
so the priming burning down to the hole does not slow down ignition. The pan goes off instantly
and it's the heat that sets off the main charge with a gun having a good liner. Now, if there is a long
channel to the power, then ignition will be slowed if the powder must burn to the main charge. This
makes sense.
Seems to me, that the testing I have read about, unconfined black powder burns at a rate of around 1,000fps, or thereabouts.
I do not know what granulation "they" were referring to.

[Standing Bear]

FFg in the bore and FFFFg in the pan.  Problem solved.

[Marcruger]

Yep.  There is a reason folks came up with that.  Glad you are up and running.  God Bless,   Marc

[NW Flinter]

Daryl,   1000 fps cannot be right?  ( speed of unconfined black powder )