Frustrated

[HSmithTX]

A flintlock is hard to shoot, I don't care who you are. Between the clack of the flint on the frizzen then the pan flashing and the length of time it takes for the ball to leave a feller can do a lot of squirrel stuff and not hit what he wanted to. It can be learned though. Shooting with a buddy that may or may not load the rifle or charge the pan is great practice.  For me, I get super serious about the front sight and what I am looking for is exactly where the front sight was when I lost sight of the target. Then you know where the impact will be, when hunting that is important information and no way to tell other than where the front sight was at the shot because of the smoke.  When I do that front sight hard focus and follow through I shoot really well.  By really well I mean I get reasonable groups at 100 for open sight cartridge rifles but when I don't have that focus my groups open up a LOT. 

That early Hawken butt just sucks to shoot, I did a heat and beat on mine to take some of that toe out, and I ran a little shorter length of pull so I can bring it into the pocket in the meat and off the bones.

[Daryl]

I get a nice red ROSE about 3," inboard of your spot, using 165gr. 2F and 482gr. round ball. I find that 10 shots of this load in a row will do it. This rifle has a 2" wide English butt plate on a 9 1/2# rifle.
200gr. Create a "rose" much more quickly.

[AZshot]

HSsmith is right.  This relates to what I was going to give as my advice.  Keep shooting it, you'll get better.  It took me a while to get any good groups with my first flintlock, I just had to keep trying to "follow through" which really means hold your sight picture longer. 

Flintlock was the hardest shooting thing I've ever done.  I'm an Expert (military) or AAA (BPCR and .22 silhouette) shot with rifles and pretty good with pistols too.  Usually the best shot at the range, shooting open sights at double or triple the range of everyone else shooting scoped rifles.  But flintlocks were like going back to square one, which for me was learning to shoot at 9 years old.  Shot BP all my life, but percussion.  It's a world of difference trying to hold those 500 miliseconds of a flintlock compared to .05 mS for every other type of gun.  After a couple years, I'm getting pretty good at it, and have come in 3rd at a couple local black powder matches - shooting against some that have shoot flintlocks for decades.  Your natural ability will come out, IF you can stop that flinch.  A hard kicking gun and load is not the way to do that.

[HighUintas]

I use to have to  hunt and sight in with slugs 1 1/4 oz , rifled shotgun (a real thumper)
so I don't feel the recoil from muzzleloaders
and I had to qualify with an 870 remington 00 buck law enforcement officer (and other weapons) and U.S. Army Military Police. 4 yrs carrying an M60 than 16 with m203 as a fire team leader.

Me too. I grew up with a slug gun hunting deer in Illinois. 8th grade I got my very own Remington 1100 and I shot 1.25oz slugs through it. Man that sucker kicked. I could shoot 2" groups at 100 easily with it though, probably because I shot it 5 times a year and my 22 several hundred haha

[HighUintas]

Take cardboard and ducktape and make a temporary cardboard wall to block you ftom seeing the hammer fall or frizzen flash from distracting you.

Great idea. Thanks!

[HighUintas]

A flintlock is hard to shoot, I don't care who you are. Between the clack of the flint on the frizzen then the pan flashing and the length of time it takes for the ball to leave a feller can do a lot of squirrel stuff and not hit what he wanted to. It can be learned though. Shooting with a buddy that may or may not load the rifle or charge the pan is great practice.  For me, I get super serious about the front sight and what I am looking for is exactly where the front sight was when I lost sight of the target. Then you know where the impact will be, when hunting that is important information and no way to tell other than where the front sight was at the shot because of the smoke.  When I do that front sight hard focus and follow through I shoot really well.  By really well I mean I get reasonable groups at 100 for open sight cartridge rifles but when I don't have that focus my groups open up a LOT. 

That early Hawken butt just sucks to shoot, I did a heat and beat on mine to take some of that toe out, and I ran a little shorter length of pull so I can bring it into the pocket in the meat and off the bones.

HSsmith is right.  This relates to what I was going to give as my advice.  Keep shooting it, you'll get better.  It took me a while to get any good groups with my first flintlock, I just had to keep trying to "follow through" which really means hold your sight picture longer. 

Flintlock was the hardest shooting thing I've ever done.  I'm an Expert (military) or AAA (BPCR and .22 silhouette) shot with rifles and pretty good with pistols too.  Usually the best shot at the range, shooting open sights at double or triple the range of everyone else shooting scoped rifles.  But flintlocks were like going back to square one, which for me was learning to shoot at 9 years old.  Shot BP all my life, but percussion.  It's a world of difference trying to hold those 500 miliseconds of a flintlock compared to .05 mS for every other type of gun.  After a couple years, I'm getting pretty good at it, and have come in 3rd at a couple local black powder matches - shooting against some that have shoot flintlocks for decades.  Your natural ability will come out, IF you can stop that flinch.  A hard kicking gun and load is not the way to do that.

I agree with both. I found in the last year how much easier it is  to accurately shoot a lower recoil center-fire rifle solely due to being able to better manage the movement of the gun. A 243 vs a 30-06 is much easier to shoot well, even without flinching.

So with a flintlock, even if I don't flinch with a 130 grain load, that is going to be much harder to shoot accurately than an 80 grain load. That couple shots of 130gr 2f swiss really did cross my eyes.

I'll keep at it with 80gr and my makeshift butt pad and hopefully will be able to get a bit better with practice. Hopefully that 80gr continues to shoot well. It really seemed like the stars aligned with those shots.

[AZshot]

The groups at 100 yds honestly don't look bad to me.  You are not shooting a target gun and sights are harder to see as you age.  But loading technique also makes a difference in each shot if you vary the ramrod pressure, and maybe other things.  None of my blackpowder rifles, percussion or flintlock, shoot as accurately as a .22 or modern cartridge guns....yet.

[HighUintas]

The groups at 100 yds honestly don't look bad to me.  You are not shooting a target gun and sights are harder to see as you age.  But loading technique also makes a difference in each shot if you vary the ramrod pressure, and maybe other things.  None of my blackpowder rifles, percussion or flintlock, shoot as accurately as a .22 or modern cartridge guns....yet.

Sights and eyes.... Well, I'm 38 with 20/15 vision and I just put a peep and globe sight on. Here is a picture of them. These sights are only a temporary thing for this year. I'll be putting the buckhorn and blade sights back on this winter. I might even take them off and put my primitive sights back on if I get feeling confident and proficient enough with these. I just wanted to remove as much error as possible in figuring it out and using this for my hunt.

[Steeltrap]

Those 100yd groups would be more than adequate to take down any whitetail you pointed it at.

If the purpose of the rifle is for deer hunting, I'd say you're good to go.

[smylee grouch]

I just noticed Bob in the Woods endorsement of the PAST recoil pad before my own. These things work and IMHO are a better option than the lead sled. Again my opinion. I have heard of cracked stocks from led sled users.

[JBJ]

Another vote for PAST pads! Rotator cuff repairs are no joke!
J.B.

[recurve]

keep the peep  they work ( low light not so much)   

[HighUintas]

What? No one likes my plastic wrap/masking tape/sleeping pad butt pad? It doesn't look historically correct? 

I will have to check out the PAST pad soon. I'd like to keep the functionality and look of my patchbox

Regarding my peep and globe in low light, I haven't tested shooting it in low light yet but I put some watch lume powder on the bead to hopefully help with that part.

Here's mine after putting the lume powder on. I ended up using the Lee shaver large dot size because my barrel is 36" and my max distance will be 150yd.... Maybe. Probably more like 100. The large size dot is about 0.040 and easier to get the glow paint on.

First I put a coat of white nail polish on the dot as a primer. The watch people say using a white background makes the lume powder glow a little brighter. Then I mixed some of the powder with clear coat nail polish. I trial and error mixed it until I got a mix that was liquid enough it would go on easily but thick enough it would be bright. I applied the mix with a toothpick.

This is a combo of the Lee shaver dot on post and the Lee shaver fine cross hair, which is about 0.015ish wire reticle.

I plan to window the globe with a few holes for extra light. Maybe. I'll test it first.








I hit it with my headlamp for a few seconds before taking this picture and it glowed for about 20 minutes. You can see it reflecting off the top flat at the bottom.

[smylee grouch]

One nice thing about the PAST pad is that you wear it not the gun. The gun stays unaltered.

[A Scanlan]

Maybe just get a scope mounted!

Personally much of the appeal of a flintlock is the raw nature of it.  Many shooters in our club (modern gun shooters) have do-dads out the  wazoo to ensure they make little tiny holes all very close together.  They speak of thousands of dollars worth of stuff to put a round in the same hole as the last one.  They have never experienced spit lube flavored with a touch of dirty fingers or the joy of being sprayed by the pan flash of a neighboring shooter, never encountered the need to pull a ball due to a failure to fire and never had a cut thumb from a sharp flint carelessly handled.  Oh the pain.  Oh the JOY!!

Don't take the fun out of it!

[smylee grouch]

Don't take the fun out of it indeed! Excessive recoil can take the fun out of it for many shooters. 

[HighUintas]

Maybe just get a scope mounted!

Personally much of the appeal of a flintlock is the raw nature of it.  Many shooters in our club (modern gun shooters) have do-dads out the  wazoo to ensure they make little tiny holes all very close together.  They speak of thousands of dollars worth of stuff to put a round in the same hole as the last one.  They have never experienced spit lube flavored with a touch of dirty fingers or the joy of being sprayed by the pan flash of a neighboring shooter, never encountered the need to pull a ball due to a failure to fire and never had a cut thumb from a sharp flint carelessly handled.  Oh the pain.  Oh the JOY!!

Don't take the fun out of it!

Well I hear ya. For this tag I have, it's muzzy only and no scopes allowed. This is as far as I'd go with my flintlock anyway. I really don't like seeing it on there, but it is kind of neat how well I can aim it. That is fun.

It's possible I'll move back over to my iron sights if I get my shooting issues figured out.

Reduce recoil. That's number one step to making it more fun

[AZshot]

I concur.  The flintlock was the most succesful gun ignition system before percussion, used for 200 years.  A primitive system where a small rock is struck against a steel, lighting off a pan of simple gunpowder, which flashes a jet of hot gas through a touchhole to the main charge.  All the parts to make and shoot one can be gathered from the frontier, or are common to trade.  That is the attraction (to me).  Not trying to get 2025 accuracy from a 1825 design.

[Daryl]

I cannot hold on a "bud", dot or center ring any more. The gun is always moving. I know when the gun is going off,  however the slower the ignition, the more I miss the center, or swing back onto it. It's a $#@* shoot as to where the ball lands. That is what happens IF I don't flinch.

[alacran]

A fellow used to come to the Western Nationals who before he browned or blued a barrel, would mount a scope on the barrel by epoxying
 a weaver mount to the barrel. He would mount a scope on it and would work up loads with the scope. He did this in order to minimize sighting errors.
once he settled on a load, he would remove the scope and mount. He had his optimum load at 100 yards.  All he had left to do was to sight in his iron sights with the optimal load. After that any bad shots were attributed to the jerk behind the trigger.

[A Scanlan]

"Where the ball lands"

That is so descriptive of shooting, well at least my shooting!  It's always an adventure.

[Brokennock]

Odd man out here I guess....
I'd be pretty happy with that at 100 yards with a flintlock.

How low if a charge have you tried? I have a gun, .615 smoothbore to be clear, that shoots best at 85 grains and down at 65 grains.  You'll get more drop and gave to adjust for it, but maybe a lighter charge would help.

Some time spent at 25 yards and a light charge that groups well at that distance (even if it doesn't group well further out) with just enough prime to do the job might help with the "flinch" and form issue.

[JBJ]

Alacran, if memory serves me, Walter Cline, in The Muzzleloading Rifle - Then and Now stated that he mounted scopes on more than one rifle to see how well they would shoot. At my age - 81 year ols eyes and muscles, I now think that a temporary scope mpunt is a great idea. I freely admit having an obsession with tiny groups.

J.B.

[okawbow]

I made a .62 caliber “Hawken” 50 years ago. Worked for many hours to get the stock fit I wanted. Often shot 180 grains 2F with round ball. Pushed me back some but never bruised me, unless I tried to shoot it from a bench rest. I got really accurate from a sitting position and offhand.

Maybe your rifle doesn’t fit quite right?

[HighUintas]

I made a .62 caliber “Hawken” 50 years ago. Worked for many hours to get the stock fit I wanted. Often shot 180 grains 2F with round ball. Pushed me back some but never bruised me, unless I tried to shoot it from a bench rest. I got really accurate from a sitting position and offhand.

Maybe your rifle doesn’t fit quite right?

It certainly won't bruise me if I'm not sitting at a bench. I think it does that at a bench because I'm so rigid and have a certain body position that makes the butt plate want to slip down a little and cause the corner of the heel to get me right in the joint.

Standing or other positions where I'm more upright and the muzzle pulls the butt upward, the butt plate sits much better. The LOP and drop are just right. I bring the gun up to my shoulder with my eyes close and the sights are aligned with my eye