Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010 - 57

sibly lose a buck. According to Pennsylvania native, Bob Winters, a noted historian on Eastern woodland Native Americans who has made hand-cut flints for more than 30 years: “Many articles have been written about picking flints, and most are wrong. “Nothing beats a properly made, handcut flint of English Gray or French Blonde material. A tremendous amount of flintlock firearms produced between 1580 and 1840 bear witness to the effectiveness of flints hand-cut from these materials. The saw cut, ground agates and sintered diamond powder flints of our modern times do not give the service that they promise. They are expensive, especially the sintered diamonds, and they are both extremely hard and cause excessive wear on or damage the frizzens. “I have made and sold more than 500,000 gunflints of English or French materials. I had even supplied Ray Tech Industries, the owner of Thompson Center Firearms, with hand-cut flints. I know of what I speak.” According to Winters, when choosing a replacement flint, consider its length, width and thickness. Unfortunately, most bubble-wrapped agates in the big box stores don’t offer this option. Their associates point you to the rack with a “take it or leave it, one size fits all attitude” that can leave you with a helpless feeling when the flintlock responds with a click and not a bang. Flints that are too long will strike near the top of the frizzen, which forces the sparks to ride down and off the base of the steel surface as it rides up and away from the pan. Flints that are too short will strike very low on the frizzen and produce few sparks. Moreover, this low hit usually results in the frizzen not swinging upward to expose the priming powder in the pan. While most T/C, CVA, Traditions and Lyman flintlocks come supplied with flints that are 3/4 of an inch long, it is important that you check for the correct size of flint when the rifle is at half-cock position. It
DECEMBER 2010

generally does not matter whether the bevel of the flint’s cutting edge is positioned up or down as long as the edge meets the frizzen one third of the way down from the top. Sometimes, though, a shorter 5/8-inch or long, 7/8-inch flint can improve your shower of sparks, and this can be achieved only with hand-cut flints, not agates. It is critical that the cutting edge is very close (thickness of a hair will work) to the frizzen at half-cock. The sharp edge must shave molecules of steel all the way to the base. This will result in a full pan of sparks and instant ignition of the priming powder. The width of the flint is also a factor. While a wide flint will cut sparks loose from the frizzen, they also slam into the stock or barrel. This not only gouges the integrity of the wood and steel, it also stresses the flint and usually ends up breaking it when you need it most — shooting at a deer. Agates are hard stones that can be sawed into a perfectly straight, beveled edge. They are the type of flint manufacturers include with the purchased flintlock. But, once they dull, they must be replaced. While agates do have a uniform thickness that appeals to many shooters, beware of the grain structure, as any change in color or streaking usually reveals cleavage. In other words, they crack into pieces along these lines. Also, it is far easier to knapp a true flint than it is to diamond-file the bevel of an agate back into usefulness. Knapped or chipped flints are naturally occurring stones, mostly from the chalk cliffs of England and France that can repeatedly be knapped to keep a very sharp, spark-showering edge. These knapped flints are the best choice for hunters because they can always have an edge in producing sparks. Their glassy composition allows the edge to be knapped or resharpened with a few glancing blows on their edge. The chips create a sharpened spawl or glass edge that will reward you in the field with a quick solution to the click problem. Before you get cocky, check to make sure that the flint is tightly secured
57

Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010