Back to the Flintlock
 

I find myself once again pondering another rifle build. At the top of my list is a Jim Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle, which I would build as either a .32 or .36 caliber "squirrel rifle". These are, of course, properly outfitted as flintlocks, although he will sell parts to build them as percussion rifles. Kind of heresy in my opinion - it would have to be a flinter for me.

So, with this in mind, I figured I should probably unlimber my one and only flintlock, the only one I have ever owned. After a brief fling with it when I first acquired it in the 1980's, it's been pretty much relegated to display over the fireplace. Oh, I take it down and shoot it every now and then, but not like my other rifles. I wanted to get back into it to see if I am really up for another flinter, or if I just think they look pretty. They can try one's patience, there is no doubt about that...

Well, after a few range sessions with it, I can say I had an unexpectedly good time. I think maybe with age I've slowed down a bit, gotten more methodical, and more careful in my loading routine. With that change in attitude and approach, the old frustrations appear a thing of the past. These things are actually pretty darn reliable, when treated properly.

I find I like the weight and balance of this rifle. A lot. It is much slimmer, much more "petite" than the Hawken I built last year. It only weighs about nine pounds to the Hawken's darn near twelve. It sports a 41 1/2" long barrel, with a straight, untapered octagon profile of only 7/8" across the flats. The Hawken, in contrast, has a 34" tapered octagon barrel, which starts out at 1 1/8" across the flats at the breach end and tapers to just over 1" at the muzzle. The Southern Mountain Rifle is more the "rapier" to the Hawken's "broadsword".

The pictures don't really capture the difference in size and cross section as well as I had hoped, but here's a few anyway. Beyond just the heavier barrel profile, the stock on the Hawken is far more robust as well. The difference between the one intended to be used in the relatively settled East, the other in the untamed West, a thousand miles from any help:

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They look to be in really great shape....very nice.

Thank you. I have to admit, though, that the Hawken is only a year old, and hasn't seen any hunting use (yet). I built the Tennessee Mountain Rifle in the early to mid 1980's, and only hunted with it a very few times. Took a couple of deer with it, but that's about it. They are leading very pampered lives compared to what their forebears of the 19th century must have led. But, then again, so am I...

Heck, I was hoping to see a pair of reproduction Gentlemen's Dueling Pistols in a fitted wooden case for the next build. I guess we'll just have to wait till the Mountain Flint is finished.

I am confused. You are considering building another rifle? Good idea. You hardly have any rifles.

Or are you just excited about using the flinter you have? She's beautiful. Sort of like a Visla versus a pit bull. What is the caliber?

That would be pretty cool. What a great idea.

I have exactly one muzzle loading pistol, an old Lyman Plains Pistol in .54 caliber. I built it as a sidearm to carry during our muzzle loading seasons way back when. In the interim, cap and ball revolvers became legal sidearms, so I bought a Ruger Old Army to carry instead. Now we can carry any sidearm (as can archers) so that we can "defend" ourselves when out hunting. Not sure I agree with that, but whatever.

The Plains Pistol is one hell of a little powerhouse, if you can stand to shoot full charges. With a 230 grain .530" diameter round ball, a full charge puts it right up there in .44 magnum territory. I actually killed a pretty nice mulie with it one year, just because he was so close and it was pretty much a chip shot.


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I hardly have any flintlock rifles. I'm aimin' to fix that... Besides, I don't have a proper squirrel rifle - a clear hole in my modest battery.

This one is a .50 caliber, shooting a patched round ball of .495" diameter and about 180 grains weight. The Hawken is a .54 caliber, shooting a patched round ball of .535" diameter and about 230 grains weight. Both will achieve about 2,000 feet per second with a full charge.

These sound "big" (as does a .32 to .36 caliber "squirrel" rifle, I'm sure) to those unfamiliar with round ball shooters. Believe me, they are not. I consider the .50 to be pretty marginal on deer, and useless on elk. The .54 is barely acceptable for use on something as big as an elk.

Oh, they absolutely did use these calibers on these animals "back in the day", but their ethics and expectations were different. Conserving powder and lead when neither were readily resupplied was very important. Losing wounded animals was just a part of the game, where today's hunting ethics rightly find that rather abhorrent. These will absolutely kill these animals, but real "hunting" becomes paramount - "get as close as you can, then get a little closer".

So, yeah... "one more" rifle never hurt anyone. Especially if it fills such an obvious "need"... ;)

When you explain it that way, it is easy to see the tragedy in your current state of...unreadiness. Those squirrels are not going to shoot themselves.

I'm going to have to school up on these specifications. A half-inch lead ball at 2000 fps does sound like a lot of energy. a .30-06 throws a hunting load (180gr, same as above) around 2700 fps. Smaller projectile than above but just a bit faster than above, and these are good at dropping elk. Perhaps if beer were involved, you could be persuaded to explain what I am missing.

It's all about the ballistic coefficient of their respective projectiles. This coefficient is used to calculate deceleration, with some mythical artillery projectile arbitrarily assigned a value of 1.0. All sporting arms projectiles will be some fraction of that, depending upon how "streamlined" they are. Heavy for caliber, boat tailed spitzers have the highest ballistic coefficient, some of them exceeding .600. The higher this number, the slower they decelerate. Average hunting projectiles can run anywhere from the .300's up into those .600's. A typical 180 grain .308" diameter boat tailed hunting spitzer will be somewhere around .500, so let's use that for our comparison.

The ballistic coefficient of a .495" diameter round ball of 180 grains weight is only .070. Yes - zero seven zero. The affects of these widely disparate ballistic coefficients on their external ballistics is quite stark. Let's take a look.

Muzzle energy for a 180 grain projectile from the .30-'06 at 2,700 fps is 2,912 ft lbs.
Muzzle energy for a 180 grain projectile from the muzzle loader at 2,000 fps is 1,616 ft lbs.
Already a 1,300 ft lb difference. But it gets a lot worse...

Velocity at 100 yards with the bullet from the '06 is still 2,519 fps, energy is 2,536 ft lbs. It still has 87% of the energy it had at the muzzle.
Velocity of the round ball at 100 yards has dropped to only 1,124 fps, energy down to 510 ft lbs. It has less than one third of the energy it had at the muzzle.
It gets worse...

At 200 yards, the '06 bullet is still doing 2,345 fps, with 2,197 ft lbs of energy, 75% of what it started with.
The round ball is now down to only 793 fps and 254 ft lbs of energy, only 16% of what it started with.

Beyond that is the exceedingly low "sectional density" of the round ball. This is a measure of how much it weighs vs. its cross section. The longer the bullet, the higher its sectional density. A round ball is obviously about the shortest projectile we can fire, short of some sort of a contrived disc or something.

Sectional density is a very clear indication, given similar constructions, of different bullets' relative abilities to penetrate. The heavier a bullet is for a given cross section, the more deeply it will penetrate at a given velocity. This is kind of intuitively obvious.

Essentially, the round ball is the worst possible shape both aerodynamically and with regards to its ability to penetrate. Combining both of these shortcomings in one projectile leaves us with a very poor hunting bullet. Or fighting bullet. We realized this some time in the early to mid 19th century, and started experimenting with elongated bullets. By the time the 1870's rolled around, we had .45 caliber bullets exceeding 500 grains in weight for use in both muzzle loaders and the then new breach loaders.

So, while the round ball is historically correct, kind of "romantic" (at least for shooters), even during its heyday the guys using them knew they needed something better.

Here's an interesting pair. Reproductions, I doubt if they come in a kit, but maybe a little bit of inspiration. There's some interesting things about dueling pistols in this video. The hair-trigger, the rifling cheat, the brass forestock...fascinating bits of information to me.

(I think Adam Savage is a bit of a tool, but that's neither here nor there)


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I finally got around to watching the video above. Pretty darn cool. I'm no student of dueling pistols, nor their use, but I can certainly appreciate fine craftsmanship and historical context.

It was interesting to learn that "the rules" prohibited rifling. Funny how we get sometimes, regarding barbaric practices in which we hope to uphold our "honor" - by shooting another willing participant over what were most often rather trivial slights or insults. It would be "dishonorable", after all, to shoot someone with a rifled arm, but perfectly "honorable" to do it with a smoothbore. Gotta love that stuff.

Regardless, very cool pistols. I think a similar cased set would be a worthy addition to my modest collection...

Now THAT'S funny.

O.k., how about "I'm modest about my collection"?

Perhaps we have both learned to leverage the understatement. A few days ago, I sent an email to a manager about a decision he is considering. The decision relates to confusion and miscommunication regarding authority and responsibility among three divisions of the organization. I said "improvement is possible." Some recipients apparently laughed at this understatement.

One more: Years ago in a meeting, a carpenters union representative with whom I had worked many times over the years said "In my brief time as a carpenter......" I laughed out loud but did not say anything. I new he had FIFTY years' experience as a carpenter.

Heh heh... yup, I used to love to say that kind of stuff. Seeing the look on customer representatives' faces when we were about to, say, bore the main landing gear pivot trunnions on a 767 when I would say something like "I believe we have a reasonable chance at success...".

Or the time we were separating the entire empennage, including horizontal stabilizers from another 767, utilizing an overhead crane and a very complex looking sling and spreader bar arrangement. The customers had, of course, never seen such a thing, and were somewhat apprehensive, but very eager to watch. So, as it starts to separate at the join ring around the aft pressure bulkhead, I hollered out "stand back - remember what happened last time!". Which was exactly nothing. We had done this many, many times in the field. It was always fun to watch 'em scamper, though.

Have you been messing with people all your life? Methinks so.