A SHOOTER CAN SPEND MANY WORTHWHILE HOURS WITH A NEW (?) PISTOL PREPARING IT FOR COMPETITION
By E.Crawford Morton, Jr.
Muzzle Blasts, May & June 1957, Volume XVIII Numbers 9-10)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am happy to have this opportunity to publicly express my lasting gratitude to those who have aided me in attaining a flint pistol that really prints with reliable accuracy. Without their invaluable aid and interest, I am sure I would have fallen far short of my goal. That these people exerted themselves in my behalf has a manifestation of a brotherly interest in a fellow shooter’s problems free from commercialism.
Many thanks to:
Charles T. Demport, Solvay, New York Howard Blodgett, Schuylerville, New York Floyd Butler, Poultney, Vermont Marshall Fish, Westport, New York
When my wife, who is usually averse to spending money, started stressing the advantages of a new station wagon over our three-year-old sedan, I became suspicious. A little sleuthing disclosed that she, in concert with the wives of two other black powder devotees, had decided that we should make an expedition to the Walter Cline Range, Friendship, Indiana, for the National Muzzle Loading Championship Matches.
Since I am primarily a pistol shooter and had been taking part in active muzzle loading pistol competition for little more than a year, I knew I had a lot to learn, also if I were to participate at Friendship I would need a flint pistol that “shot where it looked” in addition to my .44 caliber percussion dueller.
Funds available for equipment were strictly limited especially in view of the fact that considerable camping fear would have to be obtained. I, therefore, determined to secure a pistol in reasonably sound condition without regard to fancy inlays and engraving that would in no way influence its shooting abilities but would certainly affect the price.
Accordingly, I studied all available ads in the various publications that I could find and controlled other
“Muzzleers” until I located a pistol, described as follows:
Flintlock Dueling Pistol, 14 ½” long, 9 1/8” heavy octagon barrel, Smooth, .58 caliber. Two gold line inlays at breech. Silver touchhole. Engraved tang, front and rear sights. Wood half stock checkered at grip. Nicely designed and engraved iron mounts, silver barrel pin escutcheons, fore-end, and nameplate. Gold-lined waterproof flashpan, roller type frizzen spring, goose-neck hammer. Lock signed “Bennett” (17-75-1805). Note the adjustable trigger and large spur on guard safety lock at rear of hammer. Defects: wood ramrod, top jaw of hammer and hammer screw, not original, entire gun shows quite a bit of wear. However, it is an interesting piece, works fine, and has a good heavy barrel. $47.50.
There was also a picture which was not very clear. It was quite small but seemed to indicate that the pistol was of the type I wanted. It apparently had more gold and silver than I needed but looked very strong. I secured the pistol for examination and found the description to be somewhat enthusiastic to say the least, especially as regards some of the inlay and engraving and particularly in respect to the “works fine”. But as there did not seem to be anything irreparably wrong with it, I decided to keep it.
I found the following alterations to be necessary to suit the gun to my purpose:
The bore, .58 caliber smooth, would need a fitted sleeve inserted as a liner.
The sights were not suitable and would have to be replaced.
The badly worn checkering on the stock would have to be recut for better grip and as a concession to pride, for better appearance.
The stock needed to be refinished.
All the metal parts needed to be refinished.
Since the pistol when in shooting order would be of
no value to the collector, I planned to blue them by
the Zischang process. This finish having proven to be particularly durable on my Remington.
The adjustable single set trigger had no springs and needed new sears.
The lock mechanism being generally loose needed a complete overhaul. The clamp screw on the cock was stripped and needed to be replaced and the cock drilled and tapped for it.
My good friend Howard Blodgett of Schuylerville, New York, had put a liner in the barrel of my percussion dueller made from a section of 40/82 Winchester barrel. This pistol shot very well with 30 grains of 3F, a .020” twill
“spit” patch, and .40 caliber round ball. I, therefore, felt that he was the man to reline the flinter.
Shortly after my arrival at his shop, he put me to work polishing the rust out of the smoothbore with a piece
of emery cloth wrapped on the end of a length of dowel which in turn was chucked in a ¼” electric drill. He, in the meantime, selected a piece of new 45-70 Springfield barrel for the line and turned it down in his lather to a sliding fit in the bore. He then fluxed this sleeve and proceeding carefully with a small torch, coated it thoroughly with solder. A brass bore cleaning brush on a pistol rod was then fluxed and generally coated with solder. The brush was used to scrub the fluxed bore of the heated barrel until it was well tinned. Then with breech plug in place, the barrel clamped vertically and the sleeve introduced into the muzzle, heat was carefully applied starting at the muzzle and slowly worked the length of the barrel until, as the solder melted, the sleeve sank into place against the breech plug. The barrel when cooled, suspended by a string and tapped with a small hammer, rang like a bell, indicating a good bond. Excess sleeve stock was trimmed flush with the muzzle and the muzzle crowned.
Howard had been having good luck with other muzzleloaders made from 45-70 Springfield barrels, and so was in a position to advise me to order a mould for .440” diameter round ball. He also said he felt that .020” would be about the right patch thickness.
As soon as the mould came I ran off a batch of pure lead balls, sorted them visually for imperfections, then sorted them with a micrometer for uniformity. Using my patch cutter (Kraeuter 7/8” arch punch) I cut a batch of .020” twill patches.
In the meantime, the lock and trigger had been sent
to Charles T. Demport of Solvay, New York. I sent the stock to Floyd Butler of Poultney, Vermont to have the checkering recut.
While this work was being done I removed the old sights, sweated on an O.S.E. No. 1 ramp for the front sight and made a blade sight to fix it.
This sight was easily mad by driving out the German silver blade of an old type rifle sight. Cutting a new blade to fit the base out of scrap steel with a jewelers’ saw and silver soldering it in place. The blade was left quite high so it could be cut down with a file, as needed when the pistol was sighted in. The edge of the blade facing the shooter was serrated with the jeweler’s saw to cut down reflection.
A High Standard Supermatic adjustable rear sight number 1147M was selected as economical and practical. A dovetail was cut by hand in the barrel with the jeweler’s saw and finished with a fine file. Holes were also located and drilled for the wear plug and lock pin. If expense had been no object, the Micro screw-mounted rear sight would have been much easier to mount.
About the point, I remembered our infamous N. Y. State pistol laws which cramp the style of the honest people but do not bother the crooks who can go to a neighboring state to buy what pistols they cannot secure undercover here and, of course, register none of them.
I had a friend of mine who is in the local police department make inquiry, stressing the point that the pistol had no serial number and no name except “Bennett” which was on the lock and not necessarily indicative of the maker since many pistol makers bought locks from other craftsmen. He returned with an order for me to have it registered as “Bennett” ff cal. Flintlock no numbers”. So I went down and paid my quarter and had my permit so inscribed. I have no idea how many other pistols there are in this state that answer to that description but I hope their owners are all good boys since their pistols are now effectively registered in my name.
The stock returned first, so I set to work on it removing the polishing the silver furniture, and cleaning the iron trigger guard for blueing. A small portion of wood was missing from the rear edge of the lock inlet, so I cut
a small piece of walnut to fit, glued it in place with Cascophen glue, and trimmed it flush. The stock was then rubbed down with fine sandpaper, then wet with a small sponge, and dried rapidly over the electric stove to raise the grain. The “whiskers” were then rubbed off with fine steel wool and the process repeated. Three coats of Fabulon floor finish were applied and rubbed down between coats with fine steel wool. This finish has been found to be very durable. It is especially resistant to any bore cleaner which might contact it and does not feel slippery in the hand in spite of the glossy look. All silver parts, after having been cleaned, were replaced. A ramrod was made to improve the appearance. The cap to an old solver mechanical pencil, donated by my long-suffering wife was, found to make a fine decorative tip. This rod was not used to load. I used a large sturdy rod with a strong comfortable handle that includes a starter, in conjunction with a loading rack for loading. The rod also has a brass schnobble tip that can be unscrewed for the insertion of a cleaning brush or worm.
I do not find a mallet necessary. I center ball and patch with the bore of the racked pistol. I then place the short starter on the ball and merely “lean” on it, starting the patched ball into the rifling. I then reverse the rod and push the ball down onto the powder compressing it slightly.
The lock came back in excellent order. Mr. Demport had not found it necessary to reface the frizzen but had repaired the frizzen spring and made a new roller for it. He spread and retempered the mainspring, made a new clamp screw for the cock then installed and adjusted all these parts. The lock sparked beautifully with pleasing regularity.
Charlie had to admit defeat on the adjustable single set trigger, however. It was of rather odd design and had had too many parts missing to indicate how it operated. He did, however, make and install a spring to take up trigger slack so that it was usable although it couldn’t be “set” or adjusted for pull. He built up the trigger and weld for a better contact with the sear.
The matter of flints promised to be somewhat of a poser as this lock is smaller than most and requires a very small light flint. However, I was able to secure some from Turner Kirkland of Union City, Tennessee which solved that problem.
About this point, I was getting a little anxious to see how the pistol would perform, so I assembled my collection of pieces and tried it out with a charge of 30 grains of 3FG black powder and a spit patch. This being the load that worked well in my other pistol.
I had the rear sight set about mid-range on the horizontal and vertical adjustments so there would be ample latitude for further tuning should it be needed.
The first shots fired grouped in a spot roughly the size of the eight ring but low and a hair to the left. I tapped the front sight over to the left in its slot and a few trial shots indicated that the pistol was now roughly in line vertically but still low. I then dressed down the front sight blade with a file, firing five-shot strings between each application of the file, until the group moved up and centered in the eight ring.
It now remained to tighten this group.
Besides the relatively large group and contributing in part to it, two other matters for attention came to light.
First, the ignition time was too slow. Too much time lag between let-off and ignition.
Second, the trigger pull seemed to vary.
I knew that many considered slow ignition to be an inherent feature of flinters, but I also knew that friend Blodgett had a flint rifle that, for all practical purposes, was as fast as a caplock.
He had achieved this by tinkering with the touchhole shape until he finally arrived at a cone-shaped orifice with its large-diameter or base next to the pan and its apex at the bore. This design was exactly 180 degrees opposite to the other conical touchholes within my experience, but its effectiveness was beyond disputation. I, therefore, decided to make this alteration and opened the silver touchhole with a conical rotary file in a Casco electric hand tool. Ignition time was appreciably shortened, but the gas cutting action of the burning powder soon cut away the remaining silver, enlarging the touchhole beyond practical size. The silver was replaced with hard braze, dressed to the same dimension, and tried again with the same results. I then decided to tend the matter, drilled all remaining brass out with a ¼” drill, and had this cavity welded fill with stainless steel. This created a new problem as the stainless was too hard for my rotary file to have much effect on it. I then case hardened the file in Casenite compound and had no trouble enlarging a .076” hole drilled in the plug. This stainless steel was evidently the answer as no evidence of gas cutting has been noted to date and ignition continues to be very fast. A better job would have been done if I had drilled and tapped a large hole and filled it with a stainless steel threaded plug.
The problem of the varying trigger pull was quickly solved by inspection of the tumbler. This tumbler was of evidently quite soft metal compared to the rather hard sear and was fairly well chewed up. It also showed evidence of much tinkering by hands previous to mine down through the years. I, therefore, ground away both the firing and half-cock notches after having made a pencil sketch of their location and apparent angle to the sear face. Thought of a hard material with which to build up the tumbler immediately brought to mind the stainless steel used in the touchhole. Consequently, I had the tumbler welded with a layer of stainless steel in the vicinity of the missing notches as quire a chore because of the aforementioned hardness. I found it handy to use a dentist’s burr in my Casco tool to give the stone a start and also to deepen the half-cock notch. However, it was worth the trouble as the trigger pull has remained constant.
Out on my backyard range again with my reassembled pistol I found group size to be much improved with more 10’s and less 8’s. I then started playing with the powder charge changing it in slow stages with considerable firing in between changes. Recorded results after two weeks of shooting showed the following. Charges lighter than 30 grains seemed to result in constantly enlarging groups, with the largest at 15 grains. No charges below 15 grains were tried. Groups somewhat up to to 35 grains and remained effectively the same up to 40 grains, after which they started to enlarge. No charges were tried beyond 50 grains. Conclusions drawn were that I would use 35 grains of 3F at 25 yards and 40 grains of 3F at 50 yards.
I also discovered during this test that ignition remained more constant (less misfires) if the flint and frizzen face were cleaned periodically of powder fouling with a patch moistened with carbon-tetrachloride (CCL4).
I should, perhaps, mention here that I have never been able to “sight in” a handgun from a rest of any kind including a padded stepladder such as I saw advocated recently. I merely shoot the pistol in the normal way but disregard, for sighting purposes, all shots not called “in” at the time ignition occurs. This method may take longer and require many more shots than the advocates of a rest may use, but at least data obtained can be counted upon to be free of any unrealized external influences and to have been arrived at with the target, sights, and shooter’s eye in their normal relationships with each other. It is
so easy to “crawl” up on a rested pistol resulting in an altered sight picture. Also, with a muzzle loading pistol, it is particularly difficult to be sure the pistol is rested in exactly the same position each time after it has been fired and removed from the rest for reloading. I do not wish to imply anything novel or revelatory in this practice but feel that since I have done a lot of talking about group size and sight adjustment that it is best that the record be clear on how the data was obtained.
With no further mechanical work in prospect, I disassembled the pistol and cleaned and polished barrel and other metal parts which I intended to be blue.
The Zischang process is a slow-rust method with the accent on the “slow” and takes a week or more, but it produces a durable finish and requires a minimum of equipment. Data for this process can be found in the following books. “Modern Gunsmithing”, Clyde Baker, page 291; September 1953, issue of “Muzzle Blasts”, page 13, “Refinishing the M-L Revolver”, Wm. H. Hunley;
“Beginners Only”.
While the Flinter was being blued I practiced with my other pistols, especially the timed fire with the Remington as I had never fired this course before.
When the bluing process was completed I found that I had less than two weeks left before my departure date. I reassembled the pistol and resumed my daily practice.
When I practice for a shoot time I like to fire at least one 10 shot string (not counting sighters) per day with each pistol I intend to use. Some shoots have only one pistol match, in which case I practice with the one pistol to be used and fire at least 20 or 30 shots with it per
day depending on the weather conditions and the time available. If, of course, I find myself doing less well with one particular pistol than with the others I concentrate my practice on one.
No other problems arose and my scores showed encouraging improvement as I became more used to the piece. All seemed very well until, with five days left, the bottom fell out and scores plummeted.
Diagnosed, the trouble seemed to be one of shifting groups. The pistol might group very well in one spot with an occasional unaccountable “flyer” off to one side with all shots called good. Continued firing showed that the flyers were grouping, too, and a 40 shot string fired the next day showed three distinct groups, discounting shots not called good at the time of let-off. Weather conditions were fairly constant and were discounted as a possible source of trouble. Close examination of the pistol showed no loose sights or other parts. Powder charges thrown by the Lyman number 55 powder measure were assumed to be accurate. The balls were weighted individually and a few “lemons” detected and discarded. The trouble persisted, loading technique was reviewed and every possible effort was made to secure uniformity. Each ball was centered exactly with the patch and bore, with sprue in the same position and even the seam parallel with the sights. I tried to utilize the same pressure in seating the ball on the powder and even tried to wet the patches with the same amount of saliva. The bore was carefully cleaned between each shot. No dice! Still the same trouble.
As a check, to be sure that this matter of varying group location was not just “me”. I went to see Marshall Fish, a gunsmith, in nearby Westport, N.Y. He is the 1954 winner of the Eastern States M-L Rifle Championship and also an excellent pistol shot. He had the same results.
I quit for the day, returned home, cleaned the pistol carefully, and packed it. We were leaving for Indiana the next morning, with plans to arrive there with a day to spare.
That night I sat and pondered my problem. What had
I forgotten? Finally, it came to me. Last time I had had trouble with the percussion dueller it had been the patches. Hastily, I got my micrometer and the patches. Laboriously I “milked” each one.
These patches had been cut from a batch of Government surplus .50 caliber twill cleaning patches. When I first selected them I “milked” a few and called them .020”. Most of them averaged that, but a check of each one showed as an appreciable number that ran .017” and another batch that ran .023”. With revived spirits I packed my “mike” and patch cutter determined to continue the battle when I arrived in Friendship.
We arrived in good time and set up camp.
The next morning I breakfasted hastily and went out on the range. Utilizing the patches on the groups into which they had been sorted, I tried again. This time she grouped, and furthermore, grouped in three different places on the target. Examination of patches picked up off the ground showed that they had a tendency to tear. I decided to try to get a “harder” material and since the group shote with the .023” patches seemed the tightest, I determined to try to get that size. I cleaned the pistol, packed my gear over to the camp, and headed for nearby Friendship. In the general store there while the proprietress regarded me round-eyed with awe, I “milked” all her materials that seems suitable. I finally settled on some blue denim that luckily was a relatively constant .023” wherever tried.
My wife washed the denim and that night after supper, when the material had dried, I cut a batch of patches and then crawled into the back of the station wagon for some sack time.
The next morning, first day of the shoot, I was on the range early with my percussion dueller, determined to get a few matches behind me before doing any more work with the Flinter. I eased into the shooting with
the percussion dueller and the least critical match, the qualification reentry match, 25 yards, slow fire. I had been using a different batch of the same kind of twill patches in this pistol, too, but now was sort of afraid of them. I, therefore, tried the new denim patches out on a practice target and after a few sighting shots drew three consecutive tens tight together and well in. Evidently, this pistol liked the same diet so I switched to record and rang up a 99, the best score I had ever shot outside my own backyard. This called for a break and a round of “Cokes”, during which my wife and friends urged me to shoot the 25-yard slow fire for single-shot percussion pistol while I was “hot”. Charles Haffner, a consistent winner, already had a 99 on the panel in this match and it was going to take some doing. However, everything must have been right because I managed to stay out of the nine ring this time and emerged with a “possible” and a firm faith in the efficacy of the new patches.
That afternoon, I tried the Flinter on practice targets and its performance showed that the happy combination had been found. I had a shooter and the rest was up to me.
The next morning I got going on the 25 yard Flint pistol match while the weather was still cool and emerged tied with the formidable Bob Dunbar for first place, both of us with 93’s and one point under the National Record. The tie, decided by string measure, showed his group to be 9/16” smaller than mine and dropped down to second spot.
I secured the flinter for the day, firing the 25-yard cap and ball revolver match and 50-yard single-shot percussion pistol match.
The following morning I was on the 50-yard line with the flinter. The same target at twice the distance looks mighty small even though the eight ring changes from white
to black, but the combination still worked and resulted in a 70, again one point under the national record but good for 1st place. The aggregate of the two flint scores was, therefore, six points over the record made in 1953, good for a first in the Flint Pistol Championship and contributing a healthy boost towards the winning of the aggregate of all seven muzzle loading pistol matches and the Grand Championship award that went with it.
The remaining days were spent in firing the 25-yard timed fire and 50-yard slow fire with the Remington, while I “sweated it out” hoping that no one would arrive at the last minute to dislodge me from my positions and top my narrow 2 point lead in the Grand.
Happily for me, no one did.
