Reliability Compettion

[Commodore Swab]

Last year we did this twice at PiP but were unable to do it in the fort due to logistics. Everyone who competed had a great time and enjoyed it. I was hoping we might be able to get logistics figured out so we could do this in the fort this year, its actually very simple. . .

Everyone who wishes to compete has their weapon inspected if it has not already been done. One person goes at a time, they prime the pan on their flintlock and ignite it, nothing goes down the barrel. They reprime and flash again they are not allowed to clean anything or knap their flint. Everybody uses the same powder. After 20 attempts their score is how many times the pan ignited.

The idea behind this is if you were in battle you wouldn't be taking the time between shots to clean and check everything as you might if you were hunting. By not having any powder in the barrel the fouling builds up faster which is an excellent way to find out whos guns will keep shooting when they must.

If we can arrange this where it could be done each day I will donate 5 Original flints (dull) to the winner every day. These are flints that were dug up out of a British Armory in Nepal and date to over 200 years old.

The record for last year was 16/20 on the first day it was a tie between Shay's snaphaunce musket and MadPetes flintlock knee gun. On the second day Stnky won with his snaphaunce blunderbuss.

[Lily Alexander]

Commodore, Thank you for this suggestion. I think this is a great idea and would love to see this happen this year but anything having to do with weapons and black powder has to go through an approval process. If you can send me a written proposal, asap, I will do what I can to get this moved up the food chain.. The wheels in Tallahassee don't move very quickly so the sooner you can get me the proposal, the better. Please be as detailed as possible. Once it's approved, we can work on putting this in our daily schedule.

lilyalexander@frontiernet.net

[Commodore Swab]

The easiest way to demonstrate how safe this would be to the powers that be would be to demonstrate what we want to do with my cannon lock. There is no barrel, no cannon, simply a lock. If this is going to take that much work to get an OK I would rather not go to the trouble.

As far as a proposal, allow people to test the ignition of their flintlock 20 times in a row, its that simple.

If it is too difficult for the powers in Tallahasse to understand this then I feel one must explain the entire operation of how a flintlock works. I would hope that as they tell us how we must fire our guns they understand how they work and a simple request of testing the ignition is all that would need to be asked for.

[Lily Alexander]

If it would be easier for you, take a video of what you want to do and I'll send that to them. Unless they have something (written or video) to see what you want to do, it's not going to happen. It has nothing to do with how much they understand or don't understand about weapons. It's the simple fact that we are in a State Park and a weapon and powder are being used. If I remember correctly, you talked to them about this last year and they would not allow it. The reason they said no was because there was no time to get the activity approved. If you want help writing the proposal, just let me know. I'll be happy to help.

[Commodore Swab]

Im sorry but I don't have time, as for last year as far as I know it was approved the only thing that kept it from happening was lack of an agreed upon location and setting a time.

[Lily Alexander]

Well, that's a shame it was a good idea. Perhaps next year.

[Stynky Tudor]

Swab, Being the middle of the season, I think we're acting a little late on this. But we should get together and write something up for next year.