Commodore Swab

To help "age" your flash guard polish it bright removing all traces of the coating thats on it, install it and flash your pan a half dozen times (FF would be a good powder to use to make sure things are working smoothly for the fort) then just wash it off when you clean the rest of your lock and you will get a decent patina in time

nadda

An argument could be made that you are not performing in the battle due to safety reasons. A flash guard makes cleaning much more difficult, can make it difficult to get a prick in to clean the vent, and can affect lock operation if the lock was not designed to have one. Igniting FF in the pan promotes faster fouling. Combined these promote misfires in a weapon that otherwise would not misfire. Using the same cartridge to fire and prime from you are either having to prime first (which can lead to an accident that happend very recently in St. Augustine) or hop you saved enough powder to prime after loading. If the pan flashed but not the charge then you will need to break open another cartridge for use as priming powder throwing off the amount of powder going down the barrel. Just some thoughts on giving a reason other than "I don't want to install a flash guard and frizzen stall"

Not tourists, no flint in the weapon.

I think I got you, I will not be modifying my double barrel as it also has internal screws. I also feel that it would make the weapon unsafe, I want the blast going away from the gun not up and above a primed pan. My 2 large blunderbusses also will not be modified as I will not modify an original lock to accecpt a flash guard. My snaphaunce musket would take alot of work to form a flash guard do to the design of the lock There is one there of a sort already) but would not accecpt a frizzen stall due to the nature of the how the frizzen is attached. I do have a musket that has the required equipment because if somebody were to buy it there is a chance that that piece may be used in a military formation, so yes I could shoot but have no loaner weapons for my friends.

You are thinking about mounting it to which screw? The frizzen spring screw and hide the frizzen spring and pan behind the guard?

My bad, I failed to notice that this wasn't in Fort Taylor when it was pulled up under recent postings.

I apperciate a final ruling regarding flash guards

If you would like to schedule it in we will do a weapons talk covering the development of the flintlock from wheel lock to GAoP flintlock with the weapons to cover it from wheellock, miquelet, snaphaunce, etc. In exchange we would rather not do gate duty or town crier (just Sansanee and Myself) as a part of Cutters crew. This helps to fill the day so that our/cutters crew may not need to do as many shifts at night or as crier that would be very nice.

One of the last and one of the first.

ok 85 and Im up here in Tybee, everybody who has seen it wants it . . .

The double buss was unable to be completed on time. It is 80% finished and will have it for display as a work in progress.

Yes it is a bronze double barrel blunderbuss

Some barrels are very poor and even cast, some have been proofed and are decent to good. Im almost finished reworking one now (it should be at tybee for sale) and ended up replacing the entire lock, what a vast improvement.

An updated sneak peak

My supply is finally starting to run low and it would appear it is no longer available? Any suggestions on where to find some?

Back to the topic of whether or not flash guards are to be required, I have a small group of about about 8 having 15 weapons. These include a Swivel Blunderbuss, 3 shoulder fired blunderbusses, 2 military muskets, and an extra long snaphaunce musket. Everybody also has their back up piece as well. The muskets all have flash guards and nothing else does. I do not intend on installing flash guards on the blunderbusses or side arms therefore if they are required the only weapons that may be used would be the muskets.

It wasn't a question just a comment. The only long guns listed are American Musket, Brown Bess, or Charleville as for pistols it is very open. Blunderbusses are left out completly, as are blunderbuss pistols along with an entire host of other arms. As they are not listed the fall back has typically been 10 grains per caliber. As for the espignol eing classes as a cannon, I dont have a crew or implements. Loads though as per their estimates are 90 grains FF, or classed as a cannon (yes the piece has a swivel yoke) 2.25 ounces of F. as a rough comparison 1/2 ounce of F is about equal to 220 grains. Doing the math classified as a swivel cannon the charge would be double my regular charge although being reduced by the 2/3 as per the FTPI suggestion it drops it down to only 1.3 times my load (close) Doing the math as a small arm the load becomes .37 of my regular load. Comparing a .75 caliber brown bess the listed load is 125 grains of FF, if this were a small cannon instead the load would be 330 grains (not taking into account the 2/3 reduction) of F. Even reducing it by the 2/3 yields 220 grains almost double. There is quite a difference in loads as you can see for the same weapon considering how its classified. This math simply illustrates how small arms are loaded very light compared to cannon, don't fire expecting a bang. I will be following their rules to the letter and if I am frustrated in either the ignition or bang I will elect not to shoot.

The maximum loads are something that I have been hoping to have modified as the posted maximums would only blow out smoke. My Espignol (largest piece) uses 240 grains of FFF (the FFF gives a slightly faster burn as no wadding is being used) with no wadding. Before you say no way, we have steadilly increased this from 200 firing at events with crowds that have no complaint about noise and if anything are very impressed. The espignol is a very large swivel mounted blunderbuss (weighs about 25-30 pounds) in a .90 cal. According to the black powder guidlines I can only hope they count it as a brown bess at .75 cal and let me use 125 grains of FF instead of using their guidlines of 10 grains per caliber allowing me only 90 grains of FF.

Flinters are to be primed with FF not FFF or FFFF.

And here my thoughts had been high that there was an improvement in sight. I will bring my small arms and have people to fire them on friday, if we are unable to get good ignition or a "bang" with FF we will not be firing on Saturday and Sunday After reading thru Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park -no flintlocks, all percussion The other two are the same and don't specify they types of small arms used. In short they allow for FFFF to be used for priming of all black powder weapons since there is no prime for percussion. As percussion are the only weapons allowed due to the time period (civil war) and do not rquire a prime. Just playing devils advocate and I hope to not get hit by another box of pogs . . .

FFFF is allowed for use in friction primers by the NPS for civil war

Perhaps the issue of their being a lacking of small arms is that someone brings a couple cannon but no crew, many people that have small arms may get "drafted" to fill in spaces on cannon crews. On the bright side I was happy to see the use of FFF approved in place of FF on the black powder rules under load maximums even if the the load guidlines are equally light for small arms as they are heavy for cannons. At the request of several individuals at the last event I have written up a bit on the reliability competition and if it is not too late Ive sent you a copy.

After having worked on some of these exact locks from India, I can guarantee that a simple hardening of the frizzen and a new main spring will only begin to solve the locks issues. I have one myself (just the lock) that I have been tuneing in preperation for making an early grenade launcher and after a fair bit of work she will now give 90% reliability for 20 shots without cleaning. Try to find out what types of guns your locksmith has worked with, there is a fair bit of difference between a percussion and english lock.