HOME ON THE RANGE Flint and Percussion Kentucky Pistols BY MARJ LAW When you shoot a black powder gun, you can imagine yourself sliding back in time. You pour measured powder into the barrel, then you ram in the wad and ball. You pour powder into the pan of a flintlock gun or you jab a percussion cap on the nipple of a percussion black powder gun. It takes a while. People are shooting at you. Can you load fast enough before you get hit? While these Kentucky pistols look quite similar, the gun shown above is a flintlock gun. Flintlocks were the daddies of the percussion/cap lock guns. In a flintlock, the protrusion with the round knob at the top of the gun is a hammer. It clamps onto a piece of flint. When you pull the trigger, the flint whacks into that flat piece of metal in front of it called the frisson. This causes a spark which ignites the priming powder in the “pan” (a hollow in the metal) below. The resulting bit of fire feeds through a tiny hold in the barrel of the gun. And this sets off the priming powder under the wad and ball in your barrel which then sets the ball flying. How long will the sharp bevel of the flint hold out before it has to be replaced? That takes time. The powder is dangerous. If you load quickly, will burning embers set off the new charge as you pour it in? The black powder fouls the barrel with each shot. You don’t have time to swab out the barrel. How many shots do you get before there’s so much junk clogging the barrel that you can’t push in your wad and ball? You’re being shot at and it’s raining. Your priming powder is damp and won’t ignite. It’s time to run, run, and run! This kind of imagination can make your knees weak. The percussion Kentucky pistol was an improvement because instead of a flint and priming powder, you slip a cap over a nib. When you pull the trigger, the hammer whacks the cap which sets off a small flame that feeds through a tiny hole of the barrel. This fire ignites the powder you’ve put into the barrel before you rammed in the wad and ball. Now, you don’t have to worry that the primer in that little “pan” of a flintlock will get wet because you have a cap lock gun. However, you’ll still have to be very careful to keep the powder dry that you’ve poured into your barrel. And it still takes several moments to prime, ram, and slide on that cap. I’ve heard that some re-enactors can perform this feat three times in a minute, but I don’t believe it. You’re standing in a field and it’s raining. Your knees are weak and your hands are shaking and you can load three times in a minute? No. Unh-unh. The cap lock gun is easier to use, better in weather and more reliable. This pistol is an improvement over the flintlock, and it’s very cool to shoot, but I sure wouldn’t want to bet my life on it! As Little House in the Big Woods author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, remembers of her father shooting a cap lock gun: Whenever he shot at a wild animal, he had to stop and load the gun -- measure the powder, put it in and shake it down, put in the patch and the bullet and pound them down, and then put a fresh cap under the hammer -- before he could shoot again. When he shot at a bear or a panther, he must kill it with the first shot. A wounded bear or panther could kill a man before he had time to load his gun again. Flintlock guns were used in the 1600s until mid-1800s when cap lock/percussion guns were invented and quickly became more popular. They were more reliable, safer, easier to use, and better in weather. For protection now? I’d go with a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. Flintlock and cap lock are cool, but when it comes to personal safety, they’re history.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:44:51 +0000
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