Good morning
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Monday morning took the Flintlock Hall to the range for some historic shooting experience. As mentioned in the previous Hall report with the 1832 percussion model the flintlock is near exact in design and fit except the breech mechanism is flintlock. This particular rifle was produced in 1826. The first rifles started comming out of the Harpers Ferry factory in late 1824. By 1826 the production bugs were solved and a steady daily flow of arms was being added to the inventory for shipment.
This rifle has the standard caliber .54 barrel 16 grooves which shoots a bare .535 round ball fine. This rifle's clean breech opening accepts a pure lead .535 easily. After one shot the ball is a push fit. Shooting was done with 60 grains 3F from a measure set on 60 grains and never moved.
Before going to the range barrel was swabbed dry. A new flint was installed wrapped with thin lead sheet before secured in the hammer jaw. Frizzen face was cleaned with emory cloth and alchohol to remove surface rust. This rifle has not been fired in many years and showed it. Frizzen was closed and dry fired 3 times to verify it sparked well. Happily the rough face is still hard and throws a good amount of sparks. A small amount of 3F was pan charged and ingnited on the first attempt ! You cannot imagine that simple pleasure of seeing an 1826 musket flare up. Off to the range and the shooting.
Loading sequence is to place hammer on half cock. Open frizzen all the way. With proper size vent pick push through vent into barrel and look at pick for any oil evidence. At this point I generally push a pipe cleaner into the vent also but may not be necessary as it was not that morning. Blow down barrel to verify no obstructions to passage of air. Place rifle butt on loading table. Raise breech block to the open position. Accomplished by pushing up and towards the rifle rear on the breech lock lever which releases the breech to pivot up at the front. Chamber is now open to be charged. As mentioned 60 grains 3F was pored into open chamber from powder measure. Caliber .535 pure lead RB was next placed in the chamber with sprue mark facing up. Short starter was used to seat securly on the powder charge. A "dobber" of Crisco was placed on top of ball sufficient to cover ball. Close breech by pushing down at the breech front. It will pivot down and the latch will snap locked. Point rifle down range in the horizontal position.
Rifle is now ready to have the pan charged. Frizzen should still be open rotated towards the muzzle. I elected to use 3F as my pan primer. 3F readily ignites in all my other flinters so rather than have another step I just went with simplicity. A trooper in the field would have primed with whatever his cartrige held anyway. A small amount (about 3 grains) was placed in the pan at the vent hole. This was not the best method as 3F easily slips down into the verticle vent hole but this was a learning process. 2F may not easily flow into the vent but I do not have any. 1F does not fall through so easily and will be tried next time. (This was learned after the fact.)
Frizzen was closed on primed pan. I chose to fire from the sitting position to be as stable as possible but still comfortable with my face in a natural comb position. Hammer was brought to full cock. For the first shot I chose to fire at a dirt clod at 25 yards. Trigger was slowly squezzed ( Halls have a very nice adjustable trigger mechanism) . Hammer went forward striking the frizzen rotating it forward which in turn ignited the pan.
This is where the verticle vent full of 3F came into play. It took that good "more than half second eternity" for the vent full of powder to burn down and finally ignite the main charge. When that charge fired off the rifle recoiled as expected. This is my first experience firing a rifle with a virticle vent and was not at all prepared to see the volcanic fireball come erupting up out of the vent hole. It is not large nor life threatning... just very surprising that first time around. I am much more aquanted with a horizontal to the right eruption from normal flinters.
Then there was the visual and felt blast from the breech to barrel gap. That was another facet of the Hall Rifle each trooper would have had to be orientated to. This rifle does that well and I quickly decided 60 grains of 3F was going to be enough for this shooting session. Needless to say I missed the grapefruit sized clod by a good margin and was happy to be able to exclaim "WOW" with all my head parts still functioning. By the way, whenever shooting any firearm please do wear eye protection. You will absolutely want to shooting a Hall Flintlock Rifle.
Loading procedure was again iniciated ... Blow down barrel. Place hammer on half cock. Wipe off frizzen face and flint edge. Push vent pick through vent hole. Raise breech. Load charge,ball,Crisco. Close breech. Charge pan. This time the pan charge was carefull trickled around vent hole attempting to not get any "down that hole". Close frizzen, sit , full cock hammer and carefully aim at 25 yard target squeezing the trigger till hammer falls.
This time the firing was more snick-blam as the pan ignition did not have to "burn down" through a stack of powder in the vent. Happily ball impacted 2.5 inches right and 1 inch up from my inverted "T" on an 8x11 sheet of paper. Next shot was 1 5/8 inches away at 11 oclock from 1st shot. 3rd shot was almost halfway between first 2 shots. Total 3 shot group was that 1 5/8th inch. Nothing stellar but I was pleased.
Outside temp was 94 degrees + so decided to let breech cool and replace target.
Second 3 shot group... 1.5 inch triangle. Group center was again at the 2 oclock position about 2 inches off aiming point.
As air temperature climbed I decided this was all the fun I could handle. 95+ temp and 90% humidity was getting oppressive so I packed it up.
Cleaning the Flintlock Hall requires a few more minutes as there are more parts involved. Simplest method is to remove and disassemble entire breech unit, place in a pan and immerse in hot water scrubbing each part with a toothbrush. Reoil each part on assembly. 30 minutes. Barrel scrubs out clean with soapy hot water and oiled in 5 minutes. Rear sight was nudgged over to the left to better center next groups.
As soon as I can find the camara pictures will be attached...
Next trip I plan on shooting either 2 F or 1 F. Stilll trying to find out what powder was used in the cartriges. I would not be surprised to read 1 F as that was standard musket powder. May also roll some cartriges and see how fast this increases reloading time. Articles state a trained troop could load as many as 8 shots a minute. One thing for sure.. the breech block would be awful hot to touch at that rate of fire considering the rifle was charged with 90-100 grains of powder.
Mike in ILL.
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