1979 made Armi Jager Kentucky flintlock pistol.

[flynth]

Hi,

I managed to buy this pistol used for a little over $100 I'm pretty happy with the find. Judging by the markings on the barrel it was made in 1979 by a now non existent Italian-German company called Armi Jager.


I have quite a few caplock rifles and pistols, but this is my first flintlock. I took it shooting recently. It works well and it is a great fun to shoot. However, not having much experience with flintlocks it seems to me the tiny scrapes and gouges on the frizzen grow rather fast when I shoot it. The frizzen is definitely hardened and it ignites every time, but having no comparison I thought to ask if this amount of "damage" is typical after around 30 shots (judging by the state of the frizzen when the pistol arrived the previous owner probably fired it under 5 times total):


If my frizzen is not hardened enough I would rather buy a spare to experiment with, but I can't find any lock that would look like this one online. So I don't know which spare frizzen to get.

Does anyone recognise the make of this lock? It would be really great if someone knew and let me know so I could find a spare frizzen for it.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

To reliably fire, the flint and frizzen have to make a lot of sparks. Looks like yours is doing just that. Is the damage excessive? Probably not. It's a pretty thick piece of steel. As for finding a spare frizzen, the only possibility that immediately comes to mind is Dixie Gunworks. Have you tried them? They put out a really great annual catalog you can purchase for $5 that has many illustrations of replica antique gun parts. They have some genuine experts working for them, and a phone call and discussion with one of their gunsmiths might lead to a solution.

Another possibility would be to try some different flints, as they aren't all the same shape or the same hardness. Black powder guys usually carry some extra flints as they do wear, and if you continue to use the same flint the problem may eventually solve itself.

Just as an aside, I own 3 SAA-type 1873 revolvers made by Armi Jager. I've had them for about 35 years. I don't fire them a lot any more, but have found them to be well made and accurate -- maybe not as well finished as current Italian production. I wondered what happened to the company and did some on line research -- learned that the reason for it's demise as given by the owner was a lack of skilled labor. I think that a lot of his employees and ex-employees were hired away by the early Aldo Uberti Company. Armi Jager was originally imported by the EMF Company in Calif., and you might discuss your concerns with them. I doubt very much if they have any parts left in stock for your pistol, but they might have some ideas.

DG

[LAGS]

the Frizzen can be Hardened if it is actually Steel.
But not always true if it is Cast Steel.
Brownells sells a product Called Casenet for surface hardening metal.
But on some, I just heated the Frizzen slowly until it was almost Cherry Red, then Quinched it in Oil the way they did 150 years ago.

[flynth]

Yes, the lock sparks reliably. I shot it around 30 times and I never had a misfire. I had to swap a flint at some point as it broke in half... It must have had some internal weakness. I'm quite happy with the pistol. It shoots accurately and is lots of fun to shoot. I've been shooting black powder cap lock guns for few years and I didn't realise flintlock guns can be so entertaining.

Thanks for the suggestion to look in Dixie Gun works catalogue. I'll do that. I'm looking for a replacement just in case and to tinker with. If it looks OK to you on the photo there is most likely nothing wrong with the original.

[LarryM]

Take a look at Track Of the Wolfhttps://www.trackofthewolf.com/ for that kind of stuff.

[waksupi]

Frizzen wear like that is natural. Don't sweat it.

[Mac118]

If it's sparking, it's going to leave marks. Just the nature of rock hitting metal. Your flint seems a little rounded and thick. A straighter more even striking edge would leave more consist contact marks and spark better.

[KCSO]

The sparks you see are just red hot shards of metal scraped off the frizzen. If the frizzen isn't scratched you don't get sparks. The frizzen needs to be hardened properly, too hard and it snaps off or the flint just shudder down the face and there is poor weak sparks. Just right and you get a hot spark that dances in the pan. The frizzen on that lock is pretty generic and I'll bet I have six or more in the drawers, I don't harden them much, just replace them on the cheap locks.