Pedersoli Harpers Ferry 1805 pistol ignition trouble

[tinsmith]

I purchased a like new Pedersoli Harpers Ferry 1805 pistol at auction. It is a beautiful pistol and displays well in my den. I'm not new to flintlocks, just new to this one. (I have a pistol with a Siler lock that is as reliable as the postman.) When trying to shoot the Harpers Ferry, it is: Clack, Clack, Clack, Flinch, Boom. I've tried a couple of different flints with no appreciable success. Does anyone have experience with this pistol? What works for you?

[bedbugbilly]

I've seen their 1803 in percussion but haven"t handled their flint version or fired one. I have one of their .45 flintlock pistols - an English style and it sparks / fires great - BUT different lock/pttern/geometry than the 1803 style locks.

Just as a suggestion - and you may have already tried it - have you tried reversing the bevel of the flint in the jaws? The old argument of bevel up/bevel down? Some locks just seem to prefer one over the other. I am assuming that from your description, you aren't getting the priming powder to ignite on the first trigger pull due to not getting a good shower of sparks into the pan?

I had a very similar situation with a flintlock production rifle that I had. I was using English flints - from my supply of flints I had purchased quite a few years ago from TOW. With the bevel up, ignition was "iffy" and in experimenting with it, I saw that the spark shower was the issue - it sparked but not a good spark path to the pan. With flint rifles that I made using such locks as Siler style - L & R, etc. I always placed the int bevel uo and never had misfires. On the production rifle I'm referring to, as soon as I took the flint out and put it bevel down, I got a good shower of sparks in a path that ignited the priming charge every time. There was just something about the geometry of the lock that bevel down worked better than bevel up.

If the doesn't help, then i'd take a look at the hardness of the face of the frizzed. Could always be the possibility that your's has a soft face?

[aap2]

A while back I purchased a Pedersoli 1805 HF flintlock pistol new in the box. The lock was unreliable and a flint "basher" which would pound a sharp english flint to pieces in short order. Misfires were all too common....basically the lock geometry was way off as the flint would smash into the frizzen instead of scraping down into the pan and kick the frizzen forward dropping a few sparks (hopefully) into the pan and the frizzen would snap back and hit the resting flint and destroy flint's sharp edge in short order. IMHO the problem was the geometry between the hammer and the frizzen.....I made a hacksaw cut on the underside of the hammer throat and bent the hammer jaws downward and rewelded the hammer with a considerable improvement in ignition (I believe that an internet search will show a video of this hammer modification)...But even with this modification, this lock is a fairly poor performing flintlock when compared to a Siler or other quality lock.

[Good Cheer]

Yeah, guys I have one too.
Sure wish someone made a replacement lock or parts.

[tinsmith]

aap2: I think you are on to something. I examined the angle that the flint hits the frizzen on both of my flintlocks. The 1805 Harpers Ferry sort of smashes the flint into the frizzen near the top, while with my Siler lock, the flint hits the frizzen with a downward scraping motion and sends a nice shower of sparks into the pan. I think I'll try the shortest flint possible without the top jaw contacting the frizzen and see if that helps any. It does look like a hammer geometry issue. I'm not going to modify the hammer without a replacement hammer in-hand. Worse case scenario will be to keep it as a wall hanger. Thanks for the input from everyone. If I come up with a fix, I'll report back.