Hello all. I read somewhere that if your lock and ignition are all working properly, a flintlock will fire upside down.

Taking a break from sighting in, I decided to give this a try. I loaded up the gun, primed the pan, closed the frizzen, full cock and then flipped 'er upside down.

Now I hold a rifle in the typical way: right hand pulls the trigger, left hand on the fore-stock. Since this was an unusual firing position, I took a moment to make sure I had a good grip before pulling the trigger.

Since it is still in the 90s here in Arizona, I was wearing shorts.

To my surprise, after pulling the trigger, the gun went off!

Then I noticed the burning sensation.

As most of you know, when the powder in the pan ignites it burns upward and outward.

Once again I was reminded that gravity is a "law" not a suggestion!

Instead of burning upward the burning powder sprayed downward directly on to my exposed forearm.

Thankfully it is only a first degree burn that was accompanied by some bleeding. Nothing that a few days with liberal doses of Neosporin and peroxide cannot fix. I'm sorry to say that the few pictures I took really don't do it justice or I would post them.

Bottom line: if you are going to test your flintlock by firing it upside down, wear a heavy sleeved shirt or jacket. Be sure it is something you won't mind getting burned.

~Robert
PS: funny thing: at the time the range master was a few feet away from me. After seeing my bleeding arm and I told him what I had done, he asked me: "now why the hell did you go and do that?"

Well you see if your lock is working properly...

Funny (butpainful [:@]) story...

And my thanks to others who have posted similar stories...because of reading them, when I went to try my Flintlocks, I took plenty of time to get everything aligned before touching them off...and they all fired perfectly (TC Hawken Flintlocks)

I do not understand why you would want to fire a flintlock upside down. I usually stand on my two feet when hunting/shooting. I guess the next time I see someone hunting "standing on their head", I'll know who it is. LOL
Does this tell us a little something about you andtheuser I.D. you chose....."BonsaiDiver"

my flintlock goes off upside down aswell....i knew it would...i put alot of work into that lock....installed a lyman frizzen ona TC gun.....change my touchholes religiously....hand pick the best flints i can find.......my lock time is always really quick.......i let a vetern flintlocker shot it and he was amazed by the lock time.........and i keep it CLEAN when im hunting or shooting with it......thats the most important part.....clean and dry...and a sharp flint and that suckers going to make some smoke!.....i didnt ACTUALLY fire mine upside down...but i did fire it with the lock out of the gun upside down......none of my powder fell.....just a fire ball in the pan.....

Encoreman: you wouldn't normally fire a flintlock upside down. The point is to test lock speed and ignition time. If every thing is working/tuned properly, the mechanism should be fast enough to fire the weapon upside down.

This is what I was attempting to find out.

As for my name, it is not due to my reckless nature. I was trying to think of a cool bulletin board name. All the good names like Cayugad and Roundball were taken.

At the time I was really in to SCUBA diving. So I thought maybe something to do with diving or divers. Also at the time, I had a bonsai tree in my cubicle at work. When suddenly there was a moment of clarity and I put the two together.

It was also winter time and there were a pair of ear muffs on the desk as well. But that combination just didn't seem to work for family friendly boards.

~Robert

BonsaiDiver,
I'm sorry but I couldn't help myself from giving you a hard time. I knew what you were doing, but I guess I can hardly imagine someone actually trying it for safety reasons. You kinda found out the hard way. I have a flintlock tooand the lock time is damn near as fast as any side hammer rifle when I do mypart right.
I agree the muff and diver wouldn't have been a very goodchoice....maybe on another site?

That fire coming out of the vent hole can be nasty. I had a person standing near my right side once that I told three times, that would not be a good place to stand. I explained about the fire that comes off the pan and the venthole... Finally to demonstrate, I placed a cardboard box over there and let go. He then understood.

Sorry you learned the hard way. Bet it never happens again . You have a fast lock. And you are not injured to serious which is all that really is important... Keep the Neosporin close by and relax where it is cool..

And while all the back and forth on this subject is fun, IMO, thewhole notion that a lock is "timed correctly" if it fires upside down sounds like an old wives tale to me anyway...for example, I've never heard of anyone's lock that DIDN'T fire upside down...it's probably just some old"corn squeezin's engineering"

that probably said it all... but I like the way you put things Roundball.