I had a busy day at the Gun Club Range today but didn't get to shoot alot myself. The club I belong to was hosting a Boy Scout Rondy this weekend with what was suppose to be around 200 scouts, it turned out to be about half that many. We were responsible for the Black Powder shooting part where each scout and each leader got the chance to shoot 3 rounds of PRB through a caplock. Each of the scouts were scored as to whether they hit the steel target or not and the scores counted toward the troop score to determine the top 3 places. Of the boys that I coached there was only one that had never shot a gun before. He missed a little high on the first shot (nerves I'm sure) and hit the target high on the second shot. The third shot was just above the center of the 12 x 12 target and we both were happy with that.

After all the boys were done and things quieted down I got the chance to pull out my Bobcatwhich Irecently converted to flintlock and give it a first test. I first fired a squib load to verify it worked and to dry the bore of any left over stuff. The first PRB shot I had a flash in the pan, I must of not got the correct amount of primer in the pan. After that I shot 5 consecutive shots with no issues and only a slight hint of a delay from pan to main charge ignition. i didn't put up a target because of the 30mph winds that were blowing dust everywhere. I mainly wanted to test the gun for functioning and verify it would shoot. I did aim at several dirt clods that were near the berms and hit some of them and just missed the others at 50 yards so I guess its pretty close. Here are some pictures of the little cheap flintlock conversion. BTW, I have about $90 in this gun including the conversion.


The gun


The lock


The touch hole, note that I had to offset the touch hole, otherwise it would have been at or below the pan level. I may have offset it a bit too much but I can always make another liner if needed.

I forgot to mention, I had hoped to give the Blackhorn 209 powder a try today but I want to shoot over my chrono and check groups when I do. Today there was just too much wind so I will have to do that testing another day. Just another reason to go to the range again I guess.

Well it was a kind thing you did for the scouts..

As for that Bobcat.. that is pretty nice looking there. That would be a handy little flintlock. Did you just buy the lock from CVA?

Thanks Cayugad,

I got the lock from a guy that was selling a lock on Ebay. I had asked about one he had listed to see if it would fit a Bobcat, it wouldn't but he said he had a new one that would, soI bought it for $48. I bought some metric bolts of the correct size and made a replacement liner for the hole the drum came out of. I then drilled a hole where the CVA screw in touch hole liner goes and tapped and recessed it so I could install the replaceable liner. I did have to reduce the diameter of the CVA liner head to make it fit due to the offset position. Right now the flame channel of the touch hole is about 1/16" above the pan. I'm not sure if that is too high or not. If I lower the position would that make it have less delay in firing? It's pretty quick right now but I do notice a bit of delay. This is my first flintlock so I'm still getting use to the new experience.