Firestorm

[excess650]

I was talkin' some of the guys at the range and one of them said he had a flinter that he didn't shoot. I asked what kind? and he replied "Firestorm, wanna buy it?" The price was too low to resist.

I got the rifle about a week later and it looked almost unused. The barrel appeared spotless inside, and the frizzen showed only a little use. The original cut flint appeared to be fine.

I pulled the vent liner, shined a light down the bore, and saw a crud ring around the conical shaped breechplug. TC, in their infinite wisdom made the Firestorm "Pyrodex pellet friendly" or so was supposed to be the intent. I've never shot any of the substitutes, so the breechplug looked like a potential problem for loose powder....after pulling the breechplug and cleaning, I promptly put it on the bench grinder to remove the cone and dressed it smooth with a file. After applying breechplug grease and reassembling, I took the rifle to the range.

Unknown to me, the previous owner told another guy that he couldn't get it to go off consistently. I do know that he had ffffg for pan powder at the least.

I had fffg Goex in my flask, so set the measure at 70gr and went about experimenting with various diameters of RBs, thicknesses of patches, etc. This Firestorm definitely has a larger bore than my Greyhawk as a Maxiball practically fell down the bore...anyway, even with the cut flint the gun never failed to fire, and ignition was as quick as any flinter I've ever shot. After about 40 rounds I called it a day. The lock was cruddy, but still sparking and the frizzen didn't bind.

This was the first TC that I've shot that had the QLA. It definitely made loading easier, PRB or conical. While its not a "traditional rifle", its still a flinter, and definitely reliable, at least with the modified breechplug.

 

[cayuga]

So many people are under the impression that you can use sub powders as the main charge and even the pan powder. Well you can. The problem is, they cause you a lot of headaches. At least you were wise and used real black powder and discovered the mistake the person selling the rifle made. The same thing happened to me almost, but I did not get the rifle. You got yourself a fine rifle there from all I heard. Also someone that owned one once mentioned in a post that they shoot powerbelts real well. I forget which weight, but it does not surprise me.


I once made the mistake of opening my mouth to a person that had a PA Pellet rifle from Traditions. We were talking about flinters and he mentioned he had one that was a hunk of junk. Same thing, he loaded pellets and the ignition was terrible. He did admit it was a good sparker but he said even the pan would not always fire with Pyrodex.

When he started talking about selling it my ears perked up. But I then asked him, have you ever used black powder as the main charge and 4f as the primer powder? No he said. So I told him to try 80 grains of 2f black powder, as the main charge, and 4f in the pan and see if that did not make a difference.

A while back I ran into him at a meeting. He saw me and was all smiles. He mentioned his flint lock rifle and how well it works now. I played dumb and said, what's your load and he said 80 grains of Goex 2f and a little 3f (he could not find 4f around here) in the pan. He said it shoots just fine now. I then told him if he had to he could use 3f as the main charge.