Goex

The history of this rifle began years ago when my friend Rick Shellenberger in Colorado cleaned out an old muzzleloading shop. Among other items, he brought home 2 Sharon .58 caliber rifle barrels. Both were rifled at 1 turn in 72 inches. These barrels have eight lands and grooves. Rick kept one barrel and gave the other one to me. Back in Indiana, years passed until I began collecting parts to complete ... Read More »

As a retired educator and a student of the flintlock, I am fascinated with what we can learn by applying technology to the field of black powder. This is another in a series of articles that uses a computer interface to experiment with our black powder hobby. The first articles (1990-1992) described experiments timing various flintlocks. Another article (2000) described the timing of touch holes. This article explores the timing of different ... Read More »

Most of us, at one time or another, have wondered what factors cause locks to produce good results. Obviously, there are considerations which we have not been able to measure and maybe can never isolate. In this article, I would like to look at some factors   Photo 1: The flint is just about to begin contact with the frizzen. Two thirds of the mechanical time is complete. which have not yet ... Read More »

We attempt to measure the effect of seating pressure on black powder ignition in both percussion and flintlock rifles. – Larry Pletcher and Steve Chapman The purpose of these compression tests was to find out how flint and percussion rifles would react to changes in compression as the ball was seated on the powder. My personal method has been to use firm and consistent pressure whether I was shooting a percussion or ... Read More »

It’s finally ready! Flintlocks with multiple variables at 5000 frames/second. This movie will run at GunMakers’ Hall this spring. Here’s your chance to see it early. See if you can see individual blackpowder grains ignite. The accumulation of my high speed flintlock videos is finally finished. Because of over all size the movie is in two parts. Part A includes experiments with my old faithful large Siler lock using chipped English flints, ... Read More »