Anybody converted a muzzleloader from percussion to flint?

[jonathan creason]

I've got a .54 cal Hawken gathering dust in the gun safe that I'd like to play doctor with.  I've done a little reading and it looks like I can convert it to flintlock with a new breech plug and lock.  Just wondering if anybody here has done it, and if so how easy was it? 

[JW_Halverson]

I got one started a few years ago when I got a ball so badly stuck in the barrel that we had to pull the breechplug.  Turns out many of those inexpensive caplocks have a pressure fitted snail or drum for the nipple.  It's impossible to remove the breechplug without removing the snail or drum, and it's also inposible to remove the snail or drum without removing the breech!  After a well filled out string of unprintable epithets was laid out for all to hear, we soaked the butt end of the barrel in soapy water to drown the powder charge and sawed it off in front of the breech and drum.  We threaded the fresh end for a new breech plug, carefully filed and fitted until we had a perfectly fitted breech.  A new touch hole was drilled in the barrel and at that point I decided to throw away the crappy beech wood two piece stock and build a new stock from some plain maple. 

That's where the job stands today.  The barrel is inletted to the stock and that is all. 

Do you have someone nearby that has breeched at least a half dozen barrels?  If not, find someone!  Breeching a barrel is more tricky than tillering the worse character stave out there.  Screw up the tiller of that stave and it will still shoot, after a fashion.  Screw up the breech and it will shoot....yeah, it will shoot the breech right straight back and thru your eye socket and into the soft squishy part that all the headbones are supposed to protect!

[jonathan creason]

Thanks for the reply, JW.  Sounds like it might be a little more than I want to get myself involved in right now, and I'd just as soon buy a flintlock as pay to have someone to convert a middle-of-the-pack T/C.  I just need to bust it out and shoot it as is for a while.  That thing leaves a heckuva hole.

[JW_Halverson]

You can purchase some fairly decent flintlock packages these days that are nearly finished.  Of course, the more you have them do for you the more expensive the kit becomes.  My last kit went a little high, but then I wanted a really fine swamped barrel with round bottom button rifling, really super curly maple stock, and some modifications to a high quality lock....$700 in parts alone. 

And I still had to inlet the barrel, buttplate, trigger assembly, lock assembly, lock plate, ramrod thimbles just for the stock.  I also had to handcut and shape the two sight dovetails, breech the barrel, and attach the barrel lugs underneath.  Those steps alone saved me $200!

A decent muzzleloader gunsmith can have your barrel cut, breeched, and drilled for a touch hole liner for about $100.  Fitting in a new lock in the existing mortise?  Well, there's another set of worm cans!

[jonathan creason]

Thanks for all the info, JW.  I need to do some research and see if I can find a gunsmith nearby that can help and go from there.

[Eric Krewson]

If it was me I would sell the cap gun and buy a good used flinter, this route will be cheaper for you in the long run.

 I have build one flintlock from scratch and have another about half done so I know what is involved in you change over. Wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have a hooked breech to deal with. TC breech plugs don't come out easily, you need a special tool to remove them.

TC will make the barrel change from percussion to flint for you, don't know what it would cost and then you would have to come up with a lock. I saw a thread where a guy had it done 20 years go at a cost of $90, no telling what it would cost today.

You can find flint barrels on fleabay often like this one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thompson-Center-Hawken-Flintlock-Black-Powder-Barrel-50-Caliber-/120795083739?pt=Vintage_Hunting&hash=item1c1ff2b3db

Looks like a new drop in Green Mountain flint barrel is about $225, L&R TC replacement lock,$143

I have had a lot of TC rifles in the past, all pretty good guns. I did buy a drop in barrel for one but the rest I didn't try to alter.

Bottom line, you will put a lot of time and money in a project that won't be worth near what you have in it by the time you get done.