The other night I was rechecking my barrels on my Great Plains Hunter rifle for signs of rust and decided to take the lock plate off to make sure there was not an abundance of built up powder behind it. There wasn't any at all that I could see. Then I decided to unscrew my touch hole whatever it's called (liner?). It screwed out and in very easily. I've heard that the touch hole liner from Jim Chambers make the lock time much faster. Do they just screw in like the one I took out and which one(s) should I get? And really how much faster will the new touch hole make ole thunder cloud talk? I've polished the pan to a bright shiny state and have a few miss fires every once in a while but I've found if I keep that touch hole WIDE open and clean I have very few misfires. Everyone brags on the English flints but so far I'm just about even on the performance with them and the Arkansas cut ones. Both seem to work pretty well in my rifle. And so far I have been extremely pleased with it. But I would like to cut the lock time all I can. Again, all help appreciated. Thanks, Mike

Mike, one of the things that might help is to take out your liner and counter bore it from the inside. This allows the powder to come into closer contact with the flash from the pan. One thing to do by the way is to fill the pan to as nearly even with the touch hole as possible. The flash in the pan travels sideways as well as down and it is the sideways flash that produces the part of the flame that enters the touch hole.
One last thing that I do as a course of habit is to tap the butt of the rifle down on the ground right after I dump the main charge down the barrel. This, I think, settles the powder charge down inside the liner more closely.
Good luck.

Muzzle, gotcha on the taping the barrel to settle the charge and have taken the touch hole liner out but am uncertain just how much to take out and can I do it with a dremmel tool? How deep into the flash hole should I counter bore? Thanks, Mike

Four Tails, you'll need to find a drill bit that is the same as the inside diameter(or slightly smaller) of the liner. Measure and drill carefully to within 1/16 of an inch to the outside of the liner. I would then re-install the liner using teflon tape. Good luck.

The White Lightning liner is much bigger than the one you have. It will require drilling the hole larger and tapping for new threads. You will also need to unbreach your rifle to file off any of the new liner extending into the bore. Chanmber's liner are made to be installed and left there.

It will be less work to enlargen the inside cone of your existing liner.

I think I will try to enlarge my existing liner as mentioned and see how it works. Thanks again, Mike

Use a #4 ( I think, maybe a #3 whatever is slightly larger than your present hole.)center drill, fill your touch hole with a feather when loading, and tamping your charge down. Think of it this way, if you fill the touch hole with powder, you have to burn this powder before it gets to the main charge. Now about the powder in the pan going sideways yes it does and if you put a 1gn charge in your pan, (for targets not hunting) and put it on the outside of the pan near the up curve it will direct the flame towards the flash hole and actually to the main charge faster. Creating a faster lock time. Sounds crazy but it works. Take your lock apart and spend a lot of time polishing the moving parts with some fine crocus cloth. When putting it back to together, use some synthetic grease, but very sparingly, as too much will slow things when it gets cold. This will get ole thunder cloud, speaking in rapid fashion. English flints generally last longer. If you want lasting flints do a search on dura flint. They are a synthetic you will need a diamond file to resharpen. I use these for hunting. I once used one at a rendevous and shot over 100 shots and it was still throwing good fire, and it does have the other end as well.