High Speed Flint Video Project
How about a super slow motion video of a flintlock igniting priming powder? BPM will attempt it in January....
Most visitors to this site have known that I have a passion for studying the flintlock. For many years I have had chances to study locks with some of the most knowledgeable in the field. Next week another opportunity for learning is coming. The five state manager of Olympus High Speed Imaging will be spending time with me. With his headquarters in Cincinnati, our first thought was to meet at Friendship and attempt high speed video using NMLRA facilities. Plans have changed a number of times, and we will now work here in northern Indiana.
Planning for this session has been a blast. The work will be done in a heated, finished building where I normally store antique cars. The cars will be moved to a temporary home to make room for the photography. I will have 3 or 4 bays open so we can spread out at least somewhat.
During this session, we will try a number of things, mainly to find out what kinds of things we can do. I will make sure we include videos of flintlocks firing with and without priming powder – perhaps with more than one granulation of prime. I will have a couple types of locks available. These will likely be fired from a fixture.
Another possibility is to attempt a video of a ball fired from a gun, shedding its patch and crossing in front of the camera. The camera, I believe, has the potential for this, but we will find out. The special properties needed for this work are frame speed and shutter speed. The camera can operate at 30,000 frames per second with a shutter speed of 5/1,000,000 second. On the surface this seems quick enough. We will be working between 1000 and 1500 fps. (A 1/10,000,000 sec. shutter speed will stop a bullet traveling at 2800 fps.)
In this session we will probably be learning more about how to video tape at this speed than learning about locks. I am curious about what flint shooters think would be important to video tape. If you had a chance at this equipment for an afternoon, what would you like to see done? At the close of this article there is a place to leave a comment. Please feel free to offer your thoughts. If we are successful at all I feel certain that a session at Friendship will occur, perhaps building a library of flintlock videos to study. Keep watching this site for more information.
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