i dont use lead but prefer leather . I have tried lead but in my rifles it doesn’t hold well .
I also don’t think leather would make any more of a cushion then lead . Either your flint is tight or its not . If its not , its going to move .
I considered this flint shortage a couple years back when tom fuller handed over things to his apprentice. So at that time I bought 1000 flints just in case .
Many of the small traders like mountain top trading out still has flints .
One of the fellas , Sniper68 over on the Traditional Muzzleloading Association public web site forum sells some of the best I have seen in a long while . Much better then the quality provided through TOW now .
i dont have an address for him but you can contact him through the TMA public forum , im sure
The other option is French amber . But some locks like the ambers and others don’t . I find that in a couple of my rifles , the ambers will out last the English flints some time 3 to 1.
But the key to the ambers is learning to read whats a good one and whats not . The same though could be said for the English flints though to ..
But the nice thing about the flintlock is that you don’t need to by flints and can make your own
This would include actual gun flints or just spalls . There are any number of books on the subject as well as internet recourses. When you get an idea of the process and what your looking for ,, well suddenly you will see why some folks stayed with the flintlock even after caplocks had came and gone
