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Dave, if you make this happen, you'll make an entire segment of the reenactor/collector market happy. Wheellocks use pyrites for ignition, which are hard to find in good quantity/quality. Folks who have wheellocks have been trying for years to come up with a substitute for them. All of the industrial rare earth "flints" have been tried, to little success. The mechanism of ignition is very different from a flintlock though. The flint in a flintlock works by shaving microscopic slivers off of the frizzen. The pyrite in a wheellock has microscopic slivers ground off via the spinning wheel (kind of like a zippo) in the lock.
The replicas made of pot metal wouldn't be hard enough to spark regardless of ignition type described above. That shouldn't stop you from trying though. The man-made "flint" might be worthy of pursuit by itself, even if it finds no direct utility as you described.
I think if you were to get a couple of the replicas in your hand, you'd see how poorly they were made and would be able to approach this from a position of knowledge instead of supposition.
The replicas made of pot metal wouldn't be hard enough to spark regardless of ignition type described above. That shouldn't stop you from trying though. The man-made "flint" might be worthy of pursuit by itself, even if it finds no direct utility as you described.
I think if you were to get a couple of the replicas in your hand, you'd see how poorly they were made and would be able to approach this from a position of knowledge instead of supposition.
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