Poorly Assembled Brown Bess Lock

Big wheel keep on turning!

Proud Mary keep on burning……Leonard Nimoy version…….

rich pierce said:

Big wheel keep on turning!

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Indian Locks are just very difficult to work on and their owner’s don’t want to pay for the workmanship.

FlinterNick said:

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Hi Ya

Youre doing everything correctly here !

And great job on the screw the only thing i do differently in this situation with Indian Locks is I make sure that screws are counter sunk to the tumbler by leaving a small chamfer on the shaft beneath the head of the screw, this keeps the parts from slipping, I’ll see if I can find an example, but lately I’ve been turning away Indian made locks, i just have too many rifle shoppe kits too assemble.

Indian made locks are full of inconsistent geometric issues, all starting with the shape of the flintcock and location of the bridle.

Personally If I were an Indian made dealer I woudln’t assemble these locks, I’d send them to the USA to be assembled with templates, their quality control would increase, a prices would increase slightly.

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One thing i forgot to add in regards to Indian Locks is the hardening process.

If you’re not aware of it, the steel they use isn’t any kind of standard carbon steel.

They often use recycled steels from carbon steel and stainless. Indian is known as the steel recycling capital of the world and they don’t separate steel types when they melt them down into stock.

so you what you end up with is carbon steels mixed with improper amounts of iron, chromium, nickel, carbon and manganese and hardening those parts can be complicated.

What i do for the frizzens is i heat them to around 1600 and quench them in a hot water brine (almost boiling) of potassium nitrate or tree stump remover, this gets the hard enough. Same with springs and internal parts.

I polish the plates up to 220 and then shot peen them in a large tumbler, this gives a kind of case hardened surface, not like real case hardening but it’s adequate.

tenngun said:

Got to defend the Indians here. I have a loyalist Arms musket , it sparks like the forth of July and compares to Land R or Davis very well

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Loyalist Arms are the only firm I know from dealings , But do know they make the effort to produce good items or supply them in good state, I have no shares in the company .
Rudyard

FlinterNick said:

One thing i forgot to add in regards to Indian Locks is the hardening process.

If you’re not aware of it, the steel they use isn’t any kind of standard carbon steel.

They often use recycled steels from carbon steel and stainless. Indian is known as the steel recycling capital of the world and they don’t separate steel types when they melt them down into stock.

so you what you end up with is carbon steels mixed with improper amounts of iron, chromium, nickel, carbon and manganese and hardening those parts can be complicated.

What i do for the frizzens is i heat them to around 1600 and quench them in a hot water brine (almost boiling) of potassium nitrate or tree stump remover, this gets the hard enough. Same with springs and internal parts.

I polish the plates up to 220 and then shot peen them in a large tumbler, this gives a kind of case hardened surface, not like real case hardening but it’s adequate.

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I once asked an Indian gun maker in his shop what steel they used ? He said "We are making with the help of the es scrap " I watched and made suggestions as a small group sat on the shop floor and made the whole to my original lock I took out with me. All by eyeball & the rudest tools .With me adding .'Same to same original" ' 'polish" and other such encouragements an old buisket tin held the clay brick crushed up lineing & a bit of push bike as a thuer ? .The air blast was an old Buffalo US made rotary affair . The fuel being charcoal '(The man who turned the fan looked a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin ) one of their hammers was loose on the head so he kept fixing it almost mechanically .You might laugh but these lads could & did produce good locks occasional errors not with standing ,and I' worked up' all I used all serving me years of use .Their jigs & templates exactly like the ones in the booklets put out by the NMLRAs Arms making Teknowledgy . I supplied them sets of BA taps & dies they used them to make copies which wasn't my idea .As for metric I despise it ,if one turns up I biff it and stay with BA ,UNC, UNF, BSF, & Whitworth , with occasional use of BSA & OMF ( Byzantium standard Acme. & Outer Mongolian Fine ) very useful if ' getting up' Dane guns since that is the usual choice on such arms .You might laugh but these hand & eye made threads are often met with old non' western' arms & early European items . You hand & eye the thread flat off two sides harden the whole thing cut a die thread in mild steel file opposing cutting gaps harden it so you have a matched set then' Bobs yer Uncle' off you go ".We done need no estinkin metric"(Or Badges.)
Rudyard's take on such things

Since I have UNF ,UNC,WW, & BSF besides BA taps & dies I throw away any metric that has crept in having enough complications with the ones I do have if main failing is the manufacturers etch such fine details its a battle to read what they are . I never adopted metric' Bonepartes' nonsense '.
Rudyard's ,two pennorth

Hi,
I rarely accept jobs involving India-made guns anymore. They take too much time and effort and are always a rabbit hole of one problem after another. I also now rarely accept Pedersolis either for the same reasons. I currently have a pattern 1730 Brown Bess in my shop made from TRS parts. The maker must have spent quite a bit on the parts set but did very little research when making the gun. All the barrel lugs are in the wrong places, the butt plate is badly inlet, and the lock and stock need a lot of remedial work. At least the gun was cleaned before leaving it with me. I work with a lot of reenactors and my shop will not accept guns that have not been cleaned inside and out. Here are photos of a typical reenactor's musket barrel bore after cleaning out the fouling and loose corrosion and this one was fairly good compared with most we receive..



dave

Sewer pipe!

The only good thing about all of these junk locks is that they can train you as to what a lock should be from the rebuild process. I learned more about locks from this process than anything else!

These are the ones who think India guns are just fine. How anyone could allow a firearm to fall into such a state is beyond me.

waksupi said:

These are the ones who think India guns are just fine. How anyone could allow a firearm to fall into such a state is beyond me.

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Hi,
The musket bore I show is from a Miroku Bess. The steel in the barrel is excellent but it definitely needs remedial work. We lapped the bore with valve grinding compound and then polished it with Scotch Bright and steel wool. It was greatly improved but the deepest pitting remained and acts as a cancer promoting more rusting. I apologize to Nick for deviating in his thread but I know he deals with this stuff too. Reenactors often attempt to clean their firelocks using methods documented during the 18th century. The problem is they are not using 18th century guns with wrought iron barrels and they are not shooting live rounds complete with bullet and paper wrap. They shoot blanks or "squibs" consisting of just powder and not even a patch. Historical live loads blow much of the fouling out of the barrel and the ball and paper wrap swab the bore somewhat with each shot. Squibs just coat the bore thick with fouling every shot. Consequently, even the best 18th century cleaning methods are inadequate to remove the fouling and prevent rusting.

dave

dave_person said:

Hi,
I rarely accept jobs involving India-made guns anymore. They take too much time and effort and are always a rabbit hole of one problem after another. I also now rarely accept Pedersolis either for the same reasons. I currently have a pattern 1730 Brown Bess in my shop made from TRS parts. The maker must have spent quite a bit on the parts set but did very little research when making the gun. All the barrel lugs are in the wrong places, the butt plate is badly inlet, and the lock and stock need a lot of remedial work. At least the gun was cleaned before leaving it with me. I work with a lot of reenactors and my shop will not accept guns that have not been cleaned inside and out. Here are photos of a typical reenactor's musket barrel bore after cleaning out the fouling and loose corrosion and this one was fairly good compared with most we receive..

dave

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Being both gunmaker & reenactor I understand this casual view some reenactors have its often just part of the outfit like a hat or boots . I don.t condone it but what can we do ? Some I've recommended he throw the gun into a river But the environmental bods would object to that notion . Just looking at my earlier post number 26 no one thought it of interest I didn't t take photoes but should have . Ile not add to the rounds of India bashing other are so much better at it. But I figure you pay peanuts you can expect the odd monkey. Few of the detractor's would do as well given the cave like conditions I saw those years ago in a back street in Cawnpore .Well I use the old spelling they made into Kanpur . Rudyard

FlinterNick.....I could see feet in the second pic. Is your full, real name "Nick LeFeet"....fixer of locks?

dave_person said:

Hi,
I rarely accept jobs involving India-made guns anymore. They take too much time and effort and are always a rabbit hole of one problem after another. I also now rarely accept Pedersolis either for the same reasons. I currently have a pattern 1730 Brown Bess in my shop made from TRS parts. The maker must have spent quite a bit on the parts set but did very little research when making the gun. All the barrel lugs are in the wrong places, the butt plate is badly inlet, and the lock and stock need a lot of remedial work. At least the gun was cleaned before leaving it with me. I work with a lot of reenactors and my shop will not accept guns that have not been cleaned inside and out. Here are photos of a typical reenactor's musket barrel bore after cleaning out the fouling and loose corrosion and this one was fairly good compared with most we receive..

dave

Click to expand...

That’s a rough looking bore Dave. It’s typical of what i see here, especially on older Italian and Japanese made reproductions. I now often recommend that some in such poor condition get a liner installed or send it to a barrel guy like Hoyt to have it reamed out. The last one Bobby did for me he charged 50 bucks, worth every penny.

I dont’ work on Indian locks anymore unless it’s for someone in my regiment, and I limit the work to simply getting a lock to spark somewhat reliably.

I’ve even quit doing defarb’s on Italian and Japanese reproductions, the time on them back logs me on other things I’d rather be doing. I’ve taken the approach i that i need to learn something new with each project i work on.

ChuckJonesWagon said:

FlinterNick.....I could see feet in the second pic. Is your full, real name "Nick LeFeet"....fixer of locks?

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Photobombed myself.

ZUG said:

I made two of the screws that I needed this morning and they fit well ( 0.0015" all around sear and frizzen). I can case harden them if need be but I will leave them be for now. The tumbler is next when I get the material in. As you can see the original tumbler is 0.350" in diameter and the lock plate is 0.3750" - 0.3765" in diameter. I have a 0.3760reamer so I will ream the lock plate to this dimension and fit the tumbler to the lock plate. I may need to bush the bridle if the tumbler's shaft is off axis centerline - we will see when the time comes.
View attachment 257938View attachment 257939View attachment 257940

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Screw making is a very handy skill to have. A lot of the factor screws we get are made from very low grade steel and just don’t last.

Rudyard said:

Loyalist Arms are the only firm I know from dealings , But do know they make the effort to produce good items or supply them in good state, I have no shares in the company .
Rudyard

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Loyalist arms is a very respectable company, they follow through and do have a good quality control system in place. I know the owners well, in my regiment we have three or four of theirs, if i have a question about one of their products, such as steel types or grades they have the info readily available, it’s a step up for sure.

FlinterNick said:

That’s a rough looking bore Dave. It’s typical of what i see here, especially on older Italian and Japanese made reproductions. I now often recommend that some in such poor condition get a liner installed or send it to a barrel guy like Hoyt to have it reamed out. The last one Bobby did for me he charged 50 bucks, worth every penny.

I dont’ work on Indian locks anymore unless it’s for someone in my regiment, and I limit the work to simply getting a lock to spark somewhat reliably.

I’ve even quit doing defarb’s on Italian and Japanese reproductions, the time on them back logs me on other things I’d rather be doing. I’ve taken the approach i that i need to learn something new with each project i work on.

Click to expand...

I use adjustable reamers to clean up original smoothbore barrels. They work very well. Im sure they would clean up these re-enactor rough bores. The shank ends of these reamers are square. I get square tubing that fits the reamer shank to drive it and make a square hole in the middle of a wooden handle to turn the reamer slowly. A wood screw will keep the handle/spinner from slipping.

I set the barrel in a vise in my bench and at the other end of the bench I line up a hole in a board with the bore. This aligns and steadies the square tubing.

Lots of cutting oil and slow and steady as it goes, from breech to muzzle. I swab between expansion of the adjustable reamer. The first pass should just clear rust. Next expansion will start to make a mix of rust and steel. Keep going and by the time you’ve removed 0.010”, things will start to shine for sure. Keep going till there are no pits and the bore looks like a mirror. It will happen and the bore will be uniform, end to end.

They look like this and typically have a range of 1/16”. For example 21/32 to 23/32”. They come in lots of sizes.

Rudyard said:

Being both gunmaker & reenactor I understand this casual view some reenactors have its often just part of the outfit like a hat or boots . I don.t condone it but what can we do ? Some I've recommended he throw the gun into a river But the environmental bods would object to that notion . Just looking at my earlier post number 26 no one thought it of interest I didn't t take photoes but should have . Ile not add to the rounds of India bashing other are so much better at it. But I figure you pay peanuts you can expect the odd monkey. Few of the detractor's would do as well given the cave like conditions I saw those years ago in a back street in Cawnpore .Well I use the old spelling they made into Kanpur . Rudyard

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rich pierce said:

I use adjustable reamers to clean up original smoothbore barrels. They work very well. Im sure they would clean up these re-enactor rough bores. The shank ends of these reamers are square. I get square tubing that fits the reamer shank to drive it and make a square hole in the middle of a wooden handle to turn the reamer slowly. A wood screw will keep the handle/spinner from slipping.

I set the barrel in a vise in my bench and at the other end of the bench I line up a hole in a board with the bore. This aligns and steadies the square tubing.

Lots of cutting oil and slow and steady as it goes, from breech to muzzle. I swab between expansion of the adjustable reamer. The first pass should just clear rust. Next expansion will start to make a mix of rust and steel. Keep going and by the time you’ve removed 0.010”, things will start to shine for sure. Keep going till there are no pits and the bore looks like a mirror. It will happen and the bore will be uniform, end to end.

They look like this and typically have a range of 1/16”. For example 21/32 to 23/32”. They come in lots of sizes. View attachment 355759

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That’s really awesome Rich, is this a brownells item ?