Escopetas again

Commodore Swab said:

Veteran Arms had some Indian miquelets I worked on. Problem being that over there they assume all the locks work the same and the miquelets just weren't right in any way. Im not sure if sending them a miquelet lock would help or not. It was much like their boxlocks, the frizzen toes are cut to ride on a standard frizzen even there isn't one there.

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I think you would need to go to India .Thats what I did . I took locks inc a Orig Wheellock to supervise as the crew made copies , The actual artisans' are quite capable of making most any thing despite what we would call deplorable conditions, My adding "Same to same Original"& "Polis"ect scant tooling mostly eye ball measurement's and Tekneek's .Yet they made me one offs of all sorts R & Left, Pairs didnt matter they could do it wonderfully well considering my Hindi was a bad as their English. What they can do isn't the problem its the Merchants who can speak English who as oft as not' Nickle & Dime' the artizans re prices .Should be" Rupees & Piasa "but neither would be heeded. Great potential But I gave up on that trade & went hunting Traction Engines instead . But that Sahibs is another story .Would I go out to India again? ". Not on your Nellie".It didn't kill me last time but it tried .. " Youth was cheap, wherefore we sold it ",Gold was good we hoped to hold it", And today we know the fullness of our gains ". to miss quote from Kipling''s Xmas in India' . Poetic license ?.
Regards Rudyard

Rudyard said:

I think you would need to go to India .Thats what I did ...

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Not for the feint of heart ... as one of our MZL Members here just tried that ... but in another Country - not in India, and not for a Miquelet - but they lo$t a ton of $$$ in the process; after months and months of work and overseas trips ...

This is such a small niche in terms of men actually re-enacting it; there's not likely to be any "mass produced" muskets from Pedersoli. (Wait for some guy to post that Jim Kibler should make one!)

Flint62Smoothie said:

Not for the feint of heart ... as one of our MZL Members here just tried that ... but in another Country - not in India, and not for a Miquelet - but they lo$t a ton of $$$ in the process; after months and months of work and overseas trips ...

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Good summery. I wasn't so much' feint of heart' as over charged with imagination I could see the potential I was under capitalized but did get a lot of old rifles out and took tea with three Maharaj's in a day . Ime 80 now not going anywhere but down a few feet .Too many miles on my clock .
Regards Rudyard

During the 1990's a Canadian friend (and past business associate) moved to Vietnam and purchased a small machine shop. He had a partner who was Vietnamese who could read, write, and speck both languages fluently. Their shop's specialty was making patterns. This, for a variety of new products from a variety of countries, especially the USA. Commercially, patterns have always been very expensive to create in North America. But the same pattern could be produced in Vietnam for something like one-fifth the cost. With an invested, local partner, and no language barrier, the business was a real success. I remember him telling me that their Vietnamese workers were very skilled and industrious. They just needed a bit of "hand-holding" early on.
I somehow can imagine India being similar. (?) What Commodore Swab mentions should be noted. The locks sent to him had obvious errors. But errors can be corrected. But it takes someone local that truly understands how the locks are supposed to work.

Rick

rickystl said:

During the 1990's a Canadian friend (and past business associate) moved to Vietnam and purchased a small machine shop. He had a partner who was Vietnamese who could read, write, and speck both languages fluently. Their shop's specialty was making patterns. This, for a variety of new products from a variety of countries, especially the USA. Commercially, patterns have always been very expensive to create in North America. But the same pattern could be produced in Vietnam for something like one-fifth the cost. With an invested, local partner, and no language barrier, the business was a real success. I remember him telling me that their Vietnamese workers were very skilled and industrious. They just needed a bit of "hand-holding" early on.
I somehow can imagine India being similar. (?) What Commodore Swab mentions should be noted. The locks sent to him had obvious errors. But errors can be corrected. But it takes someone local that truly understands how the locks are supposed to work.

Rick

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Well that's very interesting But would any of us want to go live in India or where ever location locks or whatever are made .I didn't fancy living in Cawnpore .The' Birmingham of India' 'if ide go for longish periods well did go but not now . The Traction engines had me hitching & camping in the wop wops 'back of the black stump ' but meeting some great old timers who actually worked the Engines and steam river boats . Echuca Vic became my second home and didn't have to worry about Hindi ( I speak fairly good 'Strine' )
Perhaps your friend could get his able crew to produce locks its low tek & Ime sure they could master it ?. Regards Rudyard