Another Unusual Gun

[Feltwad]

Enclosed is a image of another unusual gun or should I say ignition a 6 bore tube lock fowler by Alfred Clayton ,although the tube was a early type on ignition mostly by Manton of the 1800-10 period this gun was built in the 1850,s mainly because some fowlers preferred the tube lock in weather conditions .Alfred Clayton along with Joseph Manton were the gun makers for Col Peter Hawker and mentioned in his dairies
Several gun makers built tube locks but not in a vast quantity and not many would have crossed the pond if any. This gun was used in the fowling season but when lead shot was banned for wild fowling shooting and to save this rare gun from barrel damage using steel shot it is now pensioned off.
Feltwad
6 bore tube lock

Lock Clos Up

Tubes

Tube Holder

 

[jackpine54]

That is a very interesting piece!

 

[cynthialee]

I never heard of the Tube Lock ignition system.
Had to do a crash course on it.

That was a rather smart way to do things, for the times honestly. Pity we never got a tube lock era.

 

[dave_person]

Hi and thank you Feltwad,
What a wonderful piece and I always understood that the tube lock system was very good and reliable. Moreover, if it fouled with humidity and powder residue, it was trivial to clear just by picking the vent hole like a flintlock. Much easier than clearing the flash channel on a nipple.

dave

 

[deerstalkert]

bring it out of retirement and hunt turkey's!
love seeing these!

 

[Stony Broke]

Wow.....after all the years I have been playing with muzzle loaders this is something I have never seen before. Could you give us a quick description of how those systems operated ?

 

[Brokennock]

Wow. That's pretty great. If that works like I think, and Dave's post makes me think it does, I would truly prefer that to a regular caplock. Mostly for the reason Dave states with clearing fouling, but also those look easy to work with than pesky little caps.

 

[oldwood]

Looks "your a peean"........

 

[Rudyard]

Tube locks giving a shot like blast where popular with wild fowlers & Live pigeon shooters where many pounds where waged on kills . Felt Wad has Family renown for such shooters . If I recall correctley .
I adapted an L&R ' late English' to tube lock but finding loading the priming from 126 Berdan primers fiddly if practical ,but I never used it though it interchanged in the same gun with a normal flint lock I just didn,t hunt with much percussion . I did adapt the same rifle to fire by Hawkers earlier plan so I could use the one rifle in two classes of events . But it failed tending to blow open The cock jaws held an shallow v shaped stricker face instead of a flint & the pan cover was without a steel face just a nipple strook in the normal way but as I say it tended to open though the gun fired . Stick with flint these detonators will never catch on.
Rudyard

 

[cornstalk]

Wow that’s really something. Never heard of tube locks before. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Britsmoothy]

 

[Feltwad]

The working principle of the above gun is the same has most tube locks and consist of the following . The tube is off annealed copper tube has shown in the image it is filled with a compound the same has a percussion cap with one end closed and the open end inserted into the touch hole it is laid on what is called a anvil and held in place with a clip but some have a scissor like spring.. The hammer nose consists of a protruding piece of iron which is called the spade this strikes the tube igniting the compound which fires into the touch hole and ignites the main charge ,also most hammers are fitted with some kind of shield which is to stop any of the tubes from leaving the anvil on ignition and injuring any body standing near by
Feltwad

 

[Grenadier1758]

I was wondering about what kept the tube on the anvil. Thanks for explaining.

 

[toot]

a first for me. a beauty. enjoy youe retirement OLD GIRL.!!!

 

[Whitworth]

Thanks for the history lesson.

 

[Loja man]

Very cool! Learn things here everyday!

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Simply fascinating … as well is the overall ‘historical journey’ to reliable BP ignition!

 

[Ed Pilkington]

Who woulda thunk it?

 

[clarksvillejoe]

Thank you for posting, most interesting

 

[Brokennock]

Great stuff.
I'm wondering why it didn't expand further in popularity. To my mind this seems vastly superior to the standard percussion cap.