Lock tune up

[Darkhorse]

Yes, I'm talking about a civilian lock. Specifically the LH Large Siler from Jim Chambers. These are my values only. Determined after much shooting for effect. What works for me might not be the best for someone else.
It is highly likely I preceded the hard Arkansas with either a hard or medium stone as I have several. This was my first attempt at modifying a lock part and I had much to learn, this happened some 30 years ago. One thing I learned was to keep spare parts on hand in case I messed one up.
I didn't get real serious about lock tuning until I had built my second rifle. About that time I got a mentor who helped me through the tough parts.
I did notice the thread was about a Brown Bess lock but I didn't think my reply was clouding the issue. I also didn't realize perhaps I was intruding into a private exchange.
It would suit me to delete my replys but I can't figure out how to do it. Any help here would be appreciated.

 

[Artificer]

It is highly likely I preceded the hard Arkansas with either a hard or medium stone as I have several.

I wasn't trying to put you on the spot, but I did think your earlier post led to confusion that a Hard Arkansas stone would or even could cut through surface hardness of parts and thus ruined them. That's why I made a point of asking if you used at least fine or medium India stones, which are cutting stones rather than a Hard Arkansas that cuts/abrades so little it is known as a polishing stone. IOW the damage was not caused by the Hard Arkansas stone.

I think it is important to note which lock one is referring to and especially when it is different than the one the OP first mentions. Otherwise, that can be confusing to the OP and/or other posters.

Again, not trying to be personally critical of you, just trying to ensure we don't confuse anyone and yes, I can and have done it myself as well.

Gus

 

[Darkhorse]

Before I begin on my main reply, I assume you are talking about a 3 lb. Frizzen Spring on a "civilian" lock and not a Military lock? I mention this because the thread began about a Military size Brown Bess Lock.

I wanted to ask if in the polishing you mentioned, if you had used fine or medium India stones along with the hard Arkansas stone? It seems to me that you did, as going beyond the depth of case hardening is extremely difficult to do with just a hard Arkansas stone?

Earlier in the thread I mentioned if the OP wanted to try doing the polishing (with the hard Arkansas stone) or smoothing/some metal removal (with India stones) that I would be happy to give some tips. However, the OP has not answered, so I can only imagine he does not want to try going further than sending the lock to someone else.

I fully agree one should not attempt to smooth/remove some metal on the lock parts without some instruction, if they don't have a mentor to show them. Yes, when doing smoothing/metal removal on lock parts, one sometimes to often has to re-harden or re-case harden the parts depending on how much metal was removed. I would add that it is normal for one to ruin a sear or tumbler or both when one first begins to learn to do metal removal on the parts, but that is extremely common and expected, even with a good mentor.

Gus

Gus, you in no way put me on the spot. What I wanted to say is clear to me. I was working on my (long sold) GPR lock, which I identified in the post and noted the edge was cratered. A hard arkansas stone can remove enough material from the edge to expose softer material if one is not careful. I think that is something anyone who wants to dive into lock tuning with a handful of stones should think about.
Back in April of this year I had some PM correspondence with Plugged Nickel about this very same subject. That is the only reason I joined the conversation at all. I had no intent to attempt to teach someone anything about lock work. Or to convince anyone that I was an expert on the subject, I will leave that peach crate to others who covet the attention.
But I will mention one thing in passing.....In your last paragraph an assumption was made that I was a beginner who is just beginning to learn metal removal. Why would you write that when speaking to a person whose past and skills you know nothing about? You don't need to answer. I have no intentions of writing a long dissertation of my qualifications so to gain respect from those who do not know me.

 

[Artificer]

But I will mention one thing in passing.....In your last paragraph an assumption was made that I was a beginner who is just beginning to learn metal removal. Why would you write that when speaking to a person whose past and skills you know nothing about? You don't need to answer. I have no intentions of writing a long dissertation of my qualifications so to gain respect from those who do not know me.

No, there was no assumption at all that you were a beginner and just learning to work metal. After all, you had already mentioned you were a Tool and Die maker in the Air Force and that means you were trained in the use of stones on parts you machined. I'm sure you were also given training in hardening/annealing parts as well.

Did I misunderstand the part on the old GPR lock was cratered before you began stoning it? That wasn't really clear in your earlier post. If that was the case, then it already showed it was not properly heat treated and yes it is possible in a case like that for a Hard Arkansas stone to do further damage to an improperly heat treated part that was already failing. That is a good point to bring to the discussion, because for many if not most people who don't know how to reharden an improperly heat treated part - that may be too much for them to do or at least they should be advised they will have to do more work to fix the part.

Gus

 

[Darkhorse]

I left a job as a Tool & Die maker to take a job as a Machine Tool Operator with the AF. It took a few years to get into T&D, lots of competition, but my experience stood for a detailed vetting and I was finally promoted into a Master Toolmaker position. I wore several hats with the AF, I built fixtures in Numerical Control and ended my career of 34 years behind a desk in engineering data management. It was in my private sector job as a Tool & Die apprentice I learned heat treating and annealing and the proper use of files and stones.
I am speaking from memory as this event with the GPR happened some 30 years ago. I actually don't know the condition of the sear and tumbler notch but the rifle was fired regularly with no problems. The area I stoned was where the sear fit into the tumbler notch at half-cock. I gave it a good stoning as I intended to remove all tool marks from these surfaces. The stoning felt good and looked good. It held the rifle at half and full cock at home for several shots but that afternoon in the woods it would not hold at either half or full cock. I tried to cock the rifle many times but it never again held at half or full cock. I came home and ordered those parts from Lyman to get the rifle back in service.
I didn't think I could remove enough metal to cause this with a hard arkansas so I assumed the part was case-hardened. And having experienced the evidence I thought it was a good thing to relate the experience as a warning to those wanting to improve their lock with stones. It never hurts to be aware unexpected things can happen that endangers the life of bystanders.
And that is the whole story. Nothing else to it.
As a rule I don't share my techniques of lock tuning. I don't believe just anyone should be monkeying around inside rifle locks. It's simply not a safe practice.

 

[Artificer]

I can certainly respect those who don't wish to share lock tuning techniques. That is up to each person to consider and decide.

Many civilian locks having fly's in the tumbler and especially when using set triggers, often don't require lock tuning for many years, if ever.

However, large military locks like the OP was asking about (whether percussion or flintlock) were purposely designed to have HEAVY trigger pulls due to being sort of a safety feature, heavy springs to ensure they would work properly in combat and finally so the lock parts would last longer when used much, MUCH more often than period civilian locks were generally used.

Whether or not some to many people "should or should not" work on these locks, it is a fact that many people do and yes without some instruction, some folks will screw them up more often than help them. That's why I think it is a good idea to offer things they can do without screwing up the lock parts and then some explanation of what is required to go further. With that info, they can stop before they screw up the lock parts, if they don't have the patience or want to learn the skills to go further.

In my own case, I was very, VERY fortunate to have had Mentors who taught me many things on a number of different military and civilian locks. Just as they were kind enough to mentor me, I believe we should honor them by passing the information along to younger generations. That plus I worked many years at the NSSA Spring and Fall National Championships and almost all of that was on large military locks. That experience also taught me things that can or should not be done.

This is not meant to be critical of anyone who does not wish to pass on the information, it is just I think it is better overall to do so.

Gus

 

[Kansas Jake]

Thank you both Darkhorse and Gus for making this an interesting and useful discussion.

 

[Darkhorse]

Thank you Kansas Jake for the kind words. I always hope that others might get something useful from our discussions.

I did not have a mentor to get me through the rough spot when I started shooting the flintlock but I sure needed one. My 50 yard offhand scores were always high mostly in the high 40's with a few X's, I took a 3rd place in this event with a caplock at the SE Regional NMLRA matches around 1977 or so. So I just assumed I would shoot the same way with a flintlock, but I was due for a dressing down bigtime.
I couldn't get the gun to fire the main charge and when it did I had hangfires, no consistency at all. I set about figuring "Why" and one of the first things I discovered was the liner seemed to be made to keep the gun from firing. And seeing as I worked in a T&D shop I designed a better liner and made a few from stainless steel. Keep in mind I live way out of town in a very Rural environment. So I had never heard of Jim Chambers "White Lightning" liners or the fact that many parts and resources were available to build your own rifle from quality parts. This picture is the liner I came up with back then, as you can see it's very similar to the WL liners.

This liner allowed me to get the rifle fairly consistent and when I sold it many of the lock parts and the set triggers had been replaced or modified. It now was a good shooter but I wanted a better rifle.
I'm someone who wants to know my firearms inside and out and to be able to fix or tune anything neccesary. Building a couple really helps.
It was the second one that gave me the trouble. I couldn't hold a group and it took a while to figure out why. The first one, my .54 has a single trigger and with some polishing it was shooting good. The second one has set triggers and I could feel the jar when I shot it. I could see the front sight move off target every shot. The frizzen was so hard to open the flint just slammed into it before it opened.
So that is the reason I tune my locks. I want to speed the cycle while remaining consistent. I want all points of friction polished out. There are many reasons for a problem like I had and I corrected each one. If it makes the lock last longer that's just another benefit. But what I'm after is making that rifle shoot as good as possible in my hands.

 

[Artificer]

Thank you both Darkhorse and Gus for making this an interesting and useful discussion.

Thank you for the kind words.

As a regular/standard Infantry Weapons Repairer/Armorer, we had stones, but no Hard Arkansas Stones and did not need them UNTIL we switched from the M14 to the M16A1 at the 1st Marine Division in the Summer of 1972. This because the hardening on the M16A1 hammers and other parts was so bloody THIN, any “smoothing” we tried to do on the hammers with medium India stones, resulted in going right through the hardened surface skin and ruined the parts.

I was extremely fortunate to get a Mentor who knew flintlocks when I showed up for the One Year (Plus) OJT (Apprenticeship) Program in November 1973 to become a NM Armorer in the Marine Corps. He turned into my Best Friend in Life. Though I always had the desire to do the work, I had almost no experience in working metal. Fortunately my Mentor was almost exactly 10 years older than I and had gone through the G.E. Machinist Apprentice Program and had at least 6 if not 8 years experience as a Tool and Die Grinder. So I could pick his brains often while I sweat blood learning to work metal.

I first learned the most about stones when I did my first trigger jobs on UnCivil War Muskets at the NSSA Spring Nationals in 1973 and at the same period, when learning to work NM triggers on NM Pistols during my military OJT Period/Apprenticeship. Most of the trigger jobs we did on UnCivil War Repro muskets in those days were on Italian Repo guns with only fair to poor fitting parts and really spotty hardening of the parts from the factory. It was a DREAM when we got to work on Original Guns, as the parts were so much better fit and hardened than the Italian Repro's. Also when the REAL Parker Hale guns came along, they had great parts as well.

Years later when I was the “Instructor of OJT’s” or Apprenticeship Instructor for the Shop, I went into FAR more detail on using stones and hand filing metal flat then, than I had been instructed as an OJT/Apprentice. I even came up with the terms “Zen Filing” and “Zen Stoning,” though that had nothing to do with the procedures. It was just a way to get the OJT’s attention and help them retain it.

Gus

 

[Darkhorse]

Years later when I was the “Instructor of OJT’s” or Apprenticeship Instructor for the Shop, I went into FAR more detail on using stones and hand filing metal flat then, than I had been instructed as an OJT/Apprentice. I even came up with the terms “Zen Filing” and “Zen Stoning,” though that had nothing to do with the procedures. It was just a way to get the OJT’s attention and help them retain it.

Gus

Funny you should mention that. Hanshi and I both have a background in the Martial Arts, I was an Instructor and ran my own school in "Tae Kwon Do" for several years. We coined the phrase "The Zen of the Flintlock". Describing that point when you develop a sort of tunnel vision down the barrel, just burning that front sight into the bull and focusing all effort into a good trigger squeeze, putting the ball dead center of the bull. And totally ignoring the hammer falling onto the frizzen and the flash in the pan.
Zen could be applied to many things that require great concentration and mental strength.

 

[Artificer]

Funny you should mention that. Hanshi and I both have a background in the Martial Arts, I was an Instructor and ran my own school in "Tae Kwon Do" for several years. We coined the phrase "The Zen of the Flintlock". Describing that point when you develop a sort of tunnel vision down the barrel, just burning that front sight into the bull and focusing all effort into a good trigger squeeze, putting the ball dead center of the bull. And totally ignoring the hammer falling onto the frizzen and the flash in the pan.
Zen could be applied to many things that require great concentration and mental strength.

Well, I'm certainly impressed, Sensei! That may not be or even probably is not the correct term for Tae Kwon Do, but that's the title for the Nisei Instructor we used when I studied Judo in grade school and the Instructor of Okinawan Karate at a 300 year old Dojo near Naha on my first tour on Okinawa. Please understand it is meant as a sign of sincere respect, nonetheless.

I even used the term Zen Draw Filing on a visit to the Gun Shop at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1980's. The shop was packed that day with us tourists and line in the room that housed the rifling bench, before you got into the main shop, was moving VERY slowly that day. On the left side of the room, I watched a young Apprentice struggling mightily in what turned out to be an effort to file the face of a large hammer flat. He had almost as many facets on it as a diamond. I felt great sympathy for him, remembering how hard I had to work to learn it and how I had trained Apprentices under me. Finally when he paused for a moment in frustration, I asked if I could help him to file it flat? He looked puzzled and I went on, "Have you ever heard of Zen Draw Filing?" With a very quizzical look, he said he had not, so I began to explain and show him how to do it. I got it across to him that he had to take very short strokes at first and concentrate on putting more pressure where needed, etc., etc.. We ignored the crowd around us and in about 20 minutes, he began to get the technique. I spent about another 10 minutes encouraging him and he was well on his way and was grinning from ear to ear. Unbeknownst to me, the Master of the Shop, Gary Brumfield, had noticed what we were doing, but had not said anything.

However, when I got into the Main Shop where I could ask questions on Tumbler Grinders and other things, he pulled out all kinds of tools to show me and answered a host of questions in great detail and much to my delight. Other tourists fell silent and listened intently. He asked me if I was a gunsmith and I replied though we were known as "The Gunsmiths of the Corps," we were more correctly known as NM Armorers, because we could not make every part of the rifles or pistols we worked on. I told him I was then the NCOIC of the Rifle Section where we built/maintained NM M14 Rifles. Though he did not mention it at the time, that struck a cord with him as I later learned he began gun work on NM M14's in (I think I recall) the Army. About 20 years later on another forum Gary was on, I thanked him again for that wonderful day, though he did not remember it from his years at the shop.

Gus

 

[Darkhorse]

There are many translations to these terms in Tae Kwon Do, your association will provide the translations for you to use so you just go with that. But Sensei is the Japanese term for instructor. The Korean term is Sah Bum Nim for instructor/Master. However Sensei is often used in the United States. When I was still working I got frequent visits from students in the association, they always called me Sensei and bowed. As you said,"a term of respect." The older Korean Masters certainly frown on it but here in the country of so many rebels it's meaning is understood.

 

[Artificer]

Thank you, I did know Tae Kwon Do was a Korean Martial Art, but having never studied it, I didn't know the correct term for the Master.

Fortunately when I first visited the 300 year old Dojo on Okinawa, I had been trained by a Very Old School Judo Sensei, so I did not come off as an Ugly American.

OK, sorry for going off topic, now back to lock tuning.

Gus

 

[Rat]

What I did with my Pedersoli Bess carbine, although she worked "pretty good" when I got it. It was always reliable, but a little on the slow side, especially compared to my Jeager, which is not really a fair comparison. I made the pan deeper by the touch hole, which in essence raised the hole. I then coned the touch hole. My main spring was a little soft, so I put something (I forget what) on the inside bend of the mainspring, which made it a bit stronger.

Now just recently I found that she likes the flint as close to the frizzen as I can get it, at half cock. In the past that didn't seem to matter, but it makes a big difference. Every lock likes something different. However, it's a long reach, and takes a long flint to do that. So anyhow, she's very fast now.

Enough can't be said as to over-tightening any and all screws on a lock, or a firearm for that matter. Don't do it. Snug, not tight.

 

[Artificer]

Now just recently I found that she likes the flint as close to the frizzen as I can get it, at half cock. In the past that didn't seem to matter, but it makes a big difference. Every lock likes something different. However, it's a long reach, and takes a long flint to do that. So anyhow, she's very fast now.

Rat,

FWIW, I have found on Brown Bess repro's from Pedersoli and Miroku, that it is often necessary to try different thicknesses of leather or lead flint pads and different flint lengths for each individual lock, to get it to spark the best.

Gus

 

[Rat]

Roger that. Just another one of those things that I never tried before...which is a good reason to try everything. !!!

 

[Artificer]

Roger that. Just another one of those things that I never tried before...which is a good reason to try everything. !!!

It was an important point to bring up again, for those who don't know it about large military flintlocks. So I'm glad you did bring it up. Hopefully this will benefit others who don't know about it.

When I "came back" to doing AWI reenacting in the early 2,000's, my unit had been doing AWI and FIW for quite a few years, but many of the members of my unit did not know this. I found that extremely surprising, but many of them had fired few or no "live" rounds from their muskets, while in the 1970's I fired many more live rounds with my Brown Bess Carbine than I did in reenactments in those years. When even those who shoot flintlocks a lot don't know these things in recent years, it shows how important it is to get the word out to both new and even some very experienced flintlock musket users.
Gus