Loyalist Arms Doglock

[Flint1]

Hello everyone,
I'm contemplating acquiring a Loyalist Arms doglock, but before I do, can ya'll help me with the following questions:
1) The reason I'm considering this particular piece is because I understand it would have been available to a hunter on the South Carolina frontier mid 1750's to early 1760's--is this correct?
2) Does anyone have any experience with this manufacturer? Are their products reliable?
3) I would actually use the gun to hunt with and to compete in smoothbore matches--would this product be as accurate as any other smoothbore? I've always been a rifle shooter--does it matter about the manufacturer of a smmoth barrel (Getz, Colerain, etc.)--or do tolerances make one brand of barrel a better shooter than another?
Thanks for any help.

 

[Rebel]

I looked at both the Loyalist Doglock and the one that Middlesex Village Traders has. I really like the one from Middlesex better. It has a more period correct barrel length of 51" and it only weighs about 8lbs as opposed to 10 lbs for the Loyalist one with the shorter barrel. Also, Middlesex is here in the U.S., so you keep your money in this country, and they come with the vent drilled already.

 

[Henry]

Dog locks were already old fashion in 1750 ,
but some flintlocks still had a catch hook
doglock style , mostly blunderbusses .

Military heritage guns are very decent for
the price , but it is a lower quality
than a Getz barrelled gun, kind of comparing a Chevette
and a Corvette .

 

[Tommy Bruce]

I have to agree with Henry on this one. You could go a lot more modern than a dog lock for the time period you're interested in. It also seems like I remember their dog lock being a loose copy of a New England gun. I'd stick with a smoothbore and depending on your persona (I'm assuming English) go with an early English style lock. Please tell us more about your persona. While I've never fired one I've handled guns from Middlesex and can't say I was overly impressed. But I guess not a bad buy for the money. Good luck in your choice

 

[kmeyer]

I can't find anywhere on the Loyalist page were it says the vent is not drilled. I know alot of the non-american companies do that, but I don't think Loyalist is one of them. I too am thinking about that gun. I prefer it over the middlesex.

 

I agree the doglock would have been outdated by the 1750s/60s in South Carolina...of course you can always carry an old piece, I still sometimes hunt with a shotgun made 84 years ago (LC Smith). But there were gunmakers and gun importers in SC by that time. If you want to carry an old smoothbore, the so-called "type G tradegun" (Hamilton) was imported into Charleston (Charles Town)in large numbers for the Indian trade. There used to be one on TOW for sale...There are a couple of local makers in SC area that build 1760s southern rifles: Jack Hubbard and Don Bruton--Hubbard has a website. I have a Bruton 1760s longrifle...some of my ancestors were in SC by that time...you could carry a Brown Bess as well, or a Germanic rifle---lots of choices by 1750s.... :m2c:

 

By the 1750's most doglocks were antiques and military surplus. Great thing about military surplus is that they work for a long, long time. I have a 60 year old .303 enfield that is the scourge of Dirt Beavers all over southeast Michigan. I knew a guy who used an original .54 Sharps for deer hunting.

Doglocks are cool and unique, and are starting to gain popularity. If you want one to fit your 1750's persona, age it a bit (now, I know that's controversial, but in this case, it makes a lot more sense than a brand new 60 year old gun.)

:results: :m2c:

 

[LFord]

A friend of mine just bought one of the doglocks from Loyalist(arrived yesterday) and loves it so far. It does have a half cock notch in the sear so you can take it to half cock or you can go to full cock with the dog engaged. He hasn't shot it yet but it does spark well and the action is smooth.
I have a 1756 Long Land from Middlesex Village and you have to view these guns for what they are. They are not up to the level of a custom built gun but I think mine is well worth the price I paid for it. I have only had the gun out twice but it fired well for me doing both live firing and blank loads for re-enacting. As far as accuracy goes I have not had it on a bench yet so I can't give an opinion on that.
You can almost always use a gun from an older period as parts were always being recycled and you made do with what you could get your hands on. My RevWar unit was at the Battle of Monmouth over the weekend and as we portray an early war unit(76-78)we had 8 different types of guns among us on the field.

 

[FearNot]

Regarding a question furtherer up the thread...

It sounds as though your musket came with the flash hole already drilled, right?

 

[LFord]

Both Loyalist Arms and Middlesex Village Trading Company come drilled.

 

[K9_75]

Warning! ff: ...straying off a bit....

In Sweden the "doglocks" were used on military service arms into the 19th century. For a bit of viewing pleasure please click: Swedish Army Museum Keep to the Swedish version of the webpage and click F

 

[Owenbrau]

Hi, I'm the one with the Loyalist Doglock!

Yes, the vent hole is drilled. Loyalist ships all weapons in two boxes, lock in one and stock and barrel in the other, for the same reason some companies don't drill the vent; it isn't a complete weapon that way and they have less trouble in customs.
I like the finish; oddly enough, I think it is better than that on Les' MV Bess :blah:

I will be using it in multiple venues; as a brand-new, state of the art weapon for Golden Age of Piracy, and an old militia weapon (carried by an old militiaman) in early RevWar.

 

[Story]

You could always update the doglock on the Middlesex 51" with a 1750's vintage flintlock, then sell off the doglock lock.
That might even be ultra-PC.

 

[benvenuto]

does anyone else find the stock on these a little odd? I am thinking specifically of the transition between the wrist and the rest of the butt (the baluster?) I was thinking it should look a little more like the TRS series 669 (John Burgers Doglock Fowler) In fact it looks a lot like a half-finished long land butt with a flat buttplate screw to it...

 

[Militiaman1835]

The original Cookson doglock fowler is shown in Battle Weapons of the American Revolution on page 163...JIM :front:

 

[Okwaho]

K9_75 Thanks for the link to the early Swedish guns. They illustrate my point, made many times before, that there is NO DOGLOCK PER SE only locks with dog catches.I looked at the first 13 guns and I found that: the first 7 are snaphaunces with NO dog catches which is what I would expect;the next gun Ca.1688 appears to be a flintlock but there was no way to see if there was a dog catch;the next 6 were flintlocks of which at least 3 had dog catches.

The simple truth of the matter is that there are NO DOG LOCKS only locks with dog catches.Dog catches were almost never seen on continental European guns except for Sweden where it enjoyed popularity rather late,Torsten Lenk,"The Flintlock" PP.94-95. In England snaphaunces converted to flint were equipped with dog catches and the "English Lock", with its horizontal sear, having evolved as a response to the true French flintlock was equipped with a dog catch.The need for the dog catch was the lack of a half cock notch on the[url] tumbler.In[/url] about 1670 the "English lock" gave way to the true French flintlock and for the most part the dog catch faded into obscurity although it seems to have hung on in some areas such as Sweden as pointed out above.

Conventional wisdom has dictated for many years that any gun which has a dog catch is a doglock gun regardless of the type of lock.Even as I am typing this post I am looking at pictures of a Ca. 1720-1735 English fowler{probably a trade gun}with a three screw lock ,gooseneck cock and a dog catch reposing in a major New England museum.I hardly think any one would call it a "doglock" gun.I suppose that I shall have to find a mediocre half stock percussion rifle from the 1850-70 period,drill a hole behind the cock, and install a dog catch. I guess I'll have the only doglock percussion Kentucky rifle known.
Tom Patton :imo:

 

[benvenuto]

thanks I'll try and track it down

 

[Owenbrau]

Well, now that it's all done, I ave a report. I wanted to wait until I knew how it would be dealt with before saying anything.

Shortly after recieving the doglock from Loyalist, the kniofe-edge of the sear folded; the weapon had not been live-fired yet, just snapped less than 2 dozen times. They were quite surprised, and told me that they'd never had that particular problem before. They had me ship the lock back, and manufactured a new sear for me. Side note, and not their fault; pay attention to their instructions if you have to ship something back for service, as the US Customs forms do not meet the Canadian standards for indicating that it is a warranty issue and not a sale unless you spell that out explicitly. I just checked off "Returned goods" and didn't do what they told me to, and had to pay extra customs fees. But the new sear works great, and shot very reliably last weekend. Only a couple of misfires, those after some amount of shooting both ball and blanks. The action is hard, but the French flints I got held up without having to change even after 3 dozen shots. It handles well, and just looks cool.We didn't really check accuracy, so I'll let you know after we get to a real range.

 

[thomas]

Thanks for the up-date, It's good to hear they fixed it for you & I hope it works well for you! I hear you saying, that your happy with french flints?

Thomas

 

[weirdjack]

Thanks for the report! I'm glad to see people who are shooting these guns reporting on them. Too bad about the sear issue, but they took care of you, so that's good. Please let us know how it fairs as far as roundball accuracy and shot pattern.
Jack