Need Some Directions

[George Hoskins]

Well gentlemen I have a two part question tonite. First I am in the home streth of my build (starting to brown things) and my question is , in addition to the barrel what other parts should be looking at browning. I am talking specifically about the lock itself.What parts of it do I need to do. The second part is my buddy is getting into the sport and bought himself an entry level Traditions long rifle. The problem is the lock seems to beat the manure out of his flint, and in my opinion his frizzen spring is far too strong. How would I go about improving this. I don't want to fool around with the spring for fear of breaking it. Can I carefully (very carefully)grind the contact point on the frizzen. Is this case hardened and will I screw it up grinding it? Thank you , in advance,one and all for your sage advice Cheers

 

[tenngun]

Even when the barrel was finished in brown or blue the locks were at time left in the white. Of course use would soon "brown" a lock. Any other steel/iron parts could be browned or left in the white. I brown all my iron so I dont have to mess with it later.
Lots of rifles came in the white back then.
As to fixing the frizzen I've never had call to do that. He might try a smaller flint, or a larger before doing work on the metal

 

[crockett]

I agree- lots of wiggle room on how to finish the other hardware. Generally the lock is case hardened or left in the white. There is case hardening and color case hardening and either is pc but at the time I would think just sort of a gray case hardening was more common- just a hunch. What happened was the case hardened part was quenched in oil and the oil could impart color and some folks decided the color was attractive so more effort went into swirling the part and getting better colors. If you case harden and quench in water (safer- no flare up fires) you'll get a gray colored finish.
On the other parts- usually they were finished the same as the barrel, so if the barrel is brown then the iron hardware is brown. One exception might be screws that were fire blued. Some Hawken rifles had browned barrels and blued hardware. This bluing was (to my knowledge) rust bluing where you must boil the part. Boiling an entire barrel was a lot of work so they were just browned while the small parts could easily be boiled and blued.
Personally, I think having everything the same color is good. There were a few cap box lids that I am told were color case hardened.
Probably the best plan is to brown the barrel and hardware and fire (heat) blue the screws and leave the lock in the white.
On barrels left in the white- I'm not very up to date on that but I think that mostly related to fusils (smooth bore trade guns).

 

[Pete G]

Use one of the commercial rust removers on the lock parts(except springs). It gives a nice aged looking gray color and seems to give somewhat of a rust resistant finish.

As far as the frizzen spring, try beveling the outside edges. That will reduce the strength a little bit and improve the looks also. If worst comes to worst, order a replacement spring. That is the plus with a mass produced lock.

 

[George Hoskins]

Thank you gentleman for your replies. Cheers

 

[rafterob]

I browned my barrel, lock plate and hammer and am very pleased with the look. This is a CVA Mountain rifle, steel butt plate and trigger guard I left in the white to naturally age.