New Lock Is Here!

[Erzulis boat]

Just received a Chambers "Christian's Spring" lock from the folks at TOTW.

Casting- excellent quality, one tiny handling ding on face, no big deal. If it does not entirely vanish after the clean/polish, I am not going to cry myself to sleep at night.

Overall Fit- pan and frizzen are totally straight. Pan's lower "skirt" sits nice and flat on the lockplate face, no gaps. Frizzen spring also sits nice and flat, only gap is the correct one near the top tail. Frizzen spring finial is extremely well defined, and will require no filing to "dress" it up.
The cock has a tight close fit with a very uniform distance from the lockplate (rare for most locks). Cock screw has a close tolerance fastener to threaded hole fit, and the top jaw settles exactly above the lower jaw around the entire perimeter. The Cock top finial is likewise extremely well defined.
Frizzen face is ground uniformly.

Action- heavy mainspring (of course). Bridle is flat and square. No arm drag with the sear (still needs to be stoned). Very fast and powerful, with the frizzen offering great resistance, but only on a tiny portion of it's travel, then "kicks" past with tiny resistance.

I am happy so far.

 

[Erzulis boat]

Upon testing the lock, there is one tiny potential "issue".

The frizzen overhangs the pan's trough by about .040", but it definitely sits correctly (flat) on the pan's top surface.

All this means, while it is torn down and being polished, I must remember not to go to town opening/polishing the rear of the pan trough.

No big deal at all, but reinforces the practice of close inspection prior to assembly.

If all the Chambers locks are of this quality, then the attendant cost, is in fact, peanuts.

Thank You- Mr. Chambers.

Now the Colerain barrel.................can somebody post on the various attributes of the (Colerain-Getz-GM-etc.) swamped barrel manufacturers?

I will not say a thing about the barrel yet (Colerain)........................

 

[Roy]

I will not say a thing about the barrel yet (Colerain)........................

I've had great ones, good ones, and one(40cal)that was shooting 18" high at 25yds. with a tight spot in the barrel (its now a 43cal and hits dead on :grin: ). But most generally all around great barrels. I am positive that Colerain would have taken it back and fixed the problems, but I am a better smith now for knowing how to and having the abillity to fix these problems.

 

[rich pierce]

That lock is a big sparker. Only thing I'd change is to have more room in the nose for a front lock bolt position. And if I could get the same with less curve, for later period guns. But I'm not complaining- it's the best early Germanic lock available EVER.

 

[Erzulis boat]

Roy-

The bore looks good (what really counts!), but the external machining operations are quite rough, and I can easily discern the surface material "tearout".

Granted, I machine stuff for a living, so maybe my pickiness is a bit skewed, but....

My only real complaint so far is purely cosmetic.

After draw filing, the surface still has a slightly wavy appearance. Very slight, but I can see it. The final finish will be a matte black, so it will vanish, but if I wanted to blue it with a high gloss....I doubt that it would pass muster.

I still have the fine drawfiling and 220 grit action to go, so it will be fine, but once again, I am not too thrilled. :hmm:

 

[Erzulis boat]

Hey, Rich-

I noticed that too!

I have some nice rounded head (large) lockbolts in 10-32, but might have to go with 8-32's instead. There is barely enough room up front to be sure!

Even an 8 will be right at the edge before the chamfer goes down.
I almost thought about going with a blind hole, but that is probably not PC at all.

 

[Roy]

I have made 6's for the front, as long as the head is the same size no one notices until they remove the lock.

 

[Swampman]

The most accurate gun I've ever owned (out of hundreds) had a 44" .54 caliber Colerain barrel.

I do like the Getz smoothbore barrels.

 

[Harddog]

E Boat,

Colrain barrels are usualy pretty good, but are rougher on the outside and require more draw filing to clean them up. However, the last time I bought any they were cheaper than Getz so I guess it all works out in the end.

As far as the Chambers lock, the only problem I had with them in the past was that the toe of the frizzen would slip off the end of the frizzen spring when the frizzen was open. Having been a machinist all my life, I found this objectionable, but I guess most folks don't. I talked to Jim Chambers about moving the mounting and screw holes for the frizzen spring a little to compensate for this, but he also didn;t thinnk it was a problem. I haven't bought one of these locks for several years so I don't know if any measure was taken to correct the spring location??

Randy Hedden

 

[Roy]

Roy-
The bore looks good (what really counts!)

So did the one with the tight spot, didn't realize the problem untill loading it.

 

[Erzulis boat]

Harddog-

The frizzen spring tail has about .050 more surface past the frizzen arm tail when open, so I guess the problem is solved.

Roy-

As soon as I haul a#& outta here, I am going to run a ball through it. (and yes, the breechplug is out!) Thanks for the info. :thumbsup:

 

[Roy]

It was a first for us on that gun. Things I always do now... Put a flint in the lock and make sure it sparks... run a patched ball down the barrel. :thumbsup:

 

[Erzulis boat]

Roy-

First thing now, for me too!

I turned a hardwood dowel 3" long to .575" (exact land diameter at the muzzle) and ran it through evenly and perfect. The long length really lets you feel everything.

Thanks for the tip. :thumbsup: