Poorly Assembled Brown Bess Lock

[rich pierce]

Big wheel keep on turning!

 

[Sam squanch]

Proud Mary keep on burning……Leonard Nimoy version…….

 

[FlinterNick]

Big wheel keep on turning!

Indian Locks are just very difficult to work on and their owner’s don’t want to pay for the workmanship.

 

[FlinterNick]

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Hi Ya

Youre doing everything correctly here !

And great job on the screw the only thing i do differently in this situation with Indian Locks is I make sure that screws are counter sunk to the tumbler by leaving a small chamfer on the shaft beneath the head of the screw, this keeps the parts from slipping, I’ll see if I can find an example, but lately I’ve been turning away Indian made locks, i just have too many rifle shoppe kits too assemble.

Indian made locks are full of inconsistent geometric issues, all starting with the shape of the flintcock and location of the bridle.

Personally If I were an Indian made dealer I woudln’t assemble these locks, I’d send them to the USA to be assembled with templates, their quality control would increase, a prices would increase slightly.

One thing i forgot to add in regards to Indian Locks is the hardening process.

If you’re not aware of it, the steel they use isn’t any kind of standard carbon steel.

They often use recycled steels from carbon steel and stainless. Indian is known as the steel recycling capital of the world and they don’t separate steel types when they melt them down into stock.

so you what you end up with is carbon steels mixed with improper amounts of iron, chromium, nickel, carbon and manganese and hardening those parts can be complicated.

What i do for the frizzens is i heat them to around 1600 and quench them in a hot water brine (almost boiling) of potassium nitrate or tree stump remover, this gets the hard enough. Same with springs and internal parts.

I polish the plates up to 220 and then shot peen them in a large tumbler, this gives a kind of case hardened surface, not like real case hardening but it’s adequate.

 

[Rudyard]

Got to defend the Indians here. I have a loyalist Arms musket , it sparks like the forth of July and compares to Land R or Davis very well

Loyalist Arms are the only firm I know from dealings , But do know they make the effort to produce good items or supply them in good state, I have no shares in the company .
Rudyard

 

[Rudyard]

One thing i forgot to add in regards to Indian Locks is the hardening process.

If you’re not aware of it, the steel they use isn’t any kind of standard carbon steel.

They often use recycled steels from carbon steel and stainless. Indian is known as the steel recycling capital of the world and they don’t separate steel types when they melt them down into stock.

so you what you end up with is carbon steels mixed with improper amounts of iron, chromium, nickel, carbon and manganese and hardening those parts can be complicated.

What i do for the frizzens is i heat them to around 1600 and quench them in a hot water brine (almost boiling) of potassium nitrate or tree stump remover, this gets the hard enough. Same with springs and internal parts.

I polish the plates up to 220 and then shot peen them in a large tumbler, this gives a kind of case hardened surface, not like real case hardening but it’s adequate.

I once asked an Indian gun maker in his shop what steel they used ? He said "We are making with the help of the es scrap " I watched and made suggestions as a small group sat on the shop floor and made the whole to my original lock I took out with me. All by eyeball & the rudest tools .With me adding .'Same to same original" ' 'polish" and other such encouragements an old buisket tin held the clay brick crushed up lineing & a bit of push bike as a thuer ? .The air blast was an old Buffalo US made rotary affair . The fuel being charcoal '(The man who turned the fan looked a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin ) one of their hammers was loose on the head so he kept fixing it almost mechanically .You might laugh but these lads could & did produce good locks occasional errors not with standing ,and I' worked up' all I used all serving me years of use .Their jigs & templates exactly like the ones in the booklets put out by the NMLRAs Arms making Teknowledgy . I supplied them sets of BA taps & dies they used them to make copies which wasn't my idea .As for metric I despise it ,if one turns up I biff it and stay with BA ,UNC, UNF, BSF, & Whitworth , with occasional use of BSA & OMF ( Byzantium standard Acme. & Outer Mongolian Fine ) very useful if ' getting up' Dane guns since that is the usual choice on such arms .You might laugh but these hand & eye made threads are often met with old non' western' arms & early European items . You hand & eye the thread flat off two sides harden the whole thing cut a die thread in mild steel file opposing cutting gaps harden it so you have a matched set then' Bobs yer Uncle' off you go ".We done need no estinkin metric"(Or Badges.)
Rudyard's take on such things