Thoughts on Chambers locks?

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I have a large siler on my new Isaac Haines. It’s a good lock. Two things I don’t like are the skinny pan. It’s hard to wipe out. I know I can grind it out to help that. Just haven’t yet. The other thing is the hammer isn’t in line with the frizzen. I have to hang the flint to the right to hit all the frizzen and not the barrel.

I have a kibler smr. I wish I would have bought the lock he had for my Haines. View attachment 386046
Enlarging pan is easy. Dremmel tool does a nice job. This is a small Siler by Chambers
IMG_0052.jpeg
 
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Hi,
Chambers locks are what I buy most if I am not making the lock from castings. IMO their late Ketland and round-faced English locks are the best of the line. The early Ketland is fine too but it is essentially the same internally as the round-faced English lock. Their Colonial Virginia lock is almost identical to the round-faced English lock except it has no border or raised pan. The standard Siler lock is OK but not the best. That is not because of any manufacturing issue but the design of the lock. Chambers improved it a lot by making the flint cock and frizzen taller on their Golden Age Siler and Deluxe Siler locks. Here is my best performing lock, a Chambers round-faced English lock. It successfully fired the rifle 671 times without a misfire using up only 10 flints.
APht5fU.jpg

Here are sparks produced using a rounded piece of quartz from my driveway.
Gq01iUu.jpg

QWiM7hA.jpg


dave
 
Hi,
Chambers locks are what I buy most if I am not making the lock from castings. IMO their late Ketland and round-faced English locks are the best of the line. The early Ketland is fine too but it is essentially the same internally as the round-faced English lock. Their Colonial Virginia lock is almost identical to the round-faced English lock except it has no border or raised pan. The standard Siler lock is OK but not the best. That is not because of any manufacturing issue but the design of the lock. Chambers improved it a lot by making the flint cock and frizzen taller on their Golden Age Siler and Deluxe Siler locks. Here is my best performing lock, a Chambers round-faced English lock. It successfully fired the rifle 671 times without a misfire using up only 10 flints.
APht5fU.jpg

Here are sparks produced using a rounded piece of quartz from my driveway.
Gq01iUu.jpg

QWiM7hA.jpg


dave
Any problems, ever, with the reported issues of the misalignment of the cock and hammer?
 
I have had the Colonial Virginia since the early 2000's. I have never polished it or had it tuned. I don't know if Narragansett did anything to it or not when they installed it on the Early Virginia rifle I ordered from them. It has always worked flawlessly and throws a great shower of sparks using a black English 7/8 flint. I just checked and the flint is straight and not offset and scrapes the frizzen face all the way across.
 
Hi,
You will get a bunch of responses saying "Oh I have no bridle on my pan and the lock works just fine". Well, there is a reason why pan bridles were developed and why even military locks had them, and thought them important. They supported the frizzen pivot screw and reduced wear. Every original lock I've examined without a pan bridle that was clearly used a lot shows extensive wear on that pivot screw and the frizzen wobbles. Now in your case and the vast majority of modern shooters who are not using their guns everyday or fighting the French and Indian or Rev Wars in earnest, whether your lock has a pan bridle or not won't really matter that much as long as the pivot screw on the bridleless lock has a solid shoulder to the threads. The important consideration is not performance but what type of gun you are making. By 1750 or so, only the cheapest British trade guns would have locks without pan bridles. Many American long rifles would have cheaper locks as well. In fact, so many locks I examined on original American long rifles were really cheaply made. So if that is what you are making the bridleless early Ketland is fine. If you are trying to make any kind of better grade English gun you want a bridle on the pan.

dave
 


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