Outside of Mr. Galazan's later guns, I don't believe there were ever any American guns produced with an intercepting sear sidelock.
That would seem to be the point of the exercise of building a sidelock, and one would want it to be of the quality of several of the English produced sidelocks, say, Brazier, Chilton, etc.
Calling a Tobin, among others, a sidelock, doesn't make it so.
Best,
Ted
Ted,
The pre-Batavia line sidelocks from Baker Gun & Forging Co. had intercepting sears.
Tobin would not qualify given it is a sideplated boxlock with only the sears mounted to the plates.
John
John,
Not quite. The graded Bakers had hammer blocks, a different concept entirely, and one that is dependant on the gun being in the upright position to function. Intercepting sears function in any position.
If you have ever had a Baker, or, for that matter, any US sidelock apart on a bench next to an English vesion with even a run-of-the-mill set of locks from the makers I quoted, above, you will see a distinct difference in level of finish and quality.
Calling a Tobin a boxlock really isn't correct, either. If you take the worst, and weakest features from both sidelock and boxlock design, and combine them, you have a Tobin. Which, was good enough when all loads were black powder loads.
Best,
Ted
