doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

Daryl, I've not noticed any particular timeline for the form of attachment or in particular rearward attachment to back-action 'peninsula' locks. Someone with a good collection of muzzle-loaders might be able to help us here.

For those curious about the various types, I have noted three forms of attachment on early breech-loaders:

a) One is with two cross pins, in which both pins screw into tapped holes in the opposite lock plate. Usually the head is on the left side, but occasionally the locks are pinned from the right. I would think this is a strong structural arrangement, though by necessity the hand is drilled through in two places.




b) The second is the one you asked about, where the locks have a single cross pin at the leading portion of the plate, and the rear is fastened by a shallow pin on each side, against which the lock plate is wedged -- half in, half out.




c) The third is the neatest configuration, where the rearward tail of the lock plate has a hook that fits into a hidden recess, and the whole is fastened with a single cross pin, usually at the leading edge but sometimes towards the middle of the lock plate.




Each offers a slightly different look and the various types can be artfully incorporated into the decorative engraving. As a layman I would have thought the two cross pin attachment would be strongest, but the hidden hook attachment seems to be prevalent on higher quality guns. It also seems to be prevalent on European breech-loaders. I'm presuming the maker, when ordering locks from a supplier, would specify what type of lock plate was needed. There must have been a terminology that I'm not aware of, or, it could be that the form of lock plate attachment was a subtle clue as to its quality.

Should a time machine be invented that would allow me to go back to 1860, I will add this to my already-long list of questions I would have in hand...