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mooncoon

mooncoon

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A few months ago I bought a flintlock rifle thought to have come from Afghanistan or in that general area. I finally have got around to try and bring it to shooting condition. It is turning out to be a bit more of a challenge than I expected. The lock is a miquelet lock which means that the sears act through the sideplate in a horizontal movement rather than internally and vertically like the majority of locks that we are used to. The original lock is somewhat crude and looks like it was made from the sweepings of the shop floor but at the same time is somewhat intricate in the sense that springs are held in by mortice and tenon joints and overlapping pieces. The lock has two separate sears one for half #### and one for full ####. One major problem is friction; the sears so far a bit stiff for my liking. Also the mainspring is enormously powerful and because of its cross sectional shape more or less cannot be compressed with a spring vice. I think the original was put in place and then compressed with a wedge to give the tension. I am not sure just how strong the mainspring has to be because the transfer of spring power to the hammer is not really as efficient as in french style locks (the kind we are used to)

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That thing looks ancient... and very interesting! The number of various inventions throughout history aimed at improving firepower is simply astounding and that little gizmo certainly is no exception.

Please post pics once you get everything in a shooting condition.
 
Brilliant, .

A minquet lock is a thing of extreme beauty, I admire the functional aesthetic of the design.

I look forward to seeing your progress, a very interesting project!!


Cheers.
 
An interesting project and I shall be following attentively, as I've long had an interest in miquelet locks. I'd like to do a Ripoll style someday.
Just a couple of questions-- is that some kind of spacer I see under the mainspring (in the lockplate slot) ?
I'm wondering if some of the stiffness you alluded to, besides friction, might be attributable to the sear geometry. Wouldn't better mechanical advantage occur with the tail of the sear closer to the sear pivot?
 
I am guessing that the mainspring was put into an oversize hole then wedged into tension and finally the wedge and the mainspring pinned in place. You can see the vertical pin in the top photo. I think that a changing fulcrum for the half #### sear is necessary in order to raise the full #### sear sufficiently. If the pivot remained close to the portion going through the side plate , it would not withdraw the half #### sear sufficiently and would not raise and withdraw the full #### sear adequately. That does not really explain why they did not just put a pivot somewhere farther back similar to the pivot on a french lock sear. I think part of the answer may have been space because the sear is held in place by a sort of vertical blade which you can see in the top photo

I want to take some photos of two other miquelets that I have. One is a spanish blunderbuss and the second is a percussion lock also spanish and from 1864 if my memory is correct (written on the barrel)

Perhaps because it is the first time that I have worked on one, they seem more difficult to build or work on than the french locks that we are used to.

I suppose one advantage of a miquelet is that by having the mainspring on the outside of the lock, you do not have to remove as much wood between the barrel and the lockplate. The two bridle pieces are fastened by integral pins into the sideplate as is the pivot blade for the halfcock sear. I suspect they may have be in part made using a hollow end mill in a brace and bit similar to how small lock screws were made. I made my pins on the lathe but I have made a couple of hollow end mills just to try for screw making and they work very easily and quickly. First mill makes the shank and the second adds a head to the screw (which still needs to be threaded)
 
Thanks for the explanation. As I understand it now the sear is not pivoted on that vertical blade but rather just located by same. The sear rocks on its heel and is prevented from falling off the lockplate by the cupped projection on the self sprung secondary sear. Did I get it?
I follow you on the hollow milling cutters to form tenons. I made a similar tool out of an annealed punch on my drill press about 15 yrs ago to make tenons on a wheel lock project. For a simple single pin I could get the fit by filing as round as possible then using a screwplate type tool to finish. The "screwplate" as I call it was simply a piece of reclaimed flat spring with a hole of the desired size drilled through it and hardened. Just cranking it back and forth while pushing it down over the pin would true things up.
For the wheel lock however, I needed 2 tenons for the sear/mainspring box and they were too close set to use the plate. I filed the teeth into the cutter by hand before hardening and it worked quite well. I've made similar ones with pilots for making flat bottom screw countersinks.
BTW, the wheel lock was put aside at one point and remains unfinished to this day. I will pick it back up someday, but such is the way sometimes when too many projects beckon.
 
That is correct; the half #### sear rocks back and forth on the blade. You can see the cupping on the top photo and the detached two sears in the second photo. The sears have much less leverage and require more movement than in a french lock where they only move maybe 10 thou or so to release the tumbler.
A disadvantage of the miquelet is that the fore and after trigger movement requires the trigger to be pivoted up quite high in the stock.

I tried making a wheelock as well but got stuck by running out of room for the sear pivot. I think this gun shows me a way out, if I ever decide to finish it.

cheers mooncoon
 
I am finding the sear arrangement, primarily the 1/2 #### portion to be a real bugger to get to function properly. I think I may end up cheating a bit and making a modified sear with a single pivot point and a pivoting nose to get around the problems. I think that is the reason for the very sloppy hole for the 1/2 #### sear in the original plate.

The photos below are for a spanish miquelet blunderbuss and a spanish miquelet percussion gun (1864). The percussion lock has a markedly weaker mainspring than either the Afghan lock or the blunderbus (flint) lock. Both spanish guns have quite a different sear system; they have separate springs to tension the 1/2 #### plus a little ear on the 1/2 #### to lift the full #### sear. The flint gun and perhasp the percussion gun have a pivoting nose on the 1/2 #### sear to reduce the friction problems and i think both had single pivot points for the sear as well. That eliminates the problem of the 1/2 #### assembly sliding back and jamming the tip as tension comes on it from the trigger.

cheers mooncoon

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I finished the lock briefly until I broke the mainspring for the second time. Have been using a piece of automotive leaf spring but I think I will have to go back to drill rod which is my old standby. The great width of the afghan spring is why I went to something different but so far I am not getting the temper correct. I think if I ever make another miquelet lock, I will use separate springs on the two cocks because that allows the forward projection on the hammer to be flat against the lockplate instead of hooked out and around the two sears. It has been quite a learning process.

cheers mooncoon

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Mooncoon, I had been hoping to see a follow up and thanks for posting it. That lock is a strange duck for sure. Does the head of the quadrant serve as the #### arrest?

The "snap" of a leaf spring breaking is a nasty sound, especially when one considers the rule that the more time put into it the more likely it is to let go. Have you tried lead bath tempering?
 
this one seems to have no stop for the ####; it is stopped by the flint against the pan. I thought that the first spring might have broken because I quenched it straight into water so the second one I quenched into water with about 1/2" of oil on top then drew the temper to about 720 F or a bit higher using a lead bath. The first spring I drew to 740 F but I had not left it in the lead as long plus there appeared to have been a slight crack at the break and I attributed that to the water quench.
they are strange locks with a number of interlocking features; the horizontal bridal keeps the frizzen spring in, the single sear spring forces the arched shape of the #### quadrant (seems as good a name as any for it), the sear arrangement means that the trigger has to be pivoted up high in the stock and while I am sure you could make a set trigger for one, it would definitely be a challenge to come up with a design.
I remain puzzled why people continued to make these locks well into the 1800s. It would make more sense to leave the mainspring on the outside of the lock and put a conventional tumbler and vertical acting sear on the inside. That would leave lots of wood between the lock and the barrel and reduce the amount of wood that had to be removed for the trigger and sear assembly.

cheers mooncoon
 
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