Locks
Hi folks,
First, thanks for the compliments; she's a nice old thing, albeit far and away the oddest single gun in my little set so far.
Second, re: locks: I can well believe that these things aren't heat treated; however, I'd be interested to see what the workmanship of the highest-quality North African locks was like. I know that one of my jezails has a native-made lock, and it too appears to be largely devoid of any heat treatment (or if there was any, it wasn't done very well), but my other two both have British locks in them, which unfortunately doesn't make for a good basis of comparison.
Below are some more detailed piccies of my lock. There's still a fair bit of rust on, as you can see, but the worse is gone and the lock can move, albeit a little slowly. The pan shows evidence of quite significant erosion, but whether this is by localised corrosion or the deleterious effects of powder burning nearby I don't know.
Oh, and rickstl: Mine appears to have been made with holes for three screws but attached to a gun with only two holes drilled in the stock. There's no evidence that I've spotted that there ever was a third, central, hole.
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