Now Here's an Interesting Lock

Scroll down to the second picture. Anyone ever see a lock like this before or since?

Odd Lock

Thanks for the find dyemaker. :thumbsup:

Sir Michael said:

Scroll down to the second picture. Anyone ever see a lock like this before or since?

Odd Lock

Thanks for the find dyemaker. :thumbsup:

Click to expand...

Yep. I have seen a few english locks this way. Also there is a U.S. Pistol with a lock that way, seems it was issued to the US Navy. :hmm:

Somebody posted a picture of this lock in the "Morse Inside Lock" thread.

The M1842 Percussion Navy Pistol (aka M1843 or "Navy Box Lock" was very similiar although in percussion. They were made by N.P. Ames and Henry Deringer.

"...In addition of the apparent advantage of being less vulnerable to rain and dust..."

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:hmm: Hard to tell from the photo of course, but if the top has an open slot to accommodate the full range of the hammer's travel, it seems like it would be MORE vulnerable to rain and debris getting down inside the lock internals

The M1842 Percussion Navy Pistol (aka M1843 or "Navy Box Lock" was very similiar although in percussion. They were made by N.P. Ames and Henry Deringer.

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Ah! That was it! :applause:

Henry Nock submitted a whole series of guns to the British Ordnance Department designed around an inside cock flintlock like this.

I'm with Roundball on this one. It looks like the opening on top would just funnel water and dirt into the internals. Unless there's some type of internal dust shield on the hammer that fills the slot. I'd like to see the internals.

I'd like to see the internals.

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The cock has notches in it just like a tumbler , in fact it takes the tumbler's place all together. Nock messed around with these on some sporting guns too, I have seen a Nock SXS flint with these locks.

Yeah, the English liked to to that too.

I think it was just a gimmick, like so many other things in the late 18th/early 19th century.

You will find German/Austrian gun locks done similarly from the 18th century. It was done just to be different.

The Henry Nock version also had no screws in it.

I've seen similar locks on rifles at auctions. Don't buy anything I just like looking. Can't recall who made them. May have been Nocks locks. If you want to read more about this try searching for the term norskevaapen. Don't want to post the link because it has ads for geocities and yahoo on the right and I don't want to break any rules here.

The M1807 kyhl's Jeger is the one.

JV Puleo said:

The Henry Nock version also had no screws in it.

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Yep, that's right...I forgot about that, that was the big gimmick with Nock's version of that lock.

Speaking of the Nock Screwless Lock, page 173 of the book "Pistols of the World" by Claude Blair, THE VIKING PRESS-NEW YORK, 1968, shows a good drawing of it.


The cock is indeed inside the lockplate.

For those who can't quite read the fine print, the large plate (9) retains most of the internal parts.

The mainsprings upper leaf reacts against the bottom of "k" pushing it upward. "k" takes the place of the feather spring to keep the frizzen/pan cover open or closed.

Also I notice that the cock stops on the upper part of the pans fence when it is in the down position.

Mr. Nock obviously had way too much time on his hands. :rotf:

I take it from the title on the drawing that the point of the invention was to make a "screwless" lock... for ease of manufacturing, take down, maintenance, etc., at least in theory :wink:

Back when I first got interested in Flintlocks and was searching/studying articles on the Internet, I stumbled across some photos of a Flintlock that was designed with the lock assembly centered down inside the middle of the stock. It had a hinged weather protective lid that closed over the top of it, making for a flat sighting plane down the barrel...I assume it must have had a similar "integrated hammer/tumbler".

At the time I didn't realize just how rare of a thing I was looking at and wasn't into bookmarking things at the time, assuming I could just find things on the Internet whenever I wanted to. It must have been one of those discoveries that came about by cascading through multiple sites, taking links off one site and more links off other sites...never saved the photo file, the URL or anything...have kicked myself 1000 times as I've never been able to relocate that article about what was essentially an 'inline Flintlock'...point is it must have had a centered lock/tumble affair similar to the one in the sketch above

I saw a rifle similar to how you described it on a forum somewhere. It was made by William Billingshurst of New York. The title of the thread was "mystery muzzleloader".It was appearantly a percussion inline ignition not an percussion underhammer design. There were no covers though. It was very interesting.


Was looking for the likes of the rifle in question in the original post below. It is short so maybe it was made from parts from an 1801 carbine. If it was a military rifle I doubt it would have the checked stock and it would have a bayonet attachment the barrel is octagon however. I came up empty this time. I'll look around some more later. I'm baffled. I love looking for rifles that are new to me. Looked at some Danish firearms that were cool though.

I found something like you mentioned roundball. It is the Paczelt 1738 Bohemian flintlock inline rifle. There were various things in a search but I did not look around much. There were pictures at the White muzzleloading site dare I mention it.

I've got that one too...in fact I think I have a photo of one like that in a SxS double...I'll check tonight.

And I doubt there's any question why that photo is on White's site :grin: