lock selection

I heard or read that building a caplock is harder then building a flintlock. Is this true? If so how much harder could it be?

Thanks,
Don

Its not any harder for me until the whole lining up the nipple on the drum so the hammer hits it correctly... That messes with me :haha: But all in all if you pay attention and check things twice its not too horribly bad.
Now after saying all of that I am pretty much done with building cap guns :haha:

If I wanted one, you'd make it but I don't want one! :haha:

Thanks, That is what I thought. Not sure if I want one or not. :idunno: I have a piece of hard sugar maple and a 42"GM,36 cal. barrel. Wanted a squirel rifle and thought a cap-lock might be more apropiate but as I have flint-lock rifles and being my first build do not want to make my build harder then it needs to be. I will probably go with a flint-lock.

Don

I have wanted to make a side slapper... mule ear cap gun but just never got around to it. Not sure I ever will. :haha:

I've built two cappers. So flints should be a walk in the park? Seriously they weren't too bad. I had no trouble lining things up. But they're both flint now. :haha:

I always build it the way I want, then heat the hammer to bend it in place. Sometime I need to bend the nose of the hammer, and then bend the spur, indepenently.

With most locks, the bolster is too thin, and if you line up the hammer without widening that bolster, you get some lock panels that are too narrow (in my opinion). This plays havoc with the forearm width. I usually solder on a shim to the lock bolster, to throw the lock out further, especially if the lock panels are tapered wider at the front.

You can't fudge much with the back/forward placement of the lock though. If you are off in that direction, you can bend the hammer, but the recess may not strike the nipple squarely. I did that once by accident. The hammer lined up with the nipple just fine (or so I thought), but when I placed a cap on for test firing, the hammer hit the edge of the cap, and stopped right there. Wouldn't even fire. Back to the shop.

It's a tricky area. Bill