L& R Manton Lock

R.E. Davis makes some fine locks and the prices are very reasonable. Look at their website and see if there’s something you can go with.

Joe B. said:

I always wondered why flintlock design never evolved to keep more distance from sear bar to lock plate edge. Sure would make inletting a lot easier. Have had good luck with L&R otherwise. Great geometry and spark.

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As designs evolved they got smaller and also lighter. To fit all the parts in a smaller package moving parts got closer to the edges. A Tower lock for a Bess has a lot of room.

I just bought a L&R Manton a few weeks ago directly from L&R along with their new single set trigger. mine was beautifully fit and machined on the inside, I have it inlet and it resulted in a 3.5 lb unset trigger, and too light to measure when set. its one of the fastest locks I have ever seen. when you get them from a 3rd party there is no telling what you are going to get, every L&R I have bought directly from L&R has been a masterpiece and I would never use any other brand. I just got a queen anne from L&R a few days ago to build a NW Trade gun, and it is also flawless

Joe B. said:

I always wondered why flintlock design never evolved to keep more distance from sear bar to lock plate edge. Sure would make inletting a lot easier. Have had good luck with L&R otherwise. Great geometry and spark.

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the sear position is where it is so that the position of the trigger when inletted is optimal. if it were any higher the trigger would set up above the plane of the ramrod channel and make the stock look strange, or the trigger bar would need to be VERY tall and affect the geometry of the trigger bar, piviot pin, sear geometry. All of my L&R locks (all purchased directly from L&R) are geometrically excellent with the sear position at rest, half cock and full cock being at most 1/64" difference. all came sandblasted allowing me to choose how much polish I want on the lock.

Hi Khufu,
Could you provide us with photos of those locks purchased directly form L&R? I'd love to see them, and if there are differences between third party purchases like TOW versus buying directly from L&R, that would be good to know. Please show us some close up pictures of those locks.

dave

All L&R locks are made by L&R in their shop. It ain't going to matter who you buy it from, the quality is going to be the same.

dave_person said:

Hi Khufu,
Could you provide us with photos of those locks purchased directly form L&R? I'd love to see them, and if there are differences between third party purchases like TOW versus buying directly from L&R, that would be good to know. Please show us some close up pictures of those locks.

dave

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certainly ...

Comfortably_Numb said:

All L&R locks are made by L&R in their shop. It ain't going to matter who you buy it from, the quality is going to be the same.

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that has NOT been my experience. whether they are ones someone returned after "inspecting" them, or they were improperly stored and had to be "cleaned up" I don't know. but I had 2 I had so send back to L&R to be fixed that came from track of the wolf and muzzleloader's supply. I have never had anything less than perfection from L&R directly. I know Track sells L&R parts, and those are shipped as cast to be fitted to the individual lock, so perhaps they replaced a customer broken part and did a bad job, I do not know, but I will always buy my locks directly from L&R.

Hi,
Thanks Khufu. They don't look any different from L&R locks I've bought from TOW. I guess we differ on what constitutes perfection and really good locks. Here is an L&R Queen Anne lock turned into a good lock.
Reworking an L&R Queen Anne lock FINISHED

dave

Were the internals hardened?

dave_person said:

Hi,
Thanks Khufu. They don't look any different from L&R locks I've bought from TOW. I guess we differ on what constitutes perfection and really good locks. Here is an L&R Queen Anne lock turned into a good lock.
Reworking an L&R Queen Anne lock FINISHED

dave

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the Queen Anne is as relieved, not yet polished, I bought it for a NW Trade Gun I can finally build because I was finally able to acquire a left hand serpent side plate. the inside is smooth and the fitment is flawless, and smooth as glass, AFTER inletting is done, drilling the lock bolt holes and final finishing the lock mortise I will polish the exterior bright and stamp it with a sitting fox. I will not know what the trigger pull is until it and the trigger are mounted in the stock. the Manton lock is inlet, and lock bolt holes drilled and tapped, but the lock mortise in not completely shaped or finished. after everything else is complete I will do some light polish on the plate and cock and front frizzen face and pan cover and highly polish the pan as the Manton is for a Pennsylvania pistol to match my Lancaster county rifle, but I am about to a stopping point as Track still has the butt caps on back order. AS SHIPPED without any polishing of the internal parts, (ie tumbler and bridle and sear) I have an unset trigger pull of 3.5 lbs. other brands of locks have never been that good from the maker, best I ever got from a siler as shipped was 7 lbs. that is what I call perfect. the maximum position change on the sear on all my L&R locks is less than 1/64". I would be unhappy with a lock that was polished from the maker, I want as much metal as possible to fit and finish it to my stock, so that after finish polish, its a perfect fit. as shipped the sear screw and bridle screw are protruding just a little proud, that is exactly how I would want an un fitted lock so during final polishing, the screw tips can be blended in perfectly, and be invisible when these 2 guns are finished, I can show you how nice the outside looks, but I doubt I will need to do anything to the workings, they seem perfect as is. a 3.5 lb trigger is what I call excellent.

I got this Jacob Dickert L&R lock from Track of the Wolf for a future build. It is pretty well finished and only plan to do a little clean & polish work. I guess it varies as to who finished the work at the source, but all my L&R locks have been ok and work great. I like the Siler better though. The sear bar does not extend below the lock plate at any time on this one.

I can´t complain over a Manton lock from L&R bought 1994 and had served me tousend of shot´s over the years.
Only fault was a broken frizzen spring.

dave_person said:

Hi,
Thanks Khufu. They don't look any different from L&R locks I've bought from TOW. I guess we differ on what constitutes perfection and really good locks. Here is an L&R Queen Anne lock turned into a good lock.
Reworking an L&R Queen Anne lock FINISHED

dave

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Yep, once bitten, twice shy!

My old friend used L&R percussion locks on MANY trap gun builds. He thought they had the shortest and fastest lock time. I've shot several of his RH guns, the throw does seem shorter.
It's a right handed world.

I have a sample of 1 but my L&R percussion lock was really not finished at all. It is a Leman from a 3rd party seller. It functioned as delivered meaning it would half cock, cock and fire, but nothing on the tumbler was finished in any way except the notches, the bridle was finished on the outside only, the plate wasn't flat inside or out and the inside was finished with 120 grit max I would guess. The surface that goes up against the barrel was easily 15 thousandths from flat and a bugger to get flat and keep it straight. It took me 5-6 hours to flatten everything and clean the rest of it up. I got contact surfaces nicely finished and 50-60% clean up on non-contact surfaces in that amount of time. They sand blasted everything, ground the cock notches, rough ground the inside of the plate and the outside of the bridle, ground the sear nose a bit, and not much else.

Dave Person has written a bit about the new Rice Nock lock, which I am considering for a British Sporting Rifle. I like the waterproof pan, but I am a bit spooked by its main spring issue that Dave has posted about. I am not in the market for an L&R, and it is nice to know that some people are happy with theirs. The Late Ketland lacks the look of the Manton-style locks with their waterproof pans. Any suggestions? Any experience building and shooting the Rice Nock lock?

All of this is just my opinion. Take it or leave it... Very few understand what a quality lock is. This enables companies that make sub-par products to survive. If you don't understand quality yourself, take advice from the very best.

I can't believe lock quality is as bad as it is and most don't realize it.

Jim

James Kibler said:

All of this is just my opinion. Take it or leave it... Very few understand what a quality lock is. This enables companies that make sub-par products to survive. If you don't understand quality yourself, take advice from the very best.

I can't believe lock quality is as bad as it is and most don't realize it.

Jim

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I agree 100%. I knew almost nothing about locks, except if they worked or not. I understood there are some not as PC or reliable (think CVA or Lott), but didn't know, and to a large degree still aren't certain what constitutes a quality lock. I always thought brand and price determined quality. How wrong I was.

Also being left handed doesn't help much as few make left handed quality locks.

That's how I ended up with the terribly substandard L&R QA left hand lock. I knew I wanted it tuned, so Dave was gracious enough to take it in.

Then we had a really long conversation about its many, many issues.

If I hadn't sent it to Dave for tuning I probably would've polished it as best I could and mounted it on a stock, hating it for not performing correctly but not knowing why.

What I received I consider a masterpiece if not a work of art.

I have made more left hand flintlock rifles and fowlers than righties, and with few exceptions, L&R was the only choice I had for the styles I needed. I cannot remember one that was even minimally satisfactory out of the box. Some made me wonder how they could let something like that leave their shop.
Robby

Kibler locks are THE BEST out there, …… bar none.
Pins for clearance on the tumbler instead of screws, ends the screw determining fit of sear and tumbler. Smooth, light release, lots of sparks. Right out of the box, a well tuned, functional lock.
Like everything else, you get what you pay for.