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Wheellock pistol repair issues

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swordofkeith

32 Cal
Joined
Oct 16, 2022
Messages
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Location
Houston, MO
I have a wheellock pistol I bought over 10 years ago from a vendor at a renaissance faire. Its a functional piece, but the Lateral Sear broke before I got a chance to fire it and I have lost the sear and the holding screw for it as well after moving multiple times since owning it. I did some extensive research and the wheellock appears to be an old kit gun from a guy in Costa Mesa, CA called J. F. Schroter. Long been out of business, I can't get replacement parts, and almost every "gunsmith" I have ever talked to has turned down the job with the excuse of either being not worth the time, they only work on ARs' and mount scopes to rifles, not taking the risk of the gun blowing up after working on it, ect. This is a brand new firearm and I hate to have it as a wall hanger simply over the fact that a single 1 inch part is missing. I recently had a competent gunsmith work on it and he failed as well with being able to locate the parts, he offered the route of reverse engineering the sear and making a new screw but it would be a lot of trial and error and very costly. Any help and advice is welcome.
 

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Unfortunately finding parts for this will be next to impossible. They will have to be hand made as your gunsmith told you. You could try and make one yourself by following Georg Laubers’ book (you can find it free online) and modify that pattern to make one that may work.
 
Hi Sword

I remember these pistol kits being offered sometime back in the 1970's or 80's. Your's is what I believe was called the "Italian" version.
Sending you a P.M. that might help.

Rick
 
... the Lateral Sear broke before I got a chance to fire it and I have lost the sear and the holding screw for it as well ...
FYI, I have the Schroter German 'ball or pear' butt wheellock kit. If you'd care to send me your lock assembly, I'll see if I can make you a replacement sear, using mine as a model ... as I's bet he tried to standardize on parts where he could.

If you don't want to sent it - I get it - but I can still provide you with a detailed dimensional drawing of the part. Another option would be to have Brian Anderson of VT to not only repair the wheellock assembly for you, but to check/verify the correct hardness of the various parts to get it to be 100% reliable. He is no longer making full complete builds, but he still likes to tinker out in his shop and is doing basic repairs. He is an expert on the old firing mechanisms! I can put you into contact with him.

As may be needed for/from me, Rick from St Louis can vouch for my integrity, as we communicate all the time, sometimes weekly, via emails on our collections of 'old arms'.
 
Great advice from Flint. I can imagine the sears from both models being the same.

Flint: Where on Earth did you find that Schroter kit ??? LOL Was it sometime in the 70's I remember those small ads for these kits in Muzzle Blasts magazines ?

Rick
 
Yes... I was seconds after Flint. I remember both of those selling in seconds. Hopefully I get to join in the fun as I think I found a working original to stock up. Thanks for all of the wonderful posts!
 
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