Cowboy said:
I appreciate the reply and for answering my question as well. Can you give me a little history on them?
In answer to your question, they appear to have started making the locks in 1977. Here is piece of John Baird's column from the Nov 1977 issue of
Buckskin Report introducing the new component parts from Griffith Tool Co.
This is an ad from the Nov-Dec 1977 issue of
Muzzleloader magazine.
Another ad from May 1981 issue of
Buckskin Report.
They expanded the line a bit by adding breech plugs for flint rifles in this Jan-Feb 1986 ad from
Muzzleloader. Note they also offered a second hammer for the lock. Basically, the same hammer that Ron Long sometimes used on his Hawken lock.
As
excess650 posted, Griffith's tooling is presently owned by the folks that run The Hawken Ship in Oak Harbor, WA. It had passed through at least one other company before The Hawken Shop.
I've seen postings on various forums that some people have found some Griffith Tool Co./Hawken Shop locks with weak mainsprings. This has not been my experience. Locks that I've acquired from both companies have strong mainsprings and function just fine.
As I stated before, the Griffith lock with the radius or curved corner where the lock bolster meets the nose of the lock is patterned after locks on some J&S Hawken rifles like this one.
Their breech plug was also meant to represent a style often seen on J&S Hawken rifles, such as the one pictured above, but it needs some additional filing and shaping of the snail to be a little more convincing.
