Siler lock Inlet

[Pete G.]

I am looking at a fowler that I like except for the style of lock. Does anyone know if a Siler lock inlet can be modified to fit a Chambers Early Ketland or Queen Anne styled lock? The pictures in the catalogs look like maybe they might be a little longer and perhaps wider, which would be no problem, but I'm not sure.

[Ted Kramer]

Pete-

I just put a large Siler lock plate atop the actual sized photos in TOTW's catalog. The Early Ketland plate looks to be too skinny ahead of the frizzen. The L&R Queen Anne appears to be big enough so it'd more than fill the Large Siler mortice. The small Queen Anne from Chambers is waaay too small. Hope this helps.
Ted K

[Nate McKenzie]

How about the Davis fowler with the cast engraving or the Chambers round faced English lock. Both are great locks made for fowlers and should cover the Siler inlet.

[Don Getz]

Along with checking the overall dimensions of the lock, you should also check the distance between the center of the pan
and sear bar.    If you center your "new" lock up with the touch hole, it may not hold out correctly with the sear/trigger
placement............Don

[billd]

Take heed to what Don is saying. I tried to replace a L&R Queen Anne with a Chambers Round English.  The sear bar was so far off it wouldn't even hit the trigger.

Bill

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Chambers English and Early Ketland have the same internals....so ..... also check the distance of the fence from the breech if you are going to put this into a preinlet stock.

[bob in the woods]

Pan and sear placement can make it difficult to replace a lock with a different style. I ran into this once and ended up buying a Chambers gunmakers lock . You can pretty much file out what you like.

[northmn]

As they are made by the same outfit with questionable advantages of one over the other, you could get teh Siler square plae and fit one.  I really doubt if the Siler would have any advantage over another Chambers lock and may actually not be as good as Siler has been around for a long time.  Even Chmabers ahas introduced an "improved" Siler.  If you have one laying around save it for another project as you are obviously trying to mix German with English in your styles.

DP

[J. Talbert]

A Chambers Deluxe Gunmakers' Lock, should give you the same pan and sear placement, along with a taller cock and fancier frizzen spring externally.  The square plate will allow you to change the plate design, to a considerable extent.

Jeff

[Pete G.]

The gun I was looking at had the long wrist English architecture on the stock with the Germanic styled Siler lock. That is why I was contemplating a lock change. That is probably also one reason for the attractive price.

I hadn't thought of the sear bar/trigger association, as I pretty much assumed that most all lock internals were about the same. I am starting to lean towards just building what I want. I guess that means a whole 'nother series of books to study.

My house is on the verge of leaking books and rifles......

[bob in the woods]

You can do a lot of things to that Chambers gun makers lock. I filed the pan round, Cut the plate to a larger size than a Siler, and actually was able to give it a rounded convex contour so that it was more English looking than German. More filing on the cock and frizzen and it looked nothing like a Siler at all.

[northmn]

^{The gun I was looking at had the long wrist English architecture on the stock with the Germanic styled Siler lock. That is why I was contemplating a lock change. That is probably also one reason for the attractive price.
 I am starting to lean towards just building what I want. I guess that means a whole 'nother series of books to study.
My house is on the verge of leaking books and rifles......}

The Siler lock has been placed on a lot of rifles that it may not be quite appropriate for, especially when it was really the only game in town.  Those that complain about L&R have not seen the locks that we used to have to work with if we wanted a different design.  Even today the Siler is still a very good choice and one that I like because I trust them.  Building what you like is sometimes better than the "bargains".  That's one reason a house starts 'leaking' rifles, there are others but that is one reason.  I have built spare parts guns that I call that because over time through changing my mind or picking up "deals" I have had on hand a few parts such that building a rifle out of them was not costly.  Got a percussion I call my spare parts gun as it really does not look like anything I have seen pictures of.   Still using up some of those parts like buttplates and trigger guards.  

DP