Question on lock proportion scale.

[Artificer]

As I was going over some books showing original pieces last night, this question came to me and perhaps someone has the answer.  (This is not a Golden Mean thread, BTW.)

Some locks looked like the cocks and steels/frizzens were too large for the plate.  On others and including some fairly tiny locks found on Georgian hideout small pistols, the cocks and steels locked very much in proportion.

Is there a ratio of size of lockplate to the size of cocks and steels that was generally followed or should be followed?

Gus

[Nate McKenzie]

Could some of the questionable ones be improper re-conversions back to flint?

[Artificer]

Nate,
That's possible though they looked like they were original.

Gus

[J. Talbert]

I can't quote you any formula, but I would offer that many originals, even some of the best know guns, do not have original unaltered locks.
Two examples that I'm aware of that are original flint, but with replacement cocks, are the so-called Edward Marshall rifle and the Brass Barrelled rifle.

Jeff

[Dphariss]

I would suspect any original in America as not having original parts.
Cocks and frizzens were, or so it seems, sometimes removed perhaps to make them child proof at some time or other. So just because the lockplate is unaltered and the rifle shows not sign of being "percussed" its still possible to have miss-matched parts. Nor is there any warranty that the lock was a good one when built.
Like this Leman lock from 1840 which I still wonder if it was really usable.

You could look at the European guns in books such as Lenk's I suppose.
The later English locks often have relatively small cocks and frizzens but still point the flint into the pan with the cock at rest so the tumbler hole to pan distance was still correct for the cock size.

Dan

[Artificer]

Nate, Jeff and Dan,

Thank you for your thoughts.  I didn't think there may or would have been a low rate of unaltered rifles with civilian rifles.  Makes sense, though.

Dan, i see what you mean about the throw on that Leman lock, thanks for posting a picture on it.  It almost looks like it would be an accident if any of the sparks went past the drain and into the waterproof pan.

Something else I didn't describe very well in the first post and that may be an optical illusion where the cock and steel/frizzen look too long from top to bottom on some locks.  That may be just because the pan wasn't as tall from top to bottom.   May also be because I'm more used to period military locks and they were made extra robust.

Anyway, thank you all for your thoughts.