my wheelock and me

[blunderbuss]

My wheelock .54 German style cheek gun with a dragon hunting scene .It shoots good when you get used to holding it on your cheek .I'm not quite finished with this one eather just a few more inlays and then some idiot broke the main spring you'd never guess who.
On the cheek piece it says Der Dracken Jaeger the Dragon hunter and the little hunter is drawing down on the charging dragonwith this rifle You'
ll see that there are no inlays as yet on the left fore arm as on the right side .The gun is basically made of Walnut but there is a strip if stripe maple inlayed along both sides in which there are ivory inlays .Well at least on the right side so far

[Odd Fellow]

very nice!

[Daryl]

When posting pictures, please post the addresses (URL's) on separate lines - ie; push "enter" after posting each picture's copied address. 

[welafong1]

nicely done  tell me if you dont mind where did you get the plans to make it
thank you
richard westerfield

[smart dog]

Hi Blunderbuss,
Beautiful work.  It is great to see that there are a few folks making authentic looking 16th and 17th century pieces.  The decorative styles of that period are fascinating and require a high degree of skill to do well.  Based on your wheellock and matchlock, you obviously have done your home work and have those skills. 

Richard, there are line drawings in books on firearms history and Lauber wrote a book about building one kind of wheellock, however, there are no published plans for the wheellock and matchlock that blunderbuss made.  To build those you need to look at originals and hundreds of good quality photos.

dave

[blunderbuss]

Richard, Smart Dog was right When I build a gun from scratch I just look at all the weapons of that style I can inside and out and then one just gets a feel for how it's made ,just get in that ball park so to speak and then do your own thing. That wheelock was the hardest because I had a hard time finding pictures from certain angles. Remember that they built them different back then too there is allot of differences but some similarities.
I made the lock by using simple deduction, if the wheel went on the plate then the pan had to line up with that and the dog had to hit the top of the pan I don't have a lathe or milling machine but I have a hack saw and a file and patience. I'd like to say I did it all right the first time ....well I'd like to say that, however it seems I had some parts left over even changed the plate out once .
As the Germans say geduld und enschlossens, patience and determination
Thanks for the kind words
Dennis Heckathorne

[blunderbuss]

When posting pictures, please post the addresses (URL's) on separate lines - ie; push "enter" after posting each picture's copied address. 

I'll work on that Daryl but like I said before I'm no Alfred Einstine on this computer ;-)

[welafong1]

thank you so much i am trying to make a wheel lock from plans i thought you might have better ones right now i have the holes drill out on a lock plate waiting to get band saw blade i am going real slow with this. some of the plans do not make any sense i find that by thinking more about it usually i get it. to read  some one else plans a lot of the time there is a lot lost in the'' interruption'' hope i spelled that right its getting something from another country you try to figure out what the heck they talking about i guess this has happen to a lot of us. so i will take your advice and keep on going
thank you
richard westerfield

[blunderbuss]

All this has to do with right brain left brain stuff some people do things 1,2,3, by the numbers and then other folks do things by logic I ain't sayin' that one is better than the other, just that's the way different folks think. Decide your gonna do it and don't spare the horses. If you want a wheelock then make one ,if you make a part wrong don't get angry just start over.
 I ask my dad once how to carve a squirrel from a piece of wood and he told me just to cut everything off that didn't look like a squirrel ,OK do the same thing with a wheelock part and if that part doesn't work learn from your mistake and make one that works . Once you make one that works you can take each part to a mechanist and he'll make you a 100 of them in the time it takes you to drink a cold beer. Patience and determination. If you have questions I'll help all I can

[Daryl]

That is an early rifle, and lovely - and very well done.  I don't think I'd like to shoot it with a heavy load, but it certainly would be interesting piece to play with.

 

[smart dog]

Hi Daryl,
You might be surprised at how well those German cheek stocks work.  The rifles were often of large caliber and used to hunt boar, red deer (essentially our elk), fallow deer, and chamois, which required pretty substantial loads.  The beauty of them (and this really works) is that you can fit the stock such that when the cheek is rested on the stock, the sights are perfectly aligned with the eyes.  This is easier with a cheek stock because you don't have to worry about where the butt touches the shoulder.  No need to worry about cast off or pitch.  You just shape the cheek piece until the shooters eyes line up with the sights.  The Germans held on to the design long after everyone else adopted the Spanish shoulder stock. 

dave

[volatpluvia]

Blunderbuss,
Einstein would not have been able to build a wheellock if his life depended on.  Hee, Hee!
volatpluvia

[Daryl]

Here's one built by a local chap, who had never had one in his hand.  2 wheels, grooved for pyrates, smooth for flint.

[blunderbuss]

Nice looking lock where are the blood stains?
I took this rifle to the range when it was first finished and like Daryl I was afraid for my face(it ain't much but it's the only one I have) so I just lightly touched the stock to my cheek. The grouping was horrible so I reasoned that if the Germans used these for 250 years they had to shoot better than that so I pressed it tighter and the groups tightened .Soon I realized that it didn't hurt my face no matter how tight I pressed it and I began to pull impressive groups with it. That is off hand I never tried bench shooting with it.
With a cheek gun one can keep both feet planted in place and turn your body with the piece still against your cheek and shoot almost straight behind you Germans claim it was better to shoot running game with. Your arms take the recoil note the sure grip trigger guard. I use pyrite and a smooth wheel If one uses flint it wears the wheel. Also the ignition was fast and sure with out hammer inertia

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I agree with you, regarding the shooting of a wheellock.  Ignition seems faster than a flintlock...the sparks are made right in the powder and don't have to fly into it, and there is no jar from the action.  It is easier to hold my wheellock pistol on target that a percussion or flint pistol.  I expect the same from your cheek rifle.

[blunderbuss]

While making the wheel I got curious as to how back in the day they hardened the wheels to what some call glass hard,so I called a friend who was at one time the president of Hugh's tool co in Houston  and  a gun nut and ask him how he thought they may have hardened the wheels that hard so long ago. I don't know he said but our metallurgist lives close and I'll see if he wants to come over and have a talk. Hugh's tool in the 70-80's made deep drills for oil well drilling and they knew their stuff about hardening metal. He told me that once it was thought case hardening would only penetrate steel 1or2/1000th but with experimentation they found that it would keep going deeper in the metal until he said "you could measure it with a ruler." He was amazed to discover that they could do that so long ago.
In all probability that's why the wheels on wheelocks had a protective shield around them and then eventually even put the wheels on the inside of the lock. If the weapon were dropped that glass hard wheel could break and that was the most expensive piece

[raszpla]

Helo!
And this is my wheellock



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[raszpla]

or else



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[Daryl]

Those are quite the pieces - more info please.  Did you build or buy? Where?  Where from?

[smart dog]

Hi Daryl,
Raszpla is Polish and has some difficulty translating our messages.  He posts frequently on another site that has a forum devoted to pre-flintlock firearms.  He is a prolific maker of matchlocks, wheellocks, snaplocks and creates all the components, including barrels, by hand.  He is an extremely skilled metal worker and he is very knowledgeable about the history of gunmaking in central Europe.  I hope he posts more on this forum.

dave 

[blunderbuss]

 

Very pretty weapons do you shoot them?

[raszpla]

[Dennis Glazener]

Man that's a great looking firearm, thanks for showing us the video.
Dennis

[Daryl]

TKS Dave.

Tks raszpla - excellent videos too. Great guns. I really like the short cheek gun. Wonderful workmanship. I noticed the pistol took almost a full turn on the wheel- looked like a good 3/4's turn.

[raszpla]

everyone should have a mechanism wheellock 270 - 300 degrees of rotation!