E J Blackley and Son question.

[deepcreekdale]

Has anyone on this forum done business with these folks? I have a request to make a Spanish musket and they usually use a miquelet lock and this business has castings for this type of lock. They are based in England and I wonder what sort of experience anyone may have had. They do have some interesting stuff for those that are into the more esoteric European stuff. I have only worked on one Miquelet lock but it was percussion and I didn't take enough detailed pictures to reproduce it from scratch.

[smart dog]

Hi,
I've done a fair amount of business with Kevin Blackley.  My original experience was very good.  The parts came in about a month and the quality was superb.  On one occasion, I requested some parts be cast from mild steel as I would case harden them and the mild steel was easier to work with.   At no charge, he included additional frizzens from higher carbon steel in case I decided to through harden the frizzens instead.  Then Blackley moved to a new location and my next order was a bust.  It never came despite calls to Blackley and emails, all of which were answered and assured me the order was coming.  Something changed after that move and I have heard many complaints from other makers that they can't get their orders filled.  Blackley moved again last year.  They are now in Scotland. Recently, I e-mailed Kevin asking if he had certain products in stock.  Despite several attempts, I received no replies.  I think something happened to the business requiring the moves and ruining their good service.

dave     

[deepcreekdale]

Thanks Dave, I searched to site for comments and I was getting conflicting reports, plus some went back several years so it was hard to tell if they were current. But your explanation helps a lot. I sent an email, I will see what, if any response I get. I might be able to make a miquelet lock from scratch but would prefer castings to speed things along, at least for my first attempt.

[FlintFan]

My experience has been the same to the more recent experiences of smart dog.  However, I have always received the parts I have ordered.  That is usually after a very long wait, and many communication attempts including threatening to cancel payment through my credit card company.

What you order will "probably" come some day, just be aware of the wait and headaches you might be getting yourself into.

All that said, the parts I did received have been of excellent quality.

[Joe S]

I ordered a lock in January, and was told it would ship in two weeks.  I'm still waiting.

[Bob Roller]

It sounds like the Foggy Empire's answer to our Rifle Shoppe. The moving around
and stalling says the business has derailed,possibly by taking advance pay and then
being unable to deliver.THAT can be fatal to this type of shop and several here in
the USA have found out the hard way that it's a poor practice.

Bob Roller

[Hemo]

 I second the comments made above. I ordered castings of an early English Dolep pistol triggerguard and pipes last September. Eleven months later, no parts. I have been able intermittently to contact them by e-mail, and Kevin there seems very accomodating, but successful e-mail response is a complete crapshoot, and I haven't heard from them after my last two attempts. This past winter, Kevin suggested in his e-mail that my parts would be done shortly after the holidays, but that was the last I ever heard. Eventually I used other parts for my pistol, e-mailed Blackley telling them to cancel my order and credit my card (which they charged last September right after my order), but again, no response. I wouldn't deal with them again unless something big changes.

Gregg

[deepcreekdale]

Thanks for all the replies, Kevin replied to my email in a few hours, said he had the lock in stock (?) Figured I would take a $#@* shoot on it. Then when I tried to order it, the page that takes your card information did not function. GRRRR. Will see if he responds again and what kind of success I might have. Unless there is another source for Miguelet locks it seems to be these guys or build from scratch. I was able to contact the customer that I did the  work for on his Miquelet, he has graciously agreed to let me borrow it so I can reverse engineer it. That might be the best and quickest ay to go. Now that the heat is finally starting to die down, time to crank up the coal forge.

[Rolf]

I ordered a lock in January, and was told it would ship in two weeks.  I'm still waiting.

Blackley has top notch castings and an impressiv selection of Products. Sadely he has serious delivery problems
I have orderd from Blackley four times. Three times he quoted max 3months, one time tops 6months after payment. In reality it has allways taken one to two years to get an order.
I'm still waiting  for the last Lock kit I orderd and paid for a little over year ago.

For me, it's allways been this way, no matter where the shop was. Quite fusterating, but he is still better than TRS

Best regards
Rolf

[Bob Roller]

Lack of operating capital can be the problem as well. Trying to do business from an empty wagon
is a POOR business practice and win no friends.There is NO WAY I will take up front payment for
anything I do.Any lock or trigger I make MUST be operational and ready to send out or pick up
before I want to be paid.

Bob Roller

[deepcreekdale]

He said he had two on hand, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Finally figured out the payment though. We shall see. Maybe Chambers will start doing Miquelet locks and solve my problem. Jim?

[smart dog]

Hi,
Let me relate a story which explains why I hate to disparage Blackley but of course I must be honest.  After building my cased Wogdon dueling pistols, which used Blackely parts,  I sent photos of them to Kevin Blackley.  He was excited about them and considered using them on his web site.  In the process, I mentioned my wife Gail (who helped me make the case) had died from cancer.  One day I got a phone call from Kevin expressing his sadness at Gail's death and hoping I was OK.  I never forgot that.  That is one reason why seeing folks have trouble with Blackley's is disturbing to me.

dave   

[Bob Roller]

It is apparent that Kevin Blackley is a compassionate man,I don't even want to think of losing my wife.
She has carried her part of the load and has for almost 49 years.That being said,it seems as though he
has PRODUCTION problems which will guarantee slow or NO delivery.Does he do his own casting or does
he farm it out to whoever MIGHT be able to do it.As I said earlier,taking advance payment and no delivery
for two years and hard to contact indicates more problems than I would want to deal with and by NOT taking
money until the job is done does away with someone getting their shirt in a knot over poor or no delivery.
The empty shely makes its own statement.

Bob Roller

[bama]

I recently got 2 lock sets from them. It took approx. 9 months to get these parts which I felt was a bit long but I have waited longer for barrels that were being made here in the US. The quality of the parts received was top notch and my communications with them were adequate. I just hope that I do as good of a job assembling the casting as they did casting the parts. I will order from them again but I will do it well in advance of the timing for the project.

I have a year or better backlog of work and one rifle is at almost 2 years so patience is the key for us all.

[Bob Roller]

I recently got 2 lock sets from them. It took approx. 9 months to get these parts which I felt was a bit long but I have waited longer for barrels that were being made here in the US. The quality of the parts received was top notch and my communications with them were adequate. I just hope that I do as good of a job assembling the casting as they did casting the parts. I will order from them again but I will do it well in advance of the timing for the project.

I have a year or better backlog of work and one rifle is at almost 2 years so patience is the key for us all.

Patience is fine but there is still NO explanation other than  "Deliveries are SLOW."
WHY are they slow. Two years is preposterous. The Rifle Shoppe owner told me that they
shot their waxes and drove them a long distance to be used in a foundry that sometimes
broke fragile waxes. He also said that common carriers,USPS-UPS-FedEx were not able
to deliver intact waxes.
Can you post pictures of these British castings so we can see why they are worth such long
waiting times???

Bob Roller

[Bob Roller]

I recently got 2 lock sets from them. It took approx. 9 months to get these parts which I felt was a bit long but I have waited longer for barrels that were being made here in the US. The quality of the parts received was top notch and my communications with them were adequate. I just hope that I do as good of a job assembling the casting as they did casting the parts. I will order from them again but I will do it well in advance of the timing for the project.

I have a year or better backlog of work and one rifle is at almost 2 years so patience is the key for us all.

Patience is fine but there is still NO explanation other than  "Deliveries are SLOW."
WHY are they slow. Two years is preposterous. The Rifle Shoppe owner told me that they
shot their waxes and drove them a long distance to be used in a foundry that sometimes
broke fragile waxes. He also said that common carriers,USPS-UPS-FedEx were not able
to deliver intact waxes.
Can you post pictures of these British castings so we can see why they are worth such long
waiting times???

Bob Roller

Just what I thought. NO reply,no pictures.
Bob Roller

[rich pierce]

The situation is troubling and now known to all.  Let's please limit further discussion to any helpful information on how to get responses from Blackley.

[bama]

I recently got 2 lock sets from them. It took approx. 9 months to get these parts which I felt was a bit long but I have waited longer for barrels that were being made here in the US. The quality of the parts received was top notch and my communications with them were adequate. I just hope that I do as good of a job assembling the casting as they did casting the parts. I will order from them again but I will do it well in advance of the timing for the project.

I have a year or better backlog of work and one rifle is at almost 2 years so patience is the key for us all.

Patience is fine but there is still NO explanation other than  "Deliveries are SLOW."
WHY are they slow. Two years is preposterous. The Rifle Shoppe owner told me that they
shot their waxes and drove them a long distance to be used in a foundry that sometimes
broke fragile waxes. He also said that common carriers,USPS-UPS-FedEx were not able
to deliver intact waxes.
Can you post pictures of these British castings so we can see why they are worth such long
waiting times???

Bob Roller

Just what I thought. NO reply,no pictures.
Bob Roller

Well thank you Bob, it is always a pleasure to hear your very informative and constructive comments. What a pleasure,

Sorry I did not see this sooner or I would have posted the pictures you asked for. Now are these castings worth the wait? I don't know because I have never put together a lock from castings. You see this will be a learning process for me and I am sure with all the constructive information you post on this board, I will have the best locks that have ever been produced.

Now for reality, I honestly don't know if these are worth the wait. I think I will post my progress on the building of these locks. That way all the experts can tell me where I made my mistakes. Or maybe, just maybe, we will find out that these casting are worth the wait, Bob.

[Hemo]

Quote from bama:

     "Sorry I did not see this sooner or I would have posted the pictures you asked for. Now are these castings worth the wait? I don't know because I have never put together a lock from 
      castings. You see this will be a learning process for me and I am sure with all the constructive information you post on this board, I will have the best locks that have ever been
      produced."

Bama, I think those look like nice castings, based on my limited experience of putting together a single set of castings into a lock. (Well, sort of two now, the second one using new finished Siler internals behind castings from an original Ketland plate and externals.) My first one was from castings of an Andrew Dolep flint lock supplied by Jim Kibler.

A year or so ago I put those parts together and made a fairly presentable and functional lock. I also documented the whole process on camera and posted a tutorial here on my experiences, both good and bad. The text from that rather long tutorial is still here on the ALR website in the tutorial section, but all of the associated photographs have been kindly removed by Photobucket. I still have all the digital images from that tutorial on my computer, and could re-attach them somehow to the tutorial if you or anyone else is interested in looking at them.

Let me know if anyone is interested in me putting the pictures back in--I'll have to get one of the mods to unlock the tutorial if so and hopefully get images replaced by some other means.

Gregg

[rich pierce]

Those look good from here. I never know if castings are good till I get to dimensions after cleaning them up. Like is the sear going to be same thickness as the tumbler body after cleanup. Are the bridle legs long enough. That sort of thing.

I have a couple nightmare sets of lock castings in that regard.

Most all lockplates will have wallows. Usually adjacent to the pan. Maybe it's just hard to fill the mold right there.

[smart dog]

Hi Jim,
I know that style of lock very well and built several pistols versions from Blackley's  Where you may run into trouble is with the bridle because there is no extra metal left on it to accommodate hole drilling and fitting.  I typically now use the bridal as a model and make my own from scratch leaving some extra metal on it.  Also, true up the tumbler arbor to final polished dimension before drilling and reaming the hole for it in the lock plate.  That way the fit won't become sloppy as you polish the tumbler.  Unlike TRS, Blackley does a good job making sure there is no flashing on the inside bend of springs.  Before hardening the springs, normalize them by heating to bright red and cooling slowly.  Then do the hardening and tempering.

dave

[bama]

Thanks Rich and Dave

Hemo thanks for the offer, I for one would love for you to post your pictures again.

Jim

[Bob Roller]

I recently got 2 lock sets from them. It took approx. 9 months to get these parts which I felt was a bit long but I have waited longer for barrels that were being made here in the US. The quality of the parts received was top notch and my communications with them were adequate. I just hope that I do as good of a job assembling the casting as they did casting the parts. I will order from them again but I will do it well in advance of the timing for the project.

I have a year or better backlog of work and one rifle is at almost 2 years so patience is the key for us all.

Patience is fine but there is still NO explanation other than  "Deliveries are SLOW."
WHY are they slow. Two years is preposterous. The Rifle Shoppe owner told me that they
shot their waxes and drove them a long distance to be used in a foundry that sometimes
broke fragile waxes. He also said that common carriers,USPS-UPS-FedEx were not able
to deliver intact waxes.
Can you post pictures of these British castings so we can see why they are worth such long
waiting times???

Bob Roller

Just what I thought. NO reply,no pictures.
Bob Roller

Well thank you Bob, it is always a pleasure to hear your very informative and constructive comments. What a pleasure,

Sorry I did not see this sooner or I would have posted the pictures you asked for. Now are these castings worth the wait? I don't know because I have never put together a lock from castings. You see this will be a learning process for me and I am sure with all the constructive information you post on this board, I will have the best locks that have ever been produced.

Now for reality, I honestly don't know if these are worth the wait. I think I will post my progress on the building of these locks. That way all the experts can tell me where I made my mistakes. Or maybe, just maybe, we will find out that these casting are worth the wait, Bob.

Judging from these pictures I would say they are no better than the current cast parts used by L&R
but a little better than the ones I used from moulds made 50 years ago for an identical lock.**
The last cast parts I used from England were for the Fenton flintlock as used on a pocket pistol
AND an original Fenton target rifle owned by Lynton McKenzie. It was a 16 bore and Lynton said
that little lock was as fast as any caplock and due to the tiny size it didn't in any way jolt the rifle
when it fired.This rare gun had double set triggers,an extremely rare item on an English rifle.
I made a copy of this lock using the plate,cock with top jaw and the frizzen.The internals were less than useless
and I threw them away.I think this one had a sliding safety behind the hammer which was a bit of a booger to deal with.
This was about 1980 when I did this and even then I got $250 for the S-E-A***work on this one.
Lynton McKenzie and Steve Alexander made a superb copy as well and I got it in to reharden the frizzen
a few years ago from the California owner. I think Lynton and Steve made a copy of the Fenton rifle using this
tiny lock.Good luck with these parts.It is not a hard lock to make after the first 30 or so.
Bob Roller

**About 125 Bailes/Manton locks for Helmut Mohr's Boutet flintlock pistols.
*** S-E-A  "Sweat,Effort,Aggravation."

[SingleMalt]

I've had an open order with Blackley's for over a year.  In July, I got half of the castings for a Brown Bess musket.  I will give them their due, the castings are yellow brass.  However, I can't see that long of a wait for the,.

[BartSr]

I was told to call them and get verification of any kit with ALL parts in stock, then order.

I too am looking for Miquelet Lock parts.

BartSr