Bob, thank you, I am fortunate to own it. The barrel is 46" and the bore measures .774. Octagon to round, it has no choke so I'm not sure if cylinder bore is correct or just a smoothbore or if that's just all semantics for the same thing? I think I am going to start off with Taylor's recommendation of .735 balls with ≈.04 denim patches as well as .750 balls with .015 or .020 cotton pillow ticking. I think I'm also going to go with a modest starting load of 80 gr 2f and possibly work my way up to around 90. For shot I'm not entirely sure, I think I should experiment around the ounce and a half range? I purchased the 10 gauge wads Taylor recommended and will need to ask around some more regarding shot loads. Any help on that from anyone would be appreciated.
Here are the pictures of the lock, it was fun figuring out how it worked. The underside of the lock was very clean. There's an intermediary part between what most people would recognize as a tumbler and what most people would recognize as a sear, I'm not sure if it has a proper name for it or if it is considered part of the tumbler or part of the sear. For the sake of conversation I am referring to it as a linkage, someone please correct me where I am wrong. Also, while proofreading this, I had a revelation that the etymology of naming the part a sear likely came from the verb sear meaning to burn or scorch the surface of something?
Here is the outside of the lock in its resting position. There is a pin hole above the trigger and lock mortise, this is the pivot pin for the trigger. The trigger is a pendulum and pulling back on it pulls the sear back (instead of up) to release the tumbler. Going from left to right, you first have the safety spring and beneath that the safety. The safety rotates 180 degrees, you can see a wedge on the bottom of the safety along with a small relief in the spring and a cutout in the lockplate underneath the spring. The sear pokes out a bit from that cutout and rotating the safety 180 degrees clockwise places the wedge of the safety behind the sear and interupts its ability to travel rearwards. To the right of that is the cock, towards the bottom of the cock you can see a little cutout with a wedge trying to poke through, that wedge is the linkage between the sear and the tumbler. Pulling back to full cock opens the cutout allowing the wedge on the forward part of the linkage to spring out over the tail of the cock, interrupting its ability to return, and holding it in battery until the trigger is pulled. Forward of the cock and beneath the pan, the part with the two screws is the bolster, that is what the belly of the cock strikes to halt it and prevent the jaws from overshooting the pan. On a later flintlock, the inner side of the cock has a shelf on it that strikes the bolster that surrounds the pan. The disk is just the end of the pan, it's probably domed like that to make it stronger and discourage rain? Forward of that is the frizzen, frizzen spring, and the linkage that connects the two and keeps them to the lockplate.
Here is the inside of the lock in resting position. Above the pan is a pan cover that slides freely back and forth, the pan cover has a post that slides underneath the mainspring. The cock comes in through a square hole in the tumbler and a cross pin keeps it from sliding out. On the top of the tumbler is a pivot that holds a long narrow spring. The pan cover is held in place by the frizzen resting on it, pulling it to full cock causes the long spring attached to the tumbler to drop in behind the pan cover post and flush against the inside of the lock plate , releasing the tension on the tumbler causes that long narrow spring to impact the post of the pan cover and kick it out of the way exposing the pan a fraction of a second before the cock strikes the frizzen. You can also see a very large and beefy mainspring. Behind the tumbler is the sear, sear spring, linkage, and link spring.
Here is the lock in full cock. The mainspring applies tension to the tumbler, which is held in place by the linkage between the tumbler and sear. The forward part of the linkage is pushed to the outside of the lock plate via a spring since the cock is completely to the rear and no longer impeding it by obstructing the cutout in the lock plate. The forward part of the linkage has a wedge that holds the cock in full cock battery, it is held in place via the sear when they mate up in battery, and also likely opposing tension from the tumbler and cock. The sear also has leaf spring to keep things tidy. When the trigger is pulled it pushes the sear backward, remember the trigger is a pendulum that pivots above the lock mortise, and blamo!
I haven't had a chance to watch this video yet, but it has all the hallmarks of something good so I'm posting it now so I don't forget about it later:
