Hey All,
As some of you have heard, I recently bought the Ditchburn Lock Co. from Stan Hollenbaugh. This included the Ditchburn rifle and pistol locks along with Stan’s John Armstrong lock.
The first one I am going to produce for sale is the Ditchburn/Beck rifle lock. I’ve been calling it the Ditchburn/Beck lock, as the molds were made from an original JP Beck lock by the late Bob Ditchburn. Bob first built this lock in the late 1950s with Stan taking over sometime around 2000. I am excited to be a part of this 60-plus-year legacy, and I can’t wait to have these locks once again being produced in volume and used in new guns!
Right now, I’m modeling the various components of the Ditchburn/Beck rifle lock in CAD and turning out prototype parts via CNC. These locks will be a hybrid of CNC machined and cast parts like some of the more recent arrivals to the market. The Ditchburn/Beck will be a premium product with no tuning needed when received by the customer. In addition to the standard features of most modern locks, I intend to use a hardened bridle, and a forged mainspring for ultimate longevity.
This thread is to meant to document the progress as I work through and get these first locks ready for release/sale. If you have any questions, please ask away.
Best to you all, and happy gun building!
Chris E.
Evrard Machine Works
PS. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a machinist and former lock builder for Chambers Flintlocks, having produced many thousands of locks for them over nine years. In fact, I still do machine work for Chambers today. I’ve done custom work for Brad Fountain, Tim Williams, Ron Scott, Allen Martin and others. I also built the lock that went into one of the CLA auction guns a few years back, though I cannot remember what year. Maybe someone will remind me!
![](https://i.ibb.co/Mc4X5js/387413815-1375104953358374-2026808781944144477-n.jpg)
Here is one of the first CNC cut D/B lockplates:
![](https://i.ibb.co/2s1LVjr/front.jpg)
Here are the machined bridles:
![](https://i.ibb.co/mcD2FvR/bridles1.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/mBBTsWn/internals1.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/WtjP5pv/internals2.jpg)