A short balkan musket

[rickystl]

These last photos show the lock plate was made for three screw mounting. Is there a photo of the left side of the stock ?

Rick

[Philip]

Originally Posted by rickystl

These last photos show the lock plate was made for three screw mounting. Is there a photo of the left side of the stock ?

Rick

Rick, the three-screw attachment is an archaic stylistic holdover from the 17th cent., retained on 19th - turn of the 20th cent. trade gun locks in the Portuguese style. These were widely made for export in the Portuguese town of Braga, and later in greater quantities at Liège in Belgium. You can also see, in the preceding posts that show the entire gun, that the buttstock is the fluted Portuguese derivation of the "Madrid" style.

Below are pics of a virtually similar lock, you sent me these some years back. The exterior is from an early type of internal-spring flintlock used in Portugal, which used a unique and somewhat complex sliding-rod sear system called an agulha. However, on these late trade locks, the "guts" have been simplified with an low-market version of the French flintlock system with a pivoting sear engaging a notch in the tumbler (full cock only, the older external pivoting manual safety is retained). As you can see, the tumbler / sear bridle has been designed away in the interests of economy.

These late locks with the archaic exterior styling are called fechos de três parafusos, (3-screw locks) to distinguish them from the earlier versions. In actuality, they are in essence French flintlocks with a hybrid external half-cock "brake", masquerading as an older type, for the purposes of marketing to conservative and tradition-bound consumers.

[eftihis]

The other side of the musket.