A "D Partridge" Lock: Photos

[jmoore]

Off of a bit of a disaster of a rifle. Huge and clunky.

But the lock seems nice. Lockplate appears to be carved out. Hammer looks to be cast, possibly. Engraving is hand done, not too bad! Fly on tumbler. The knurled quick release hammer screw is wierd, but user friendly.

[Harlan]

I wonder if it belonged to Danny Partridge.

[jmoore]

If only he would "fess up"! It's origins are unknown.

[gew8805]

"Off of a bit of a disaster of a rifle. Huge and clunky."

How exactly is it a disaster? Could we see photos of the gun? This is a high quality lock of the late percussion period.

[Doug Rammel]

It looks like a contemporary lock to me. Casting is to crude to be from the percussion era. the lock plate looks cast also. Need pics of the whole gun.

[jmoore]

The "Whole Rifle" is no more. Chopped off the overly long forend and started making the fat barrel half octogon with the round portion tapered. Still heavy and probably too long. The stock is the worst of it. Fat, fat, fat.

The photos don't have enough resolution on this site to show the good engraving and the machine and file marks on the lockplate. (They do show fairly well in the 10Meg digital originals.) If it's cast, it's undetectable in these photos or by Mk.I eyeball. The hammer IS probably cast, but that would be not uncommon even in the 1800s.

The glass beaded, flat blue finish is out of character, though.

[Doug Rammel]

I was thinking it could have been bead blasted when I commented on the cast lock plate. The way the plate looks in the pic is the same as a cast plate on a new lock (L&R, Siler etc). Now I think your right.