Fitting an L&R lock to a Renegade

[Eric Krewson]

I am building a random parts TC Renegade and decided to use a L&R replacement lock instead of trying to find a TC lock.

I was hoping for an easy swap but this is not the case, this lock is not a drop in, not even close. There are a lot of problems I will have to fix to get this barrel, lock, stock combination together.

Here are a few;

The lock bolster and fence are hitting the hooked breech tang and won't let the lock settle into place. You can see the shiny spot where the lock is hitting.



The touch hole alignment is way off;



The underlug for the wedge pin dead centers the opening preventing insertion of the wedge pin.



The barrel has to go down and back to make everything line up, I will start reinletting the barrel and tang today.

[Eric Krewson]

Here is a little update, I have actually just about finished this project, just have a few bugs to work out.

This picture shows how far off the L&R lock bolt hole is off from the TC as well as how much I had to grind off the tang to get the lock in the mortise and have it go to full cock.



There are a lot of gaps between the "drop in lock" and the mortise.



Wood shavings to the rescue;



Pretty good fill in, the patch will disappear once the finish is on the wood.



I did a mock-up and most everything works, I had to remove a little more metal from the tang to get the lock to full cock. One more problem to solve; the lock will fire with the triggers set but not with the front trigger alone. Everything looks OK, nothing rubbing, I will solve this problem tomorrow.

[Eric Krewson]

I did a trigger lock mock-up and the back trigger would set and let the front trigger set off the lock but the front trigger wouldn't trip the lock by itself. Lots of soot black and looking for pinch points came up with nothing binding.

I came to the conclusion that the L&R lock sear was a bit higher than the original TC sear and the front trigger was making contact but not enough to set off the lock. I needed to add some metal to the trigger bar.

I took the trigger apart, cut a piece to solder on, hardened it and used plumbers low temp silver solder to attach it to the trigger bar.

I started with this;



I found the front trigger would fire but now the back trigger wouldn't set. I realized my trigger bar was too tall now so I would grind a little off, test the function, grind a little off and test again. When I got down to here everything worked just like it was supposed to.

[Stoker]

Very interesting Eric.. I saw those at track and was thinking about my TC hawken flinter.. Nice rifle just lock time is slow
Thanks Leroy

[Josh B]

That's a handsome looking lock from what I can see of it.  I'm looking forward to the finished pics to see the whole thing. Josh

[Eric Krewson]

Down to just a few things left; I spent a lot of time working on what was once a really rough, dinged up stock, it came out really nice. As you can see I defined the lock and side panels to give the stock some bling from the plain, out of the factory version. I have two coats of Chambers antique oil finish on the stock so far and will probably put 5 or 6 on before I am done.



I have been rebluing little parts and getting the lock apart so I can polish the external parts, a long and laborious process.

[Eric Krewson]

I suspect most of the replacement locks used for this type of project are left with the factory finish, they look much better polished. I probably have 4 hours in the lock plate, first you file out most of the craters, then you sand out the file marks, it takes hours. The hammer is particularly difficult because it has so many flat and curved surfaces, I only have the lower part done.. The frizzen is hardened to the point it can't be filed and can only sanded to a satin finish, another long project.

[Eric Krewson]

DONE!



I even made the lock fit;

[Stoker]

Good looking pole.. Well done
Thanks Leroy

[loon]

Awesome.

[chamookman]

Always enjoy Your work Eric ! Thanks - Bob.

[Eric Krewson]

I sent the lock back to L&R for a fix. The tumbler shaft was too long and held the hammer too far off the lock plate. There is a flat place on the back of the hammer that is supposed to stop the hammer travel when it impacts the top of the lock plate. On my lock the "hammer stop" was only hitting the top corner of the lock plate and deforming the metal.

This is the second lock of this project that I sent back to L&R, the first had a casting flaw in the lock plate, the second have an tumbler flaw. L&R's customer service is great, they fix what ever needs to be fixed without question. The way I see it these flawed locks should have never been sent out in the first place, good customer service, lousy quality control.

[PaulN/KS]

As always you have done a fine job fixing up that TC. Nothing like an oil finish on a nice walnut stock eh..
Bummer that the L+R locks have gotten so poor. I still have one that I bought for a Traditions and it is a good sparker and functions just fine.