Pistols without locks at Williamsburg?

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lockedcj7

New member
I was touring Colonial Williamsburg today and saw in the Governor's Palace that the pistols were displayed without locks. I asked the docent why the locks had been removed (the locks were all present on the muskets) and she replied that was the way that they were described in the governor's inventory of the period.

My own family has an heirloom rifle that lost its lock over the generations. The story goes that it was known to be loaded and the lock was removed to keep one of the children from getting hurt. My father had a lock made for it and the gunsmith told him that it was in fact loaded and that he pulled the charge and then fired the rifle several times with the new lock.

I asked two of the docents if arms were ever kept loaded and they both (separate conversations) scoffed as if that was the silliest thing they had ever heard. The guide at the palace said that no shot or powder was kept in the house and that it was all at the magazine. The docent at the magazine said that arms were never kept loaded since the powder would degrade and "eat" the metal or, at best, misfire.

I know you have to clean them immediately (I've been shooting BP for over 20 years) but I've never heard that about leaving them loaded. More importantly, does anyone have an idea about the locks on the pistols?
 
Leaving them loaded doesn't hurt anything. I found an original 58 Remington in a barn once and all six chambers were loaded. The gun was pretty pitted on one side but the chambers after I pulled the balls looked like new. The powder worked fine too but the caps didn't.
 
Yup, and when they recover Civil War ordinance very often it has good powder inside and so has to be disarmed carefully.

Finding loaded black powder firearms is not uncommon.

Steve
 
Yup, and when they recover Civil War ordinance very often it has good powder inside and so has to be disarmed carefully.
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And quite a few have been killed trying. Not far from here back in the 70's a man found a 61 Springfield barrel and decided it would be just the thing to fix a broken gate hinge. Stuck the breech in his forge and the .58 minie blew the back of his head out.
 
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen replies so fast! I'm with everybody else on the powder as that's what I've always thought. I've been known to leave a BP rifle loaded for a year or more and not had an issue with it firing. I'm still looking for info on the locks.
 
Pullin' the locks out? Sounds like gun control weenies to me! :D

Maybe they had a bunch of unruly youngsters around so mama made papa pull the locks because they didn't believe in spankins! :eek:

An unloaded muzzleloader or any firearm for that matter is a useless club. It's only the "I thought it was unloaded" guns that go off accidently. Put a loaded weapon in a man or youngsters hand and tell him so, and his handling of said weapon becomes much more respectful and careful.
 
Docents

The folks working there don't know everything, and have opinions and biases like everyone else. I asked some questions there which were scoffed at. I had just read separate accounts where pioneers could tell who was the maker of a wagon coming down the road by the squeeks, etc. before they actually saw it. Factory builders; Studebaker, Peter Schuttler, Fish Bros. were major makers.
They scoffed at the idea. Well, whatever. They had a "know it all attitude". They do know a hell of a lot, but not everything.
Bullcrap, about guns not loaded in a house.
 
Some folks aren't in touch as much as others with their surroundings. When working offshore, I always knew when my friends boat came out the inlet to our south by sound, well before hearing him, his distinctive 6V53 Detroit, let those who had ears to hear with know when he headed out to sea!

Same with trucks today, DD60s, 6BT Cummins, etc. they all have different sounds. There was a time when I could even tell the difference between the sounds of the rear suspensions on rigs, those Rockwell and Mack 44,000s but not anymore. Same with spearguns underwater, and as you fellas know, you can just about call out the caliber or even bullet of the guns being fired around us, especially combat vets!
 
I remember reading an article, probably in Reader's Digest in the '70s, about a flintlock rifle that had hung over a family's fireplace for 200 years, set off by a spark from a Christmas decoration of some kind on the mantle, and the bullet traveling the length of the house and killing someone in the dining room.
I have a Springfield 1842 musket that was at some point "demilled" by having the nipple cut off with hacksaw.
I dropped a weighted string down the barrel, and it appears to stop about 3" short of what should be the far end; still loaded?
It hung in the rafters of an uninsulated/unheated shed for decades, and I wouldn't expect it to fire if it is loaded, but I'm not going to put a cap on the replaced nipple to find out!
 
It hung in the rafters of an uninsulated/unheated shed for decades, and I wouldn't expect it to fire if it is loaded, but I'm not going to put a cap on the replaced nipple to find out!
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It will.
 
Well, maybe. Ungraphited black powder is pretty hygroscopic and will clump up in the barrel under the wrong conditions and not ignite. But it does not deteriorate (as early smokeless often does) so it will remain combustible for a long time.

As to loaded guns in the house, of course they kept them loaded. Maybe not in the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, but in every farm house. The normal practice with shotguns was to keep the pan of a flintlock empty and the priming flask out of the reach of children, but the barrel was loaded. When percussion came along, the only difference was that it was the caps that were on top of the cupboard instead of the priming powder.

But that was with shotguns, which stood by the kitchen door ready if the squawks from the henhouse told of a raiding fox. Rifles were a different story. They were used only for hunting, and normally not kept loaded. When the hunter came home, he (not many women hunters back then) would fire off the load in the gun (worms could be used, but just shooting was easier) then clean the gun ready to reload the next day.

To make a long story short, a rifle found in an old house should be checked but probably is not loaded. With a shotgun, the odds are that it is and should be handled accordingly.

Jim
 
Sorry James K but your scenario about firing the rifle off and then cleaning it for the next day sounds like a good way to get scalped or stabbed or shot or robbed by someone else that kept their rifle loaded.
 
I asked two of the docents if arms were ever kept loaded and they both (separate conversations) scoffed as if that was the silliest thing they had ever heard.
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Sounds more than a little bit complacent, doesn't it?
 
I dropped a weighted string down the barrel, and it appears to stop about 3" short of what should be the far end; still loaded?
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Quite possibly.

The easiest way to determine if there is "something" in there is to get a wooden dowel rod (if you no longer have the ramrod) and drop it down the barrel. At the muzzle, make a mark on the rod so you can see the depth to the obstruction.

Then remove the rod and lay it along side the barrel. The end of the rod should extend at least to the cone on a caplock and the touch hole on a flintlock. If it does not, something is in the barrel.

With the proper tools, removal of a threaded breech is relatively easy and a definitive way to unload the gun by removing the powder and driving out the bullet.

There are other ways as well.

Steve
 
With the proper tools, removal of a threaded breech is relatively easy and a definitive way to unload the gun by removing the powder and driving out the bullet.
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I'm going to have to disagree with that. Removing the breech plug on a modern side lock is a chore. Removing one on an antique would be even more so and inadvisable.
 
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No locks on pistols

I wouldn't be surprised if the locks were removed because someone in Co!onial Williamsburg management was nervous about having functional handguns around, and/or running afoul of some local gun control ordinance.
Some of these state and city agencies are paranoid about guns, or handguns of any kind.
 
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