Greene lockplate

[ewmail15]

I think I bought a beautiful original Massachusetts Arms Greene 1856 lockplate. The guy who had it on eBay stated his mother was the collector, and I walked him thru half/full cock testing and Maynard gear - all a-okay. I'll be posting a parts wanted tonight.

I'm building up my list of projects for when I retire from this rat race in the next 5-10 years. Next stop, Willoughby.

 

[JOHN42768]

You do like a challenge.

 

[plymouthairrifle]

I just sold one of these at the last Louisville gun show. They seem to come up from time to time. I saw a couple at the last Baltimore show and one at the civil war show in Mansfield this year.

 

[ewmail15]

What was your selling price? Condition? I enjoy restoring, repairing, finding parts and bringing them back to life. I added a parts wanted thread in the classifieds section.

I saw a Maynard primers tape roll a few months back for 20. Should have bought it.

 

[mofederal]

It is good you like to restore and repairing firearms. I used to like doing that myself, but I had a fire and a flood, and I lost may tools and other items. I had to switch gears to another hobby.

 

[ewmail15]

Mo, do you still have any parts salvaged? Maybe you'll come across a $2 garage sale find like I did and it'll rekindle that memorable interest.

 

[plymouthairrifle]

I sold the complete lock for $150.

 

[UCVRelics]

Going to be a interesting project. Question. When you are looking for the other metal parts do you try and find them with similar patinas?

 

[ewmail15]

Yes, minimal polishing preferred. This lockplate, in my eyes, looks to be in excellent condition. Maybe the seller has some additional info on how it ended up alone.

 

[ewmail15]

For 50, how could I pass? I did a Greene search here, but results were only on bullets. We're these lockplates salvaged and repurposed for better designed/less difficult to operate carbines and rifles?

Pics of anyone's Greene in various frames of operation would be nice. Those I found so far on liveauctioneers past auctions didn't show enough. I'll keep searching for a dedicated Greene site/article, and maybe someone can post such a link here.

YouTube I just checked and Rock Island Auction had a great video. They'll have all the pics from prior auctions. How James Greene thought the mechanics would work for cavalry use is a head scratcher.

The barrel rotation with front trigger, the rod used to pierce the cartridge case, plus the Maynard tape primer system would give this carbine high marks on new patents/technologies used. Too bad it's a far worse likelihood than my Merrill resto that I'll find any parts for any Greene resto.

 

[plymouthairrifle]

According to Flayderman's book, 2000 of the British type carbines were made under contract to the British government in 1855 for use in the Crimean war, but evidently they saw little actual service. Indications are that many of the carbines were destroyed and stripped for parts ( which accounts for the large lot of mint condition locks that were on the market in the 1970s) before the British government sold these as surplus.

 

[plymouthairrifle]

There was one for sale at the Ohio Gun Collectors show today for $250

 

[ewmail15]

I saw one on one of my many parts websites (regtqm?) for almost $600, and looked no better than mine and no special history - exact same markings. If I'm going to make any progress at all, I need to get back onto the mlagb.com website over in the UK and make loads of inquiries.

 

[ewmail15]

https://www.joesalter.com/category/products/British-Greene-Carbine-Lock-Mechanism

with busted screw ends

 

[Jobe Holiday]

Finding one of these British Greene locks with broken off lock screws is quite common, along with the lock plates having a slight bend in them. This is because the British didn't disassemble them, they smashed them thereby breaking off the lock screws and bending the lock plates. If you lay a straight edge across the face of the lock plate you will quickly see if the plate is flat, or not.
J.

 

[ewmail15]

Why, after the UK paid for so many, would they not try to recoup their costs by selling them to the general public? Was their government that much against an armed population? Any examples where they did sell surplus to the public?

 

[ewmail15]

Can anyone share possible rifles/carbines where the Greene parts went as donors? Harpers (or 's?) Ferry Springfield I think had the Maynard primer tape system but the doors opened sideways. There were so many small springs involved, maybe those were used in other lockplate builds/repairs.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

Nope.

 

[ewmail15]

I have a beauty of a Greene carbine lockplate. She just arrived this afternoon. It has such a short half-cock. What I can't figure out is how the one free arm(?) in the back is supposed to operate. I figure that it's somehow supposed to interact with the front trigger such that when the trigger is pulled/held the second spring is released from the Maynard cog back, thereby allowing the soldier to advance the primer tape up the little channel so that the next time the hammer is full cocked, the primer advances all the way to the point where it will ignite between the nipple and hammer.

Please look at the pics I found online from a most generous poster. Bet very few have seen the stock behind the lockplate. Looking for a Greene person to clarify what's in the two write-up pics.

Also, would anyone have proper names for all the parts on the backside of the lockplate? I can tell where the sear is, and the tumbler, but all the others I'd like some education, or a diagram with that stuff.

 

[ewmail15]

Here's a nice reply to a parts/carbine inquiry I made on the British Military forum, from Victor.

Apologies for the prolonged radio silence, and what will likely seem an unhelpful post. When it comes to the Greene, I'm afraid your experience is the usual... you either find the locks or the whole guns, but not much else. I'm not enough of an expert to tell you why the locks alone have survived. Only forty guns were missing from British inventory in 1862. Some guns are suspected to have been issued to local mounted forces in South Africa, where I believe they were not well regarded and probably not well maintained. It is suspected most if not all of the missing forty were sold to US purchasers at the onset of the Civil War. The Ordnance apparently destroyed the rest. That doesn't leave much stock for old parts. Beyond the locks, perhaps it was thought no other portion of the gun could be put to use in a composite arm...