Dave,

I still have the Traditions Trapper (flintlock) pistol that my wife gave me for Christmas new in the box. I was initially going to have her take it back after examining it because I considered the lock to be poor quality at best. I then decided because it was a gift that I should keep it.

The frizzen opens much harder than it should, and pretty much needs to be pushed open so the lock time would be anything but fast. On ALL of my T/C flintlocks the frizzens open with minimal pressure until they reach the point where they literally "flip" open with an audible snap. I'm quite capable of disassembling the lock and deburring, stoning and polishing the bearing surfaces to smooth things up and make it operate smoothly, but that would void the warranty. Had I bought it used, that would have been the first thing I would have done.

The hammer is misaligned with the frizzen to a point where the flint would have to be shifted to the right in the jaws farther than I thought deemed necessary, and there's not a lot of grip surface with those tiny jaws to be moving the flint off center much. Lastly, this lock would require small pistol flints and as stiff as it is to open, I didn't forsee them lasting very long.

Although I haven't tried calling them, I contacted Traditions by email and never got a response. I never filled out the warranty papers but the gun is still NIB and never fired so if I do sell it, the buyer still has a full warranty. I may try to contact them again, but I doubt they'll do much about it, their locks are massed produced and probably all pretty much the same. The only other option I considered was sending the lock out to be retrofitted with better components but I don't believe the gun is worth that expense. It's a shame because it is a beautiful gun and it's now legal for us to use ML pistols of .50 or larger (percussion or flint) in our respective muzzleloading seasons for deer.

BPS