Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Rifle Lock, does anyone know,,,,,,

,,,anything about this? I found it in the middle of Wyoming, many years ago while hunting antelope. I was glassing a small band from a rock out cropping.

The very tip was sticking out of the sand and gravel where I was sitting. I wiggled it out of the ground and dug around a bit looking for more parts. The spring was all that turned up during the light duty search. I was going to go back before I left to do a little more digging and just never got back there. Dang.

The word "Grice" is the only word on it.

Any info would be nice.

looks like a well made old lock
I've never heard of Grice.
But some searching should dig up some info.

Agreed Sir.

The P1776 Rifles and their combat history


After all one thousand of the P1776 rifles were shipped to North America, production shifted
totally to the famous Fergusson rifle, which was essentially a breech-loading version of the P1776
(Bailey, 2002). Consequently, the P1776 rifle is rare and desirable, and information about the
survivors is closely guarded. For example, only nine P1776 Rifles are known and most have been
greatly altered during the intervening two centuries. One of them is German. Of the eight English
survivors, two were made by William Grice, four by Mathias Barker & John Whately, and one by
Benjamin Willetts. Rifles by the fourth firm, Galton & Sons, are seemingly unknown, but due to
the secrecy that surrounds these objects, one cannot conclude that they do not exist.
British Pattern 1776 Rifles 3
The two P1776 Rifles by Grice bear an �R� and a number, �23� and �33,� respectively, engraved
in identical fashion on the butt-plate tang. Arms scholars regard the �R� as the mark of a Rifle
Company, analogous to the �LI� for Light Infantry Company and the �GR� for Grenadier
Company. These are the only two P1776 Rifles known with �R� markings, and from the
similarity of those markings, these two rifles must have served in the same Rifle Company.

I did some searching and turned up the name of a gunmaker-William Grice. From my quick search, it appears that he operated from 1766 to 1777, which would put his work in the flintlock era. Maybe it's from a flinter that had been converted to percussion?

I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Now I truely wish I had spent more time digging, or had a better memory of the exact location.

Very cool find sir. Get thee back there and keep on digging. This could be a most interesting thread (already is but I like to watch page counts build LOL).

Very cool find!

I have a BLM map folded with a pen marks of roads and we hunted. Maybe,,,,

One thing I do remember, there was a BLM sign in a big flat sage brush valley pointing out ruts still carved in the earth as wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail. Sitting on that rock outcrop I could see those ruts.

Screw head slots look off center. Maybe it is an old hand made lock.? That would be sweet...

Another one of those things that "if only it could speak"

I just did a quick search and found this that states there were several early gunmakers named Grice and the name Grice has also been used on some modern reproduction locks.

..."Grice was the name of several English makers. (It is also a name used on reproduction muskets and locks made from the 1960s onward, but nearly all those I've found have the name stamped and not engraved but the stamp could have been worked to look like engraving) William Grice worked 1766-1777, and another William Grice worked 1774-1781, and then as a partner with Joseph Grice from 1781 to 1789, Joseph continued on his own 1789-1797, and there was a William Grice who was commissioned to make official "Baker" rifle patterns in 1776 but this may be one of the two mentioned above. Later, James Grice is listed as a gun maker 1897-1900."...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/T-A-B/message/3080

Now wondering if the barrel was there.

Most likly all of it there or around there