"Here's the question I have yet to figure out. What do you do for cleaning and oiling on a box lock? What evil lurks in there? They're not easy to take apart. The local "gunsmiths" are NOT going to touch my double! Shipping it off to a qualified smith would run to money. "

I had an emergency with with a Wetley Richards DR that had been submerged for several days in a flood a few months before I got it. Rust started breaking out on the barrels and it became clear that there was still alot of moisture in the wood. I pulled the action down to basic parts in a couple of hours (with two phone calls to a very knowledgeable and helpful 'smith in Darwin. I was just very careful and used a drill press for any screw that even looked like being difficult. What's more, two months later I got it back together again without dramas.

In the olden days blokes went on safari for months on end and carried spare firing pins, springs etc and replaced them as necessary. The famed Westley Richards "drop lock" just made this easier.

I'd not hesitate to pull anything apart. Mind you I've got a lot of boxes with bits of chainsaws, motorbikes and cars that I decided to pull apart and one day plan to put back together.

mike