Thank you all for your replies.
I was not happy to hear the comment about broken top jaw, I had not noticed that. Thought it was just made that way. After all, wrought iron is ductile & should not just break off like that. Sometimes I forget my metallurgy after working in it a half century. So, I scrubbed off the gunk of ages using Automatic Transmission Fluid (a great cleaner) and bronze wool. Yep, it just fractured. I do not know why, perhaps a forging defect which just grew larger each time that very powerful mainspring slammed the flint into the steel. One can see the fracture at the end of that top jaw. At the very back end the metal is also smeared, which would have happened during continued use after the thing broke. Oh, well.
I looked closely at the iron ramrod. At first I thought it had a scarf weld of a piece of steel to the iron body. But there is no reason to have any steel-iron mix on this ramrod. Again scrubbed a little with ATF & bronze. The various lines that show might be defects in the iron from which this rod was forged. If a similar defect existed in the top jaw that might have been a reason for it breaking after repeated strikes. This pistol looks to have been fired a lot, as the steel is heavily worn. This lock has no provision for unscrewing & replacing the steel.
Of course, this is just speculation. but that is what one often does in a metallurgical failure analysis when one cannot get all the necessary information.(whoops! Did I do such an analysis for you on a high temperature fixture? We can chat off-line!)
Pleased to learn that it is in Heer's Neue Stockel. I have only the MCMXLIII paperback HAANDSKYDEVAABENS BEDØMMELSE II, JOHAN F. STØCKEL. Looked through each and every illustration last night as the Tigers (our Detroit baseball team) lost to Boston. No Domingo Mas. If I can find Neue Stockel in the Detroit library I shall photograph page 768
Dmitry, thanks for the post to a similar pistol by Domingo Mas. It even has about the same engraving under the main spring.
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