Anyone run across the "Large Series" sockets? Just got a 357 (heh) ratchet, that uses the larger drive opening.
I've never seen or heard of a No. 357 ratchet, Cruzer. Are you sure it's not a No. 355? The No. 355 was a female only ratchet with an 11/16-inch opening that drove the standard pressed steel sockets from the outside. I have a set that Mossberg made for Syracuse that operated like that.
This past weekend I was able to pick up this set.
Nice find. I am curious about the piece in the upper right that looks like a solid hex nut.
On the top left hand corner it has 3 different sized slot screwdriver blades but there was no driver. So o guess that’s what is missing
What driver are you referring to?
The drive mechanism for the screwdriver bits has always been somewhat confusing and there is no good, clear, single explanation anywhere on the web.
As best as I have been able to determine...
The earliest Auto-Cle sets (and by that I mean true Auto-Cle, Contal's French company), the Auto-Cle sets that Railway Appliances was making under license to Contal before Q.M.S., and the sets that Q.M.S. was making before Mossberg, had a short drive adaptor. It was male-male. One end plugged into the ratchet. The other end had a hole with a step in it, creating a half-round opening, where the half-round drive end of the bit went. The adaptor was missing from my early American (guessing RAC) Auto-Cle set, but Farmer J's early Auto-Cle British set included it. You can see what I am referring to on page 1 in posts #7 and #8, and then in close-up detail on page 2 in post #47 in the early Mossberg sets/research thread, linked
here.
Mossberg adopted that half-round opening and put it in the end of the drive stud on the No. 310 1/2-inch drive Tee handle in their small leatherette and wood box sets. These sets had no ratchet. The Tee handle turned the sockets and the screwdriver bits. I don't own any small sets or a No. 310 Tee handle, but it is pictured and described, including the screwdriver bit opening, on AA.
But that's where it gets confusing fast. The bigger Mossberg sets, like the No. 11 and the No. 14, did not have No. 310 folding Tee handles, and no ad illustration that I know if shows or includes in its contents list any piece described as a screwdriver bits adaptor or driver (like the earliest Auto-Cle sets). Leading to the question -
what then drove the screwdriver bits?! AA doesn't explain it, and I have not found an explanation anywhere else.
I suspect (and it's only a theory) that the half-round opening that was in the end of the early Auto-Cle adaptor, adapted by Mossberg into the end of the No. 310 folding Tee handle, was later put by Mossberg into the end of the extensions. This ad shows you what I mean. See the red circle I added? I believe that's the half-round drive opening for the screwdriver bits. They even showed the bits near that corner, I believe, for that purpose. The extensions in my No. 14 set do not have such an opening, but my set does not include screwdriver bits. Please check the ends of your extensions.
