Author Topic: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham  (Read 5380 times)

Offline bgf

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Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« on: February 28, 2017, 10:23:29 PM »
I was asked to post this for a friend who reads but doesn't post here:

Quote
I have several well made items by Mark R. Burnham from Savanna Georgia.  One is
a powder flask with a unique rotating measuring valve and the others are small
brass round ball molds---one of which is signed by Burnhorn and McAtee. All are
dated in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I would appreciate any information/history on this maker and his items.  Thanks.
 

Pictures may be available, but currently I am "between solutions" for posting pictures thanks to the innovations Google forced on me when they improved Picasa into oblivion :).  If anyone knows more about this maker, information is appreciated!

Offline Bob Roller

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2017, 02:55:15 AM »
I was asked to post this for a friend who reads but doesn't post here:

Quote
I have several well made items by Mark R. Burnham from Savanna Georgia.  One is
a powder flask with a unique rotating measuring valve and the others are small
brass round ball molds---one of which is signed by Burnhorn and McAtee. All are
dated in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I would appreciate any information/history on this maker and his items.  Thanks.
 

Pictures may be available, but currently I am "between solutions" for posting pictures thanks to the innovations Google forced on me when they improved Picasa into oblivion :).  If anyone knows more about this maker, information is appreciated!

I remember Mark Burnham as a maker of brass bullet moulds and I bought one in the early 1950's from him by mail.
He was in Georgia but I don't recall where.

Bob Roller

Offline bgf

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2017, 12:02:22 AM »
Thanks, Mr. Roller,that sounds like it is the one.  It appears he also made flasks.  Do you know if he made any other types of items?

Offline BOB HILL

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2017, 01:45:57 AM »
I never met Mr. Burnam, but I have seen a primer a friend,Barry Myers, has that he made. Back in the early nineties a gentleman from Conway S.C. ,Mr. Walker Singleton, brought a halfstock rifle by to show me. Mr. Barnum had built the rifle,the set triggers and lock. He had another lock and trigger and had me build a rifle using them. I remember him telling me that Mr. Burnam was dead at that time. The lock was an unusual design all the works were on the outside of the lock. Simplest lock I ever inlet...... Bob
South Carolina Lowcountry

Offline bgf

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2017, 07:18:59 AM »
Thank you!  It's starting to sound like he had a full line of products and skills, and at that time he would have played a significant role in muzzleloading, at least regionally. 

snakeeater

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2017, 11:19:25 PM »
His full name was Mark Barton Burnham (1895-1995), was a native of Forest Park, GA, but moved to Savannah in 1924, and established himself as a fifth generation gun-maker though I believe this was only a part time venture. He and his wife, Lillian, only had the one child, a daughter, formerly Mrs. S.L. (Myra Burnham) McDonald (1921-2013) of Garden City, GA. The McDonald's had owned and operated a gas station on Main Street (Old U.S. 17) for several years.  For some years, Mark co-owned and operated a gun shop off U.S. 17 South in the Silk Hope area, south of Savannah, which after his wife's death in 1972 he sold out his interest to his partner Mack McGeehan (afterwards Mack's Gun Shop) and Mark moved to Moncks Corner, SC, near Charleston, and set up a small shop making guns, molds, and powder horns among his many other inventions. He held a U.S. patent for a swing door closer (1929), and built all his own machines to make the various articles he sold. Obviously, many have seen his powder flasks and molds, but to watch him make a mold was a privilege.

He made not only these fine made powder horns but made the dial measures from scratch, like everything else he made. Many companies produce powder measures but few throw precisely the right charge every time. Mark’s powder measures will throw a measure (in grains or drams) that is correct to the nearest grain.

For his long rifles, he made everything except the natural materials, steel, wood, brass, and silver solder. He made his barrels from solid steel billets, drilling the bores by hand using a horizontal boring machine of his own design, and even filed the flats for all his octagonal barrels. All of his parts were hand-made. Mrs. Myra McDonald once showed me the flintlock rifle her father had made for her, and then demonstrated how when the hammer was released against the frizzen, it didn’t just throw a few sparks into the pan. It was akin to a lighting storm of sparks. Mark laminated his frizzens with soft iron onto a steel frizzen, which guaranteed it would spark each and every time.

Dixie Gun Works still sells his flint sharpener that he invented in the mid-1970s, though now that Turner, Hunter, and many of the older folks at Dixie are gone, few know how it worked. When he showed it to Turner Kirkland, he said that it would keep a flint sharp for 125 consecutive sparkings. Turner asked him why only 125 times, to which Mark replied how his hands got tired of cocking the hammer and tripping the sear.

For those who have examined the locks on his rifles and pistols, I need not say a thing, but for everyone else, it is unlike any lock action you have ever seen, and according to Mark, he was the fifth generation to build this style lock. Unlike the multitude of other firearms which required locks to be inlet into the stock, weakening the most critical portion of the stock at the breech end of the barrel where absorbs the recoil of the gun, Mark’s locks were inlet barely the depth of the lock-plate itself, about an eighth of an inch, with the working mechanisms (i.e. tumbler, mainspring, sear, sear spring) all mounted on the exterior.

Like his hammer, none of the external parts were held in place by screws but where riveted in place, and could not be disassembled or dismounted nor would they ever need to ever be. The hammer formed the tumbler, and enclosed a coiled watch spring within a cavity incised inside the hammer holding tension against the lock-plate, with the sear notches cut into the rear outward edge of the hammer body so that only the trigger-end of the sear was the only part required to be inlet into the stock. It immediately emerged and pivoted on the rear of the plate, engaging the sear notches directly. Lubrication was simple. Simply brush off the entire external mechanism with a lubricant/preservative. Once you have seen one of his locks, you will wish all your BP locks were this simple.

In my 40+ years of collecting and shooting, muzzle-loaders mostly, I have not seen any lock mechanism like the Burnham lock employing a coiled watch spring as a mainspring. The nearest of any lock mechanism made to the Burnham lock is the wheel-lock of the early sixteenth century, which similarly used a coil spring for the mainspring around which the drum rotated like a watch-spring.

I could only have wished to have had the privilege to have apprenticed under Mark as his grandson did. His grandson, Steve McDonald was an Eagle Scout in the same Boy Scout troop that my father was Scoutmaster, and Steve and I not only grew up together but were assistant scoutmasters for the same troop when we got too old to be Boy Scouts. But Mark Burnham was a fine gentleman to have known. I have one of his bullet molds and a powder horn, each made before I was born.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2017, 12:03:57 AM by snakeeater »

Offline BOB HILL

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2017, 08:36:21 AM »
Snakeeater, thanks for this information on Mr. Barnum. The lock you described is the one I mentioned in the post above. It was a dream to inlet and a smooth mechanism. Thanks.  Bob
South Carolina Lowcountry

Offline oldtravler61

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2017, 04:58:38 PM »
  Snakeeater an Mr. Hill do any of you have pictures of this lock. Pretty sure other's here might want to see one.  Thank you.  Oldtravler

Offline bgf

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2017, 01:46:33 AM »
Snakeater,

Thanks!  The friend I posted for saw it before I did and very happy with the detailed information.

Offline Howard

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2017, 12:45:29 AM »
I remember him from about 1966. He was a great guy. I remember him mailing me some low temp silver solder & he wouldn't let me pay him. Just a great guy.

snakeeater

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2017, 05:08:35 PM »
I will have to check with his grandson, Steve McDonald, and just see if he still has one of his grandfather's rifles or pistols, or even one of the ones he built. Steve has been blind since about 1992 (detached retinas, both eyes) so was not able to continue his grandfather's legacy. I never got one of the Burnham rifles, mainly because they were well above my meager means even 40 years ago although over the years since, I have kept my eye out for one but I have not seen any that have come up for sale. My avatar is a flint fowler by one-time Dean of Guild Robert Johnson (1770-1830) of Dumfries, Scotland, that Johnson made between 1797 and 1811, which employs a roller spring for the frizzen, and which was also one of the features of the Burnham lock.


Offline BOB HILL

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2017, 05:25:35 PM »
Oldtraveler, the old gentleman that I built the rifle for had another rifle that Mr.Burnam had built using this same lock and trigger. This is what he had me style the little half stock rifle after. This was the only half stock I've ever built. Mr. Singleton has long passed. Sorry, I don't know what became of either of the rifles he had me build.
Bob
South Carolina Lowcountry

JesseJames15

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2020, 06:52:14 PM »
I have In my possession two of the flintlocks hand engraved by Mark B Burnham. One is left handed and one is right handed. One is hand engraved from 1963 and the other is from 1967. Both are hand engraved on both sides with his name and year. I would like to find out some more information myself regarding these pieces if at all possible. Thanks in advance for any information.












realtorone

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2020, 08:56:47 PM »
Jesse  You are by chance related to Jesse James of Wichita Kansas 1969-1971 and who shot with the The Chishom trail antique Gun asso.

George

JesseJames15

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #14 on: October 13, 2020, 02:05:50 AM »
No, I am not related to that Jesse James. However I am interested in finding out what these flintlocks might possibly be worth, if a price could even be put on them. If any lock collectors might be interested in them or could give me any idea of a ballpark price.

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #15 on: October 13, 2020, 05:39:48 PM »
They are more of a curiosity to me than anything else. An example of hobby craftsmanship not based so much on historical pieces. I think the buyer pool would be small.
Andover, Vermont

Offline cable

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #16 on: October 13, 2020, 09:39:51 PM »
I have one of his powder flasks with the metering mechanism.  I did not know the story when I bought it. 

will try to find it this evening and post a picture.

Offline Elnathan

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Re: Requesting information on Mark R. Burnham
« Reply #17 on: October 14, 2020, 01:48:38 AM »
Re those funky locks, Walter Dick's 1786 experimental lock looks very similar, at least as best I can tell from the itty-bitty picture: https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1984-B50-American-Arms-In-The-Tower.pdf

Scroll down to page 6 (50/27).

The biggest different seems to be the use of a hinged bar to transfer the spring tension to the frizzen instead of just having the frizzen bear against the spring directly, as in Burnham's locks.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2020, 01:52:54 AM by Elnathan »
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