AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: omark on April 28, 2014, 12:37:39 AM
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wondering if any long rifles were ever built without cheek pieces, including barn guns, schimmels poor boys or southern mtn rifles. in my area i never have a chance to see originals. mark
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Certainly there are rifles without cheekpieces. I've seen early rifles with fowler-like stock architecture that have a bare-naked buttpiece.
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I have not seen a southern mountain rifle without a cheek piece but then I have not seen them all by a long long shot.
dp
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On some later guns the cheekpiece is just a whisper tall, not really functional, merely for visual effect.
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wondering if any long rifles were ever built without cheek pieces, including barn guns, schimmels poor boys or southern mtn rifles. in my area i never have a chance to see originals. mark
Harvey Gillespie (1820-1877) Henderson County/Jackson County NC made a fair number of his rifles without cheek rests. I have seen a few other NC mountain rifles without cheek rests but either they were not attributed to a name or I forgot, which is quite possible!
Dennis
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Acer,
My best friend in life owned an original circa 1825 - 40 Flintlock Rifle like that and it had no discernible cheek piece.. It was a VERY plain gun with no patchbox, nor carving, nor engraving. It did have brass ramrod pipes, triggerguard and buttplate. Mike used to jokingly refer to it as a "Mid Western Poor Boy" rifle gun.
Gus
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RCA #8 had the cheek-piece removed at an early date so I guess they were not popular with at least one guy.
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Iv handle a few old ones......looks like a fellow just grabbed a 2x6 and made a stock......like the little 'boys rifle' that were 22's, back in the late 30's......PLAIN stock!
Marc
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Many late California guns were built without cheek rests. I own a late percussion rifle built in Elkhart Indiana that has no cheek rest as well.
Hungry Horse
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i'd like to thank everyone for their replies and info. always amazes me how much knowledge is available on this site and i appreciate how readily it is shared.
it sounds like cheek pieces were nearly always put on fancier rifles but not quite as often on plainer ones. thanks again, mark
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You asked about Long Rifles, so, if you look at say pre 1850, east of the Mississippi, Long Rifle style Rifles, I'd say about 99% of them were made with a cheek piece.
Certainly you'll find the oddball once in a blue moon with no cheek piece, but from what I've seen, ( my Free opinion ;D ) even the cheapest back action hardware store clunker had a cheek piece.
Move out of those parameters to a later time, out west, non rifle, non longrifle, and you'll find a different story.
John
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take a look at this one:
http://www.claysmithguns.com/antique_30cal.htm
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Just for giggles, there were a number of guns made with cheek pieces on both sides---that is like two cheek pieces. Just never say NEVER.
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Most old guns sans cheeckpiece were those of the percussion era....I've got a few originals that do not have a cheeckpiece. Mostly half stocks, working man's gun, nothing fancy.
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I want to thank you all for your replies. Mark