AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Antique Gun Collecting => Topic started by: Elnathan on May 24, 2020, 05:58:15 PM
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While I am thinking about it, has anyone ever seen the rifle illustrated here as figure 15a and 15b? https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1989-B60-Long-rifles-of-the-Shenandoah-Valley-of-.pdf
It is described in the text as "an early iron mounted rifle. The octagon to round barrel is rifled, caliber .48, and is 48 1/2 inches long. The thick butt stock has a flat butt plate and incised C scroll carried under the cheekpiece to another smaller C scroll in front of the cheekpiece. All hardware is iron except the copper colored brass nose cap." I'd add to that summary that the buttplate is the wrap-around variety and it has a German lock on it.
Not much to go on, but it does look like it could be a 1780s rifle and if really iron-mounted could be another fairly early example.
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I wish they had included specs on the lock, it almost looks like a pre 1763 French musket lock.
(https://i.ibb.co/VV6HgmY/fig-15.jpg) (https://ibb.co/LSKQx5d)
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So, figure 15. Thanks for posting. I had not seen it before. The incised carving is highly reminiscent of the hallmark Lancaster/Christians Spring style. The flat buttplate would normally be an early feature. I don’t have a sense of the mass of the gun (width of buttstock). From here it could easily be 1780s and not likely post 1800.
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The lock does closely resemble a 1746 French musket (the only one without a bridle), but there are a couple differences in the proportion of the tail and the frizzen spring finale which make me think that this one didn't come out of a French arsenal. Might be a sub-contractor's work (I don't know how the French musket-building system worked, particularly for the 1746 musket, which was something of a simplified emergency model I believe) and the frizzen spring and top jaw screw could easily have been replaced at some point, but it could just as easily be a French, Dutch, or German commercial lock made in the same style.
The buttplate could also be musket plate reworked for a flat toe - hard to tell without better pictures, but the shape of the triggerguard behind the trigger looks like it was formed from sheet metal and is not a recycled musket guard.
I hesitate to bring this up, because the siren call of the "Early Southern Iron Mounted Rifle" is strong and I don't know how significant it really is, but the shape and proportions of the stock are virtually identical to another iron-mounted rifle, also with a flat buttplate, which is illustrated as rifle 3 in Gusler's March 2004 article in Muzzleblasts and is itself strongly reminiscent of the "Old Holston Rifle." I doubt that this one is by the same hand, as the workmanship is much nicer on this one, but the resemblance is intriguing.
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The guard looks like it might be flat to the wrist like a musket or fowler guard. Does not especially resemble later forged iron guards I’ve seen.