A Bedford county gunsmith of many years told me that the Somerset Dunmeyer rifles used barrel lugs that were different from all the other rifles he had worked on. Along with a number of Dunmeyer rifles he had also worked on many other old rifles made by gunsmiths from Bedford and Somerset Counties. Among them he named John White and Daniel Defibaugh. He drew me a picture of how the lugs on Dunmeyer rifle barrels looked. He said the shape allowed the barrel to be removed by simply removing the tang screw and sliding the barrel forward. Removing the pins was not needed. I was reluctant to try this but there was something preventing the ramrod on my Peter Dunmeyer Bedford rifle from inserting all the way into the stock, and it appeared the only way I could remove it was to take the barrel off.
Fortunately I remembered that on one of the forums someone had given excellent instructions for removing a barrel and it didn't sound all that difficult. So after a few more weeks of getting up my nerve I decided to do it. However, since the pins looked like they might be removed easily I decided to not chance the slide idea. Besides the Bedford gunsmith had only worked on Dunmeyer Somerset rifles and this was a Bedford. I thought maybe the different lug idea might have originated with Jonathan. To sum it up the barrel came off nicely and it had lugs exactly like the gunsmith had told me (see the attached picture). Looks like it might have been Peter's idea.
At any rate my question is......Is anyone out there familiar with any other gunsmiths who used this type of lug or is it limited to the Dunmeyers?
