Author Topic: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle  (Read 3618 times)

Offline Cades Cove Fiddler

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1717
Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« on: November 10, 2016, 05:55:32 AM »
.....Recently viewed a "Tennessee" style percussion rifle....Curly maple half stock (more like 3/4)..... 46" barrel....lollipop tang to comb...."Holston" style cheek rest...all Iron furniture....closed loop trigger guard....Great fine lines....Most interesting to me is the barrel under-rib.....It is made of WOOD...!!!...has two one inch iron thimbles for ramrod pinned into the wooden rib...really nicely done.....Has anyone ever seen this style...??

Offline Hungry Horse

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5565
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2016, 10:38:11 PM »
 This is often the fix for full stocks that have suffered forearm damage. Not to say no guns were built with wooden underibs, but more got them after some sustantial stock damage. The long barrel also indicates it was a full stock in the past.

  Hungry Horse


Offline Seth Isaacson

  • Library_mod
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1104
  • Send me your rifles for the ALR Library!
    • Black Powder Historian
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2016, 01:10:03 AM »
Every gun I've seen in person with a wood rib was clearly cut down from a full stock rifle. Most were in pretty banged up condition. That isn't to say it is not possible that some were originally built this way as HH stated.

Did you get any photos? Sounds like a nice looking gun.
I am the Lead Historian/Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*

Offline T*O*F

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5123
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2016, 02:14:11 AM »
Sorry guys.  I've seen a bunch of them and they've all been built that way.  I have a percussion smoothbore with a wooden rib.  I have "never" seen one that was a cut down full stock.  If you go to Friendship, you'll usually see any number of them scattered about in vendor booths for sale.
Dave Kanger

If religion is opium for the masses, the internet is a crack, pixel-huffing orgy that deafens the brain, numbs the senses and scrambles our peer list to include every anonymous loser, twisted deviant, and freak as well as people we normally wouldn't give the time of day.
-S.M. Tomlinson

Offline Eric Kettenburg

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4178
    • Eric Kettenburg
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2016, 02:55:24 AM »
Half stock rifles with wood under-ribs were very popular in New England throughout the 19th century, and all those that I have viewed were built that way from day one.  Can't speak to pieces of more southerly origin.
Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government!

Offline Cades Cove Fiddler

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1717
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2016, 05:41:35 AM »
...Thanx for the response boys...!!!.....Good info.....This is the only one I've ever seen...Will try to post pix soon....will try to bring her to the Knoxville show next spring....

Offline Hlbly

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 256
Re: Half Stock Tennessee Rifle
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2016, 01:11:16 AM »
This sounds like a Unicoi County gun. Bring it to Knoxville and if we don't know anything, we will make up a good story.