Southern Mountain rifle iron under rib

[Dave B]

While we are talking about Iron mounted rifles I posted some pic's in the Antiques section. I wanted to show an example of how some did mount their under ribs by using dove tails with rivets coming from under them through the rib and riveted inplace.

[Ken G]

I take that the thimble is split and closed after it was riveted to the underrib?
Ken

[Dave B]

It seems that is how it was done.

[Levy]

We have a J. Bean rifle (marked on a silver plate in the barrel) in the collections of the Museum of Florida History and it has an underrib attached in the same manner, but I'm not sure if the posts are dovetailed into the barrel or staked-in.  It is stocked in walnut and the furniture is in the typical style and manufacture, but made from sheet brass instead of iron.  It has a double-banana patchbox with old tallow in each side (brass).  I believe Dennis Glazener posted pictures of it already, but there wasn't a shot of the J. Bean signature on the silver set into the barrel.  The underrib looked hand forged.  I suspect the fullstock was broken, cut-off and repaired by making it a half-stock.

James Levy