Rock Ford Exhibit

[art riser]

Is the contemporary pouch by Gary Birch in the book?

[Bob Roller]

An X-purt is usually someone from "out of town"or so I've been told  .
Bob Roller

[j. pease]

The pouch by Gary Burch is in the book listed as old pouch

[Eric Kettenburg]

[smart dog]

Hi Erik,
You know the main difference between men and women is that men think the 3 Stooges were funny and women don't.

dave

[Eric Kettenburg]

Frankly I have no real opinion on whether they were funny or not.  I simply know that sooner or later, when presenting facts and documentation as a rebuttal to staunch opinion - especially when expensive items are involved - the debate will devolve into ad hominem attack and I or others will be accused of being a stooge.  Thought I'd get ahead of the ball.

[Eric Kettenburg]

BTW, does the writeup on the Tileston rifle state that it has not been disassembled?

Chew on that one a bit.

[Dennis Glazener]

Eric,
You look nice dressed up😁
Dennis

[spgordon]

Frankly I have no real opinion on whether they were funny or not.  I simply know that sooner or later, when presenting facts and documentation as a rebuttal to staunch opinion - especially when expensive items are involved - the debate will devolve into ad hominem attack and I or others will be accused of being a stooge.  Thought I'd get ahead of the ball.

I'd rather be in the Stooge car, Eric, if that's where you are, than in whatever vehicle The Old Boys Club is traveling in ....

[WESTbury]

Relative to the "Tileston" rifle I find it curious that the date "1773" is engraved on the barrel which "coincidently" was the year of the Boston Tea Party in which a Thomas Tileston may have been a participant.

I still have reservations about it being a New England Rifle. Having a cherry stock does not limit a rifle to New England. I've never seen the rifle in person so that's a drawback to my theory about the rifle. Eric has handled it and posted many photos on this forum. So, I would give great weight to his observations and opinions.

Oh yea, the fence of the pan looks to be about 3/16" to the rear of the breech end of the barrel as shown in one of Eric's photos. Kind of odd.

[JV Puleo]

In my estimation, a serious draw back of this book, and a couple of other similar  books, is the lack of footnotes. I really do not care what credentials an author has, an author should not expect a serious reader to take their word for facts presented in any reference book.

Absolutely. Any truly competent author should make his sources known. Antique arms books are plagued with opinions (and miscellaneous gun show "lore") expressed as facts.

[smart dog]

Hi Eric,
No the write up says nothing about the rifle having been disassembled.

dave

[smart dog]

Hi,
There is a description of the battle of Trenton and how it was a clash between American riflemen and German jaegers.  According to muster rolls, there was one company of 50 German riflemen with Colonel Rall among his force of over 1300 soldiers in Trenton.  Moreover, the weather was so bad that no firelocks functioned well.  It was no battle between riflemen.  It was won by surprise and Henry Knox's overwhelming and well led artillery.  Since the author wanted to highlight riflemen, he should have discussed the Second Battle of Trenton (Assunpink Creek) in which Edward Hand's riflemen played a crucial part.  In fact, a good claim can be made that it was the most important action involving American riflemen in the entire war and if Hand had failed to delay the British as long as he did, they might have overwhelmed Washington's entire army and trapped it against the frozen Delaware River.

dave

   

[Bill Wilde]

My wife and I visited Rockford today and I was certainly not disapointed with the firearms display!!! Truly a collection of rifles we've all read about down through the years. Everything is behind glass as it certainly should be; however, I do believe, as a builder and student, its best to study a firearm with your eyes and your hands to truly get a feel for an object originally met to be handled.
As an added bonus, we got to met "flatsguide" there with his wife up all the way from Tennessee!
 

[smart dog]

Hi Kent,
I have the same feeling about the book but there are just too many preposterous statements to just let it go.  They are made worse by the fact that easy fact checking and research would have brought the author up to date and in line with historical evidence.  That statement about replacing muskets with rifles was, I am sure, made to emphasize Lancaster gunsmiths' role in arming our early army.  However, it completely ignores Springfield and Harper's Ferry arsenals and the fact that those "patriotic" Lancaster gunsmiths gave the US government war department heart burn because of shoddy work and inability to supply the numbers of rifles promised. That is one of the best reasons why I might agree that Lewis and Clark carried prototypes of the 1803 Harper's Ferry rifles rather than modified contract rifles.  Many of those contract rifles were so poorly made they would have needed extensive refurbishing.  I suspect Merriweather Lewis was scared to death at the thought of carrying such junk on his expedition to the Pacific.

dave     

[JV Puleo]

Probably not. With very rare exceptions we always try to get other opinions on questionable data before a book goes to print. It's taken a long time to come to this conclusion but MANY authors, who know a great deal about their own specialty, know almost nothing about the period they are working in beyond a very myopic view.

I don't know a thing about this author but I'll bet the "museum professionals" that mounted the exhibit know even less.

And Kent, having been through this process yourself and appreciating the REQUIREMENT that all statements of fact must be backed up with primary research, you have every right to be critical.

[flatsguide]

Here you go James! Some pics of the Turvey rifleHad a nice visit at Rock Ford and had the pleasure of meeting Bill Wilde and his charming wife. We shared pictures of our current builds. He is building a pretty nice rifle.
Cheers Richard

[B.Habermehl]

As I said in several posts on a few forums a really neat exhibit of guns, several of which I plan to build. I was really tickled to see one of these guns in decent lighting, especially the Shroyer rifle. I snuck a flash light in to the Reading Museum to se it better, risking getting expelled from the museum. Shumways book is good but seeing the gun is better. As well as the Turvey rifle. It is very different in the round than the pictures in the book suggest. Get the museum book if nothing else but the pictures. BJH

[James Rogers]

Thanks so much for sharing your visit with us Richard! Give us your take on that Turvey rifle after seeing it up close.

[flatsguide]

The Turvey rifle. One needs to have a good imagination to see the rifle as it actually was when it left the Turvey shop, it must have been beautiful and at the top of British gun making art. Today it is well worn, perhaps because it was such a nice rifle that it was the first choice to use. The stock finish is so oxidized that it is virtually impossible to see the wood grain. It has silver furniture. The ornate pierced side plate and wrist escutcheon is well worn so a lot of its original detail is lost but the buttplate tang still shows very nice engraving. The lock is the same and the TURVEY signature is barely visible. The sights. I was really surprised at the sights of the Turvey rifle and most other rifles on display...they are extremely small and very low, some, like on the Turvey rifle 1/16 of an inch high above the barrel, if that much; both front and rear. On the Turvey rifle it looks like the rear sight was installed in a very shallow dovetail and the sight base filed flush to the barrel flats. The notch in the rear sight was a very fine “V” maybe 1/32” wide at most, as it was on most of the other rifles. The front sight was a very low also, a very thin inverted “V”. What was interesting though one was able to “sight” the rifles by lining the sights up looking through the end of the display case. My opinion, as a competition rifle shooter, one could do some very fine shooting with these sights, very interesting I thought. As most of the sights appeared to be non adjustable, I guess the maker just centered the sight on the top flat and as mentioned filed them to be flush with the flats. It gives new meaning to the phrase “Kentucky Windage”.
I may get skewered for this but the caliber of workmanship on most of the rifles on display were nowhere equal to most of the work shown here by you average builder. One must remember though then as today I bet most builders bought their locks and barrels from elsewhere and did the stock works themselves. They most likely worked alone, with no power and very poor light ( although I would not call a north facing window in the summer “poor light”). Probably no gun shows either to compare notes and get constructive criticism. We today are very fortunate to have the kit makers, and Internet to help us build heirloom quality firearms.
I’ll post more photos of the Turvey rifle later.
Cheers Richard

[WESTbury]

I may get skewered for this but the caliber of workmanship on most of the rifles on display were nowhere equal to most of the work shown here by you average builder. One must remember though then as today I bet most builders bought their locks and barrels from elsewhere and did the stock works themselves. They most likely worked alone, with no power and very poor light ( although I would not call a north facing window in the summer “poor light”). Probably no gun shows either to compare notes and get constructive criticism. We today are very fortunate to have the kit makers, and Internet to help us build heirloom quality firearms.
Cheers Richard

Richard,
Here is an interesting thread that may interest you regarding your first sentence above.
 https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=4606.msg43295#msg43295

[flatsguide]

Westbury, thanks it was an interesting thread.
These are the sights I talked about on the Turvey rifle...

[mountainman]

So how much time  frame is left to see these great rifles at the Rockford Museum? I may have missed the info somewhere, but it be nice to have the info and location.  I certainly would appreciate it, Thanks!

[spgordon]

https://historicrockford.org/long-rifles-of-the-american-revolution/