Possibly help with old flinter

[Jim Bocckinfuso]

I have been in muzzloading over 50 years and maybe one you guys can help me identify one of my rifles.  I have this old (I believe) flintlock rifle in my small collection and am not thinking of restoring it as it is in decent shape for an old gun and makes a great wall hanger.  Obviously I will not ever load it as I would not trust it being so old but would love to know a little more about this rifle.   There is I believe a makers signature on the top of the barrel which I can not read clearly no matter what I do with the light or caulk.  Here is the measurements;  barrel length 46" , and it is about 60 caliber.  The lands and grooves are barley discernable but they are there.  I took the lock off to see if there was any markings on the inside but can not see anything.  There is a lot of pitting on the lock and back of the barrel.  I don't think the ram rod is original to the rifle as it is too small in diameter and fits loose.  I took pictures of anything that might help including the top of the barrel markings and a close up of the lock etc.  What say you men? Can any of you shed some light on this old fellow?

[Elnathan]

A couple things that jump out at me: The external parts of the lock are not original to the lock plate, and I think it is likely that the gun was originally built as a percussion, due to the lack of a second lock bolt. I think I see pitting around the breech, certainly which suggests that it spent at least part of its life as a percussion. The rifled round barrel is unusual. The forestock inlays don't appear to match up with the barrel pins.  I'm not sure what to make of the unengraved patchbox. The underlying architecture is nice.

There are a lot of other people here that are better qualified to give an opinion, but my theory is that it started off life as smoothrifle/buck-and-ball, probably percussion, and that sometime in the 20th century someone altered the lock to flintlock, rifled it, installed the fore-end inlays, and possibly the patchbox as well (I think that pattern was commercially available in decades past, but I'd have to find some old catalogs...) A good hard look at the opening mechanism might tell us something about age of the box.

[JTR]

The butt stock and patchbox sure have a Berks County look about it.

[Tanselman]

I agree the lock has been reconverted with the fresh scar in the wood above the lock plate's top edge, several modern screws with flat-bottomed, machine cut slots, and a flat end on the cock screw. When a gun has gone through a restoration process, as evidenced by the wood added above the nose of the lock and what appears to be a refinish, it becomes harder to tell what is original and what might be added, unless examined in-hand.

From what I can see, I think the patchbox is original based on its old iron screws and how well/tightly it's filled in around its edges, no really noticeable gaps as you often see on remounted patchboxes. The forestock inlays look like later additions to me, but I'd like to see a good photo of one, taken close up, to get a better feel for them. The rifling puzzles me, since the gun looks so much like a PA buck & ball gun. The fact the bore and rifling look clean inside, I'd lean toward a modern rifling job on a buck & ball barrel with enough wall thickness to support careful new rifling.

Shelby Gallien

[Jim Bocckinfuso]

I really appreciate you fellows that took the time to reply to my post.  A few asked for better pictures of the patchbox so I added them to my original posting.

[Mike Brooks]

It looks straight rifled to me, which goes along with the "buck and ball" theme..

[Tanselman]

Hard to tell on rifling, but to me it looks like a really slow twist. Looking at the breech end of the rifling image, and selecting the rifling grooves on the top and on the bottom, when tracked to the muzzle both grooves seem to show counter-clockwise movement and end up at a different position, i.e., no longer top and bottom, when they reach the muzzle end.

Shelby Gallien

[Mike Brooks]

Hard to tell on rifling, but to me it looks like a really slow twist. Looking at the breech end of the rifling image, and selecting the rifling grooves on the top and on the bottom, when tracked to the muzzle both grooves seem to show counter-clockwise movement and end up at a different position, i.e., no longer top and bottom, when they reach the muzzle end.

Shelby Gallien

Yep, but that's about as close to straight as you can get without being so.  If you measured the twist it's probably 1 in 120" or so. The bore looks far better than the outside so I figure that it's been fooled with in the past 50-60 years or so.