Short Rifle from? (more picturs on 6/24)

[flintriflesmith]

Its sure not a long rifle but I'd be interested in y'all comments on this. It was built around a rifle barrel that had been on another gun -- probably a jaeger since it had a screwed on nose cap. I am mostly wondering is the unengraved mounts ring any bells. Seems odd on a gun with such fine carving.















Gary

[mr. no gold]

Looks English at first glance, but where are the barrel proofs; I couldn't make any out. The lock is a good round faced Colonial style English lock. Stock is dark walnut it appears: English or New World? Carving at tang is very English, too. The muzzle cap says Yankee and that it is
screwed on underscores that. The barrel key heads are of the English style, as well.
Your question is a good one. Most of the locks of this period are engraved with vine patterns.
One could also expect engraving on the triggerguard, perhaps the tang, the butt plate finial and the thumb plate. Odd too, is that it has no side plate. Turvey made small rifles like this in England  in the 1700s. Don't recall any of his having a nose cap, though. To me, this gun has an American flair of the type that could have been made in NYC, Baltimore, or other English city on the east coast. 
I gather that there is no name or marks on the arm. Good luck on on researching this. Let us know what find out, please, and thank you for posting it.
Dick

[James Rogers]

Here are some of the questions spinning in my head on this piece in no particular order which will be obvious as you read.
  
There are subtle features in the stock architecture that scream English gunmaker but I wonder if it is Black Walnut.

 The lack of any side plate would suggest to me 1780's or later manufacture using older parts if this was made for civilian use but I have seen mid-18th century military carbines with carving and the works that had no sideplates.

All hardware is English and you can sometimes find the first pattern acorn TG and the more Baroque wrist escutcheon on later manufactured English guns of lesser quality. I assume they were using up old stock for the most part. Some gunmakers seemed to cling on to the older styles as a matter of principle as all their existing pieces showed that tendency.

The carving, components, design (except for the nosepiece) are all complimenting each other to suggest English made. Very strange that the hardware has no engraving. Even the tang on the standing breech is completely naked.

Like Dick mentioned, export locks for the most part had a small amount of vine engraving on them but many of the period were stamped with the gunmakers name on the lockplate and had some border around them.

I can understand a nosepiece being on an English made gun as easy as I can the wooden trigger guards you can find on some.

While I wonder if American stocked, the only thing that would continue to make me think that would be the possibility of American wood. Other than that I would say English manufacture.

With the way production was in England, I am unsure as to when brass mounted pieces were engraved (on the gun or prior to assembly or both depending on the circumstances of production). Could this have been an unfinished ( in the white type) inventory piece that was given a coat of finish by another who bought out a gunmaker inventory?

My final answer (uneducated guess) is that this is an English made livery piece. Many of the coachman's type guns had little if any engraving.  

Lots of questions on this one for me.
Thanks much for posting. Would love to see it in person.

James

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

An English barn gun!   I can't wait to see what is determined here... many details but just missing a few key clues.... great learning opportunity.. Thanks for posting Gary

On the closeup of the lock there is what appears to be a proof maark or something peaking up from the stock just in front of the tail of the frizzen???

look how tapered those lock and side panels are from front to rear in the bottom view!!

[flintriflesmith]

Thanks for the early responses! I made a mistake in omitting a picture of the tail piece and regular pipe -- they have been added to the original post.
Also I wasn't clear about the nose piece area. The screwed on nose piece was not on this gun. It was part of the evidence that the barrel was reused from a jaeger--just a threaded hole in the barrel near the muzzle. The is also a slash in the bottom of the barrel for a front lock screw that is left over from the previous stocking. The barrel is currently 30.75 inches both appears to have been cut back 1/2 or 3/4 inch at the muzzle.
The current fore sight and nose piece are very crude replacements and it appears that they date from when the gun was being used as a shooter in the last 50-75 years. I doublt  it originally had a nose piece on this stock.
Gary

[Mike R]

You found it!  Dan'l Boone's short rifle! 

[Mike Brooks]

English. Gamekeepers rifle with a used Germanic barrel. A gamekeeper's rifle would explain the lack of decoration. Probably also not a London built gun, but Birmingham  etc...

[G-Man]

What a neat little gun.  Everything about it looks like English manufacture to me as well - the shaping, execution of the carving, the fit, etc. are all classic fully developed Georgian style, to my eye.   However, two atypical things are the presence of a nosecap and the screw at the tail of the triggerguard.   American guns done in English style in that period usually have a few variations or "quirks" that deviate from the English shop style - sometimes very subtle.  

The wood looks like English walnut to me, but hard to tell.  

Here is a question though - does anyone know if English gunmakers ever made up guns that were finished with the exception of a sideplate and engraving, that could then be done to a buyer's preference - whether in England or as an export piece to the Colonies? Some of the English sideplates look to have been sort of mass produced (rather than custom designed for each piece) as the same patterns often turn up on guns by multiple makers.  It would be interesting to see if the lockbolts align with some of the common English sideplates from the period.

Guy

[Mike Brooks]

Brass mounts were massed produced, mostly outside the gunmaker's shop. Same with the silver mounts.

[G-Man]

Sorry -  I guess I should have phrased my question differently - did they sometimes make up completely finished guns -  with the exception of engraving and sideplates - sort of as "spec" peices that the customer could then have those features done  to their preference,  or perhaps a gunsmith in the colonies could add to the level of their local market preference? Perhaps even as trade or presentation pieces for Natives?

[Robert Wolfe]

Look at how much of that ramrod is exposed - almost all.  That's got nothing to do with the question at hand but as a relatively inexperinced builder it caught my eye.

[brokenflint]

Gary
Was this at Bowling Green and did I miss gettin my grubby little hands on it   ?  I like it, looks to be a sweet handler, I guess I just got the short gun bug from Hank's jaeger!!!!

Broke

[flintriflesmith]

Broke,
It was at Bowling Green but only for a short time because I left on Sunday.
Gary

[B Shipman]

I think Mike Brooks has it. As we know, the English, even the best London makers , used foriegn barrels. Spanish fowler barrels were considered the best and often used so why not German rifle barrels which were the best Europe had to offer. And if it were to be hard used by a professional, why bother with engraving.

[flintriflesmith]

Bill,
Mikes idea of a gamekeeper's rifle certainly seems plausible but if you go down that trail to explain the lack of engraving how does that match up with the fairly detailed carving?

In may experience a bit of engraving is easier and/or quicker than the relief carving.

I'm not trying to fabricate a story around this rifle. I was actually hoping someone would direct me to another original with the same wrist inlay casting. All the books I have on English guns are the high end "Great British Gunmakers" type stuff so I wonder if these plainer guns show up in any English auction catalogs or books I don't know about.

I agree that it looks more Birmingham than London.

I'm totally in the dark about whether British law would have required a German barrel to pass English proofs in that period. There is a bit of evidence that the earlier German barrel marks on the top flat and right at the breech were obliterated. That's sort of the opposite of what they did with Spanish barrels where the Spanish marks were displayed (and sometimes even faked) as selling points in English guns.

Gary

[JV Puleo]

At the point this rifle was made, British proof law only applied to the "greater London" area... outside London (and parts of Middlesex county), there was no requirement for proof. Many B'ham guns have private proofs, but this was because the customers required them rather than that they were required by law.

Even after the founding of the B'ham proof house, proof law applied only to England and Wales, not Scotland or Ireland although, again, this was more a technical point. Its very unlikely many unproved guns were sold in Britain. In fact, there was no market at all for the really cheap guns that were exported in such huge quantities so there was no incentive to make them for domestic sale.

As far as the wrist is concerned... I had a Jover officer's fuzee made ca. 1770-1775 that had nearly the identical device. However, I attach no importance to that... these bits were made by others and bought in by the gunmakers. I know of at least two other nearly identical Jover's - one was in the Warren Moore collection and another belongs to Don Troiani. I also know from a primary source (the record of a trial at the Old Bailey) that Jover bought these pieces and did not make them.

My own feeling is that Mike Brooks hit the nail on the head with this one. Gamekeepers, (who were senior and very responsible employees of large estates and even had quasi-legal authority to arrest and prosecute poachers), often had very nice, albeit plain guns. Aside from some deer park shooting there was almost no use for a rifle in England in the 18th century. It was also reasonably common for a landowner to pass his older guns on to a gamekeeper... when you see an obviously superior gun that shows evidence of a great deal of use, this is the most probable reason.

[flintriflesmith]

Thanks JV. The proof law stuff was very helpful.

It is also good to know of at least a couple of British guns with a similar casting--that helps me stop thinking along the line that it might be a Belgian export grade gun.

I'm going to unbreech this rifle over the weekend and check the rate of twist, etc. As I mentioned earlier it appears that someone was shooting it in the 20th century. It does handle really well and may be another variation/plainer prototype of the English sporting rifles already being reproduced here as kits by Jim Chambers and others.

Gary

[flintriflesmith]

Here are some more pictures. Thanks to Tim Boone for pointing out the proof mark on the side flat near the touch hole. It is such an odd place for a proof mark, at least to me , that I had dismissed it as a flaw in the wrought iron of a ding. After brushing out the gunk and rust here's what the proof looks like. I read it as an anchor superimposed over a ball or globe and don't remember ever seeing one before.



The barrel channel in inlet for the octagon all the way to the muzzle.



At the rear loop you can see where the longer English loop left a trace of the earlier German loop.


The muzzle appears to have been cut back--both the fore sight and the nose piece screw hole from the jaeger is too close to the end.



The modern sight was crudely soldered right over the original.


The lock internals are several grades above the average import  lock



Overall it has made for an interesting study piece.
Gary

[James Rogers]

Gary,
Is this gun's standing breech pinned at the bottom?

[flintriflesmith]

Gary,
Does is gun's standing breech pinned at the bottom?

Yes

[Dphariss]

Since its rifled I would have to agree with the Gamekeeper connection. It was my thought initially and Mike makes me feel better about it.
A coach gun has little reason to have rifling.

Dan

[James Rogers]

You are most correct DPharris. I was more trying to connect it with a gun NOT made for the master but for a hireling. Coaching and livery as well as gamekeeping would fall into this style that were many times made unadorned. The class system had to be kept in line of course!
Wish this one could talk.