Here is a direct link to blog entry:
http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2012/08/rifle-by-heinz-ahlers.htmlI think it is a wonderful rifle that makes a credible scholarly conjecture about an early iron mounted rifle in the Valley of Virginia roughly around the time of the Revolution. If you read Heinz's description, he starts with a viable (though often contested) conjecture about the maker of the BBR, adds the factual existence of a compatible iron mount and the influences seen in later rifles by the same or related hands on both iron mounted and brass mounted rifles, then builds a hyptothetically contemporaneous (roughly to BBR) iron mounted rifle accordingly in terms of artistic elements and finish. It is not a straight copy simply translated to iron and unchanged but for the material, nor is it an iron-mounted fantasy rifle composed of random pieces from here and there to suit the maker's whims, nor is it finished like a late golden age showpiece gleaming with chrome-like brilliance.
As hinted above, there are many details where to my mind contemporary builders sometimes go awry with iron mounts, principally over-finishing the wood and furniture and doing too much ornate carving, and I think the temptation would be even higher with an "early" piece. Heinz sticks to his principles in terms of limiting the carving and interpolating between what was seen at the time on brass rifles and what became the norm later on iron mounted rifles, where very little carving beyond some simple incised elements were seen.
Likewise, the furniture is simplified in form to a degree when compared to the brass original, going between cast ornamentation and the much later iron mounts which are often little more than functional forgings (not always). For example in the shape of the sideplate -- subtly different from the BBR but not wildly different in form. The same might be said of the rest of the furniture, where iron almost always forces some differences when compared to similar brass pieces. I had some difficulty accepting the browning at first (all my research points to charcoal bluing as having most documentation), but even there browning of some form would be a fairly obvious option and if we relied on documentation for every decision, we'd only have bench copies
. It fits the idea of a functional rifle well as implemented.
Anyway, if we consider a time of expansion and also conflict in an area near the "frontier" and intimately connected to it, where guns were sought after and need for them urgent, a time when some gunsmiths were just starting to adapt iron as a material for their work (although others had perhaps long used it), this rifle makes a logical contemporary or near successor to the BBR, and I think it is rewarding to look at in terms of scholarly interpretation as well as artistic feel.
