Hello,
I am a new member - just found the site earlier this week!!!
I have shot all kinds of firearms for over 50 years but have only two muzzleloaders. Both were built by in the last 70 years anyway!
One is a 45cal long rifle built by Royland Southgate in the late 1940's. It is Serial Number 35 which according to the lists I have seen was made between 1946-1949. This fits with the story I was given when I bought the rifle in the early 1970's.
The rifle has a percussion lock with double set triggers in a reddish cherry stock. The metal finish is traditional browning. One of the previous owners installed modern Lyman sights (peep rear sight and a target front sight) because he used it for deer hunting. The original rear sight is on the rifle while the front sight is stored in the possible bag. It shoots quite well.
I bought it from a member of the OKC Gun Club in 1971 or 2. He had purchased it from Frank Olds, also of OKC, who purchased it from Southgate "shortly after WW2. Frank Olds was well known at that time as an engraver / decorator of firearms. Legend has it that he did several guns for the NRA to give to dignitaries but I can't verify that. I talked to Frank about the rifle after I purchased it. He told me that Southgate made it for him and that he added silver inlays down both sides of the stock and silver plated the other furniture. Frank told me that it was the first rifle he decorated "while he was learning." The work is rather primitive and fits the style of the rifle well.
The second rifle is a 22 caliber muzzleloader built by my grandfather, Thomas Larkin Thomas, in or around Atchison, Kansas. He was a craftsman who was a market hunter before 1900 and did gunsmithing and musical instrument building and repair for most of his life. He came from a long line of frontier gunsmiths and settlers. Three of his sons also did some gunsmithing with his oldest (Ambrose R. Thomas) being a prolific engraver & gunsmith in Manitou Springs, CO for many years.
The story that I got with the rifle is that he was in retirement (over 90!), got bored living on his daughter's farm, and built this one to shoot sparrows off the barn. He took an old 22 single shot rifle, cut and plugged the barrel, installed a percussion cap nipple, and fitted it with a small lock (perhaps from a pistol) and stocked it with the only wood he had available (white oak.) He also made a powder flask out of a 50 Cal BMG case. It was my inheritance from him.
I have shot the 22 a few times but haven't done a lot with it. I used the Southgate rifle in competition at the OKC Gun Club's "Long Rifles of the Canadian" matches for a couple years but haven't shot it much since.
I am planning to join a local ML group this year (Doylestown, OH) to get more active with them.
THE QUESTION:
While reading some of the notes on this forum I ran across a comment that the Southgate rifles had been thoroughly discussed some years ago and that the discussion was in the Archives. How do I get to that?
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