Perch

[JCKelly]

Think mid-19th century.
Any rhyme or reason to why one guy made "perch-belly" style gunstocks, while another only straight half-stock rifles?

Finishing, I hope, my 2nd edition of Michigan Gunsmiths and I'm trying to figure out if there is any connection between stock style and geography. Michigan rifles seem to be roughly a half & half mix, between makers choosing straight stocks and those making some manner of "perch-belly" style.

19th century mass-produced cartridge rifles are mostly straight stocked, the exceptions that come to mind being Remington .22 and .32rf rolling block rifles.

Writing a gun book is a peculiar form of insanity.

[b bogart]

Could shooting styles have anything to do with it? I would think a bench or prone shooter would benefit from a perch belly to rest the buttstock on his hand? Just a wild guess here.

[Bill of the 45th]

JC, I think it's a matter of style, much like fins on late fifties cars, crewcut hairstyles, and poodle skirts.  A product of the times.

Bill

[BGC]

I've seen a good many Ohio rifles with the perch-belly or fish-belly stock. I have wondered myself why they were made that way, but have never heard a good reasonable answer. Might have been just a personal preference of the gunsmith(s) who made them.

[nord]

From what I can determine the perch belly was more or less a fad. It began roughly at Syracuse or perhaps more accurately Rochester, NY and quickly moved westward to include the north shore of Lake Erie and points westward into Michigan and out as far as Minnesota. I doubt that there was any really practical reason for the design as it quickly faded into obscurity. (In my opinion a blessing.)

Just an aside:

My grandmother stated in her writings that she was part of a seafaring family. I found this difficult to believe since the people she referred to lived in Lee, a small town just west of Rome, NY.  Not too much salt water around Lee and for a time I really didn't put much faith in what she said.

Then I found out that one of her uncles had been lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Central America. And a bit more digging uncovered the fact that her cousin (John Worden) was captain of the Monitor and temporarily blinded during the battle with the Merrimack.

About this time it finally hit me that Lee is not far removed from the Great Lakes and the port of Oswego and it all began to fall into place. The family had a few salt water sailors, but mostly fresh water men. They were a part of the Great Lakes trade out as far as Minnesota and were also a part of the river trade.

I relate the above because it directly ties to the gun trade and the migration patterns of the time. The Erie Canal provided easy access to Buffalo by about 1820. By 1840 the railroads were coming on strong and we tend to forget that shipping was fairly easy on the lakes and had really come into its own with the availability of better land transportation. It was pretty much to be expected that by 1830 one could have family in both NY and Minnesota and still remain close. Maybe not in terms of less than a day's travel, but not by any means what was then considered a particularly long or difficult trip.

Gunmakers tended to move with the trade. As things became more civilized in the Mohawk Valley and westward, gunmakers tended to move toward their trade. The easiest and cheapest move was first by ship followed only a decade or so later by train. By 1850 there weren't many places east of the Mississippi that were particularly difficult to reach.

Given the ease of travel it should come as no surprise that certain characteristics of the gunmaker's trade followed them. Thus the perch belly into western NY, thence along the north shore of Lake Erie, and westward to Lake Superior. It follows that a NY rifle could have been made just about anywhere for a stretch the better part of a thousand miles and that the NY features would have been dominate.

We further need to remember that by 1850 this was late in the game for a custom gunmaker and that the art was rapidly fading due to the advancing technology of mass production. By this time the classic features of the Pennsylvania rifle or the perch belly of the NY rifle were rapidly becoming unimportant to the gun-buying public in general.

Really quite an interesting couple of decades the mid 1800's. For all practical purposes the end of the one man artisan gunmaker and the beginning of modern firearms as we know them. Also the beginning of modern transportation and a multitude of technologies that forever changed mankind... Not to even exclude the technology of war!

[Larry Pletcher]

I tend to associate perch belly stocks with target shooting, as in Schutzen style offhand target shooting.  Many had points on the forearm for attaching a palm rest and had large Schutzen style hooked butt plates.   Perhaps the perch belly stock is a spinoff from Schutzen shooters. IMHO this style of shooting was fairly wide spread.
Regards,
Pletch

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

1815-1845  Industrial Revolution - mass production;  Communications Revolution - telegraph; Transportation Revolution - Canal Systems & Railroads......  especially in the North and ever Westward the homogenization process was beginning to grow

[JCKelly]

Nord- thanks for your insight. It is quite what I needed. I had not considered that the perch-belly style could have begun in New York, and then moved west.

A quick look at Swinney's books the other day showed a mix of straight stock and very, very perchy stocks in New York Rifles. Guess I'll take a more thorough look. The Ohio set shows quite a few perchy half-stocks. Lindert's Indiana book doesn't have enough photos to tell. Guess I need to go all through Swinney, as well as Curt Johnson's books. In agreement with your view of perch originating in NY & heading west, S. James Gooding shows all straight stocks in his book, The Canadian Gunsmiths 1608 to 1900

In the 1860 census about 30% of Michiganders claiming gunsmith as an occupation were born in New York state. I live in Rochester, Michigan, which was settled by guys from Rochester, NY. We even have the only commercial building in the state with coursed stone construction, which I understand was popular within maybe 70 miles of Rochester NY.

[GrampaJack]

I agree that the style is not real attractive, at least to my eye ,but I am interested in both Chautauqua county and N. E. Ohio guns and a perch belly is a great way to spot them. They are unique that's for sure. Jack

[Kermit]

I owned a very plain NY halfstock flinter with a perchbelly. Always looked sort of odd too me, but it was pretty comfortable to shoot offhand. My eye prefers PA rifles that are bent the other direction.

[Curt J]

A very interesting topic, one that I've thought about quite a lot myself.  I had always heard the style referred to as "fishbelly" until recent times, and have never quite adjusted to the term "perchbelly".  Maybe the term is regional, I'm not sure.

Illinois is a melting pot of styles, since makers came here from all of the eastern and southern states, as well as most of the countries in Europe.  There were a number of makers here who used the "fishbelly" architecture.  While the majority of these makers did indeed come from New York state, there were also some who came from Ohio, Virginia, Germany, Ireland, and even Portugal. I would like to point out that not all fish/perchbelly stocks are the same.  There are two distinct types. One type (type 1 for this discussion), is rounded from the trigger area clear back to the toe, truly resembling the belly of a fish.  The other type (type 2 for this discussion) starts out like any other rifle with normal drop at the wrist, but makes an abrupt upward turn at the bottom of the wrist and is then quite straight all the way back to the toe. Type 1 has a comb with fairly normal drop, but the comb on type 2 forms a straight, or nearly straight, line with the barrel. I consider type 2 to be the more refined of the two, and it is seen on some very high quality rifles. The lines of type 2 can be fairly dramatic, with slender architecture and a long, pointed toe that is not unlike that on some southern mountain rifles.  Anyone who questions the reason for the existence of fishbelly stocks in the first place, has never put one to their shoulder, or at least not one that fits them. These rifles hold very well, far better for me than any Roman-nosed rifle I've ever held.

As to the origin of the fishbelly/perchbelly style, it certainly seems to have originated in New York state, at least in this country.  I have sometimes wondered whether the Dutch fowlers from a much earlier period in New York history, might have had some influence.  They are among the earliest examples of this particular architecture.

There was an Illinois maker named Henry P Brunker, who came from upstate New York, and arrived in Ottawa, Lasalle County, Illinois, in 1848. He was without doubt our state's most prolific rifle maker, working from 1848 until 1871. I have seen over sixty of his rifles, of which just two were not type 2 fishbellies.  I personally own 22 of them. Many are target rifles or "hunting & target rifles", and all are of first rate workmanship. The rifle on the cover (dust jacket) of my books is a Brunker, stamped BRUNKER & MITCHELL OTTAWA WARRANTED. It was made during one of Brunker's several partnerships and dates from 1856-1859.

[JCKelly]

Curt - Around here Lake Erie perch are a big deal in restaurants, hence I tend to think more of "perch belly" rather than just plain "fish" (actually EATING any fish out of Lake Erie is another matter).

Yes, seems to me as well, that the Hudson Valley fowler style might relate to the piscatorial school of stock design.

I'd like to believe I've just finished my 2nd ed of That There Michigan book. But here I go anyway, delving into yours & Swinney's for background. Who knows, maybe there will be a 3rd ed some day, insha'Allah. 

[GrampaJack]

Now that I think about it, a good friend of mine from Western N. Y. calls them fishbelly, where the only term I have run into in Ohio is perchbelly.  Perhaps this is a more "Modern" term. I don't recall seeing it in any of the old references I have seen. Perch are some goooooood eating fish especially in season and fresh. Jackk