Here is an iron mounted rifle that I recently picked up in "as found condition" The lady that owned it was in her 80's and it had been in her family as far back as she could remember. The coloration of the wood looks to be Walnut, but the grain structure looks more like straight grain Maple. It has a red tint to it like it was stained with a red varnish. The finish is original to the rifle. When I got it, it was missing the ram rod and the drum was broken off at the breech. From looking at it, it was broken a long time ago. The rear of the trigger plate was dropped down a little and the rear trigger arm was wedged against the sear to the point that neither the triggers or the lock would function. I have since removed the lock and triggers, cleaned the grim from the inside and they now function great. I had an original drum and nipple that I installed on the rifle and have also made a replacement ram rod for it. There was also a crack at the middle ram rod thimble where the pin holds it to the stock that I removed the barrel for and stabilized. The bottom of the barrel shows hammer marks from where it was forged. The barrel is about a .40 caliber and has a slight swamp, measuring .855 at the breech, .790 about 8-inches from the muzzle and .865 at themuzzle. Yes, the muzzle is larger than the breech. The barrel length is 43 3/8-inches long and is still original length.. It has the initials J W in script on the top flat. The W is very faint. Tried to get a picture of it but it dosen't show up very well. It has a short length of pull, only 12-inches. The cheek piece is very concave. Very nice ram rod thimbles and nice file work on the heel of the butt plate and on the toe plate. It has a poured nose cap. Overall, a nice southern rifle that I feel was made in, or close to Henderson County North Carolina. There were a two or three gunsmiths that worked in Henderson County with the initials J W and I would like to narrow it down to one of them if possible. So if any of you have, or know of a rifle that matches this one with a full signiture, I sure would like to know. As always, opinions welcomed. These pictures are of the rifle before I did anything to it, complete with dust and grime
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