ALR Museum: Classic Iron Mounted Rifle signed "S.G"

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

"S. G." was thought to be Samuel Grove or Glover but recently in another post someone identified "S.G." as another Southern gunsmith. That post has not been able to be retrieved. Please help us confirm who "S.G." is as there have been several examples of his work posted about the Internet, one with brass mounted furniture.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=4384.0

Please post your comments as a "reply" here.

[Ken G]

Here's the other post where we discussed S.G.  I believe it was thought to be Steve Gibson.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=3496.0

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

Thanks Ken; that was the post I could not find.
Hurricane

[Ken G]

This is a great rifle.  I love the date carved in the patchbox upside down as the owner would have been holding it.  Having spent many a bored hours setting in the woods waiting for game, I can just imagine the owner whitling away with a pocket knife as he sit waiting and his mind wondering a bit. 

Overall it looks to be in great shape other than the one repair just about the lock bolt.     

The other S.G. stamped rifles I have seen have both hath had the same style entry pipe and the plate on the lock bolt side. 

[Robby]

I don't know why, but the word "rawboned" comes to mind when I first saw these pictures, and I mean that in the best sense of that word. Makes me envision the owner as being the same, rawboned. Man. I really like that gun!

[louieparker]

I have always attributed the SG rifles to Samuel Glover, mainly because of an old collector in Sullivan County, TN, by the name of James Moran. Jim was quite a Glover fan. He said Glover lived just down the road from Alfred Farrington Gross. I don't know how close together they lived because the census of 1860 puts them in different civil districts. Glover was born in Sullivan County in February 1828 and worked in Sullivan County near Bluff City. Gross was born in 1823 and worked near Piney Flalt.

I don't know for sure what the connection was between these two men but I think Glover spent a great deal of time working with Alfred, or maybe they both worked for Jacob Gross. But Glover's work is very similiar to Alfred's. There are certain details that they both did that are nearly identical.

I have owned several SG rifles and have seen several more. I think your rifle is the best I have seen. The cigar box is a better design than most and this is the only rifle I have seen with an iron trigger guard. The others have all been brass and I don't recall seeing two alike. They usually have a great iron butt plate and that cast brass trigger guard. I would be curious to know if the front end of the trigger plate has a straight depression about a quarter of an inch wide and an extension on the trigger guard bow that fits into that cut out, another Alfred Gross detail. The tang on this gun is about typical for Glover. Gross sometimes used a tang that went all the way down under the butt plate.

Because of the points I've mentioned and the shape of the stock, I think this is one of Glover's earlier guns.

Louie Parker