Swedish Jaeger Rifles

[Seth Isaacson]

Okay last random posting for today I swear. I'm always working to expand my knowledge on various 17th-early 19th century firearms and was looking at a pistol by David Bars just a moment ago and found a whole slew of rifles and pistols by him on europeana.eu. The rifles are beautiful, and my own Swedish heritage made them particularly interesting to me. I thought others here would be interested in seeing them. He lived 1686-1759 and was one of the royal gunmakers in Stockholm. Note the "tube sight" on one of the rifles. There were far to many rifles pictured to post them all here. The images are marked for free re-use, so they should be fine for sharing.

Edit: The images wouldn't show up here, so here is the link to the listings:
https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/search?q=who%3A%28David+Bars+Tillverkare%2C+%2C+%29

[DaveM]

I once owned / restored a later 18th century Swedish flintlock rifle (smooth rifle) with a sliding wood patchbox.   

18th century Swedish rifles can be easily mistaken for an assumed colonial American piece as the level of craftsmanship varied.  They were also often made of beech wood, which has a smoother finer texture than walnut and can be mistaken for maple.  They do have a few other characteristics that can distinguish them however as Swedish such as the cheek piece shape, carving behind the cheek piece (volutes) and the trigger guard finals.  I have also seen Swedish flintlocks with fine curly walnut that can be mistaken as coarse curly maple.

[Seth Isaacson]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Do you have a picture of the smooth rifle?

[DaveM]

I might, I'll do a quick search.

[DaveM]

here are a few- I restored this a number of years ago and later sold it as a heavily restored Swedish rifle which I determined from researching others.  I created the trigger guard (difficult due to unusually long mortise and not real happy with the rear portion), buttplate and sideplate.  the rear ramrod pipe was original so I know it was iron mounted.  The incised carving was all original.  The lock was also new. 

[Seth Isaacson]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[DaveM]

Another example would be RCA #16.  I am confident that is also a swedish smooth rifle.  I suspect also beech wood rather than cherry wood but do not know that for certain.  See the similar cheek piece shape and similar reverse volute carving on both sides of the cheek piece.  My gun was rather crudely built, very folksy.  I forget where it turned up in the US but I remember it was an area of significant swedish settlement in the 19th c.

[OLUT]

If you are interested in Swedish (and other European) flint and percussion firearms, try to visit the Skokloster Castle near Arlanda airport ... but it is much easier to pull up their collection on their website. Years ago, I was responsible for a manufacturing facility north of there and visited this outstanding Castle  collection several times. My manufacturing plant was located close to the town of Soderhamn, where a royal firearms factory was located from 1620 to about 1813. The booklet in my collection from Soderhamn is also well illustrated with military and jaeger type firearms. Unfortunately my computer is failing in attempts to copy illustrations, so here are a couple from the Skokloster collection that I pulled from their website

[GrampaJack]

Wow, thanks for the posts.  One side of my ancestors come from England the other from Sweden.  I have always been interested in British guns but never paid attention to Sweden.  The one's shown certainly bear a lot of similar features to early American guns.  So, where do I learn? Are there Swedish proof marks? Can anyone provide references to research material in English? Is there a Fladerman's for Sweden (Fladerson)? Now I want a Swedish gun! Thanks, Jack