Thanks so much for the kind comments. I’ll answer your questions below:
The style of the rifle is based on Shenandoah Valley prototypes, circa 1775, and a lot of my interpretation.
1. The barrel dimensions were patterned after an early rifle that was stocked in a trade gun style. I did several articles about that rifle in Muzzle Blast magazine. It’s very heavy at the breech (1 3/16”), tapered with a slight flare at the muzzle, 65 caliber. No, the muzzle is not funneled. I personally do not believe that any were. Many old barrels are funneled from exfoliating corrosion and ramrod wear. The only perfectly preserved bore I’ve ever examined is “Rifle #42 Shumway,” the Bethabara example. When I owned that rifle, Gary Brumfield and I spent a day studying the barrel. The barrel, in several places, showed faint boring lines on the lands, and was exactly 42 balls to the pound. The boring lines on the lands witnessed that it was the first boring of the rifle, in other words, the original bore. It had absolutely no funneling at the muzzle. We cast a slug and examined it thoroughly. The bore was slightly tapered from breech to muzzle, consistent with those we made at the Gunsmith Shop in Colonial Williamsburg. The taper is the result of the wearing of the hickory backing-shim on the square bit. The choke bore loads very smoothly. One of the surprising things about the rifle is that the twist was one turn and 27 ½”, i.e., a long barrel with a jaeger twist. I’ve found this to be the case on numerous other early rifles.
Getting back to my rifle, the breech pin tang is held in the stock by a wood screw (not a draw bolt entering the trigger plate.) The first loop and pin holding the barrel in the stock is 15” from the breech. These two traits are consistent with the dated 1771 brass-barrel rifle. About a dozen early Shenandoah Valley rifles have that long pin placement. Its use continues into southwest Virginia, western North Carolina, east Tennessee, and into Alabama well into the 19th century.
The barrel is finished with fire bluing, approximately 600 degrees F. temperature. I believe many early rifles had this quick method of finishing, while others were charcoal blued. In the late 1960s, I examined a number of early Virginian rifles, and the bottom of their barrels frequently showed strong evidence bluing. At that time, most people in Kentucky rifles believed that rifles were browned. However, documentation indicates that browning came in in the late 18th century, and the earliest document I’ve found in the Valley of Virginia is 1808. I have done them on the forge, using an exclusively charcoal fire, slowly moving the barrel through while watching the colors develop. Since the middle 1990s in my home workshop, I have done them on, first on an electric stove eye, and more recently on a gas stove eye.
2. The stock and mounts:
I made the patch box using a short stocky pattern consistent with a number of early rifles, the Frederick Klete probably being the most well known. The profile of the patch box is my individual design, based on similarities with pieces from the region, as is the design of the engraving.
The bottom of the patch box is hollowed round. I drilled the ends of the cavity using a large augur that came down in my family from John Henry Gusler, born on Feb. 23, 1877, which is also my birthday (1942.) Round-bottom patch boxes are found in early Shenandoah County, Virginia, wood box rifles, Rockingham County, Virginia, and Botetourt County, Virginia, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The brass spring of the patch box is an idea I got from a John Davidson rifle made in Rockbridge County, Virginia. It is an iron-mounted, walnut stocked rifle. The spring was attached beneath the box finial, and had somewhat of a hook on the end inside the box cavity. I was intrigued with his little joke of an iron-mounted rifle with a brass spring, because he produced fine relief-carved rifles with brass mounts.
The patch box screws are all 18th-century examples that I collected as a teenager when I worked as a handy boy at an antiques and restoration shop. They were discarded by the cabinetmakers doing restoration work, and the owner gave me permission to keep them. The large screws in the box finial are round head, hand-forged, die-cut original examples. I had to resurface the heads and deepen the slots, but as you can see, characteristic of early wood screws, they are off center. The smaller screws were designed to be counter sunk. They, too, are 18th century. For many years of my life I used these for repairs. In modern conservation practice, however, it is unethical to add an old component that was not part of the original object.
The carving behind the cheek piece was inspired by one of John Davidson’s rifles, although I sculpted it considerably more than his work. Trigger guard and butt piece are from the same patterns I produced in 1965 at the Gun Shop in Williamsburg, and used in making the 1969 Gunsmith of Williamsburg film. The termination of the fore stock molding has a carved scroll finial, a simplified version of one on a rifle from Rockbridge County, that I believe was made by John Davidson’s master. Likewise, the brass side plate features high arched ogee-shaped “wings” flanking the rear lock screw, also inspired by Davidson’s work. The front of the side plate has an oval feature flanked by scrolls inspired by a rifle by his possible master. The ending of the side plate is a somewhat angular version of a vase and flame finial associated with a group of various Botetourt County examples.
The stock finish is asphaltum tar and raw linseed oil. Before I came to Williamsburg, I started using this finish as a non-grain raising finish and stain. At that time, I used the tar we used to patch our tin roofs. Over the years, since the 1950s, I have experimented with many different finishes, most often using nitric acid stain--several types of varnish, shellac, earth pigments in oil, beeswax. Of all the finishes I’ve used, the tar and oil has stood up the best over the past 50 years. The nitric acid most often turns jet black in that amount of time, totally obscuring the curly maple. Regarding the color, this particular piece of wood has more orange/yellow than usual. It is a piece of sugar maple, the foreend of which fairly large pores, uncharacteristic of most sugar maple. It took the finish differently from most maple I’ve used. Eric is correct, hard red maple takes this kind of maple better and more quickly. The last thing I’d like to point out is that in 1775 a rifle was advertised in the Virginia Gazette here in Williamsburg, as “stolen or lost, and has a yellow stock.” My guess is that this is a maple stock with linseed oil finish.
In the late 1980s Dave Harvey and I did a study of the John Sheetz rifle, circa 1800, in the Colonial Williamsburg collection, and published it in Muzzle Blast magazine. Scientific analysis showed that the stock was finished with oil and had high iron content. I believe the iron content was from the use of the nitric acid with iron dissolved in it, in which the red color is rust.
3. The lock is by Jim Chambers.
4. The customer for this rifle is a long-term friend. His first name is Clarence, which is engraved on the shank of the key on the patch box door. This rebus was quite surprise to him. I think he was very happy that I had the idea.
