Subsequent to the last post in this thread, the following article was published that some may find interesting:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/charles-willson-peales-riffle-with-a-tellescope-to-it/
Here’s the conclusion:
“The diary does not provide us with all that we would want obviously. However, some observations and deductions can be made without going too far out on a limb. As Peale spent two entire days (January 1st and 2nd, 1776) consulting with the telescope and instrument maker David Rittenhouse about a telescopic sight it seems reasonable to believe that a great deal of thought went into the project. On January 10, Peale was back in consultation with Rittenhouse and the gunsmith, Mr. Palmer. History was made on the afternoon of January 11, 1776 when Peale shot his new rifle, probably the first ever to have been equipped with a telescopic sight, for the first time “in the Stadt House yard.” The “Stadt House” of course is the State House in Philadelphia; now known as Independence Hall.
The January 13 entry seems to indicate special work was done as Peale paid Rittenhouse’s Journeyman for making “box, loops” which may mean a patch box of some sort and sight rings to attach the telescopic sight to the rifle barrel. The fact that the box opened and the bullets and wiper fell out does not seem significant except in frustration to the shooters.
It is interesting that he spent February 5, 6, 7, and 8 “trying to sight my Riffle.” It is not hard to visualize Peale struggling to make adjustments to the telescopic sight and find the load of powder that would give the best accuracy. Doubtless, there was much trial and error, and frustration involved. On the 9th, Peale works on a spring arrangement for the telescopic sight so it would not impact his eye on firing. This gives us a picture of a telescope with very short eye relief which required the eye to be close, too close, to the end of the scope. Upon recoil the scope would hit Peale in the eye.
On February 16th, he is back firing again and then on the 19th he “shot several times in a small piece of Papier at 100 yds.” Success. He shoots again on the 27th. On the 29th he talks over his load with Rittenhouse, receives an opinion about heavy loads, and shoots the rifle for the last recorded time on March 2.
The flintlock rifle with a telescopic sight was a reality. It may not have been practical but at least it worked to some degree. The “riffle with a tellescope to it” apparently no longer exists. However, perhaps someday, it will be rediscovered. Stranger things have happened.“
Thank you.
I suspect the problem was with the mounts or keeping the lenses in place/likely both. Remembering today that air rifle scopes, with the “reverse recoil” of the spring powered versions, have to be made differently than scope designed for firearms. BUT this is just what I have read. Scopes for military use in the US were still limited and had various “problems” until well into WW-II. Some were too low powered and others too fragile. So making one in 1775 was just a dream. I wonder if Peale or Rittenhouse had vision issues? In WW-I the Germans went to the sporting rifles and used them and their scopes as snipers. The British were not much into scopes or rifles for that matter. America had scopes that would have worked, Winchester had some pretty good scopes by 1908 or so. But don’t know they were used since they used the sliding tube type mount (hard to be reset every shot and were fragie. A really good standardized sniper system was not put in place until after VN. So it took a long time from Newton to the 1970s in the US anyway.
Its interesting to note that the practical rifle scope did not appear until the advent of the “modern” machine tool, mills and lathes, circa 1850. The invention of the modern machine tools and methods is credited to Robbins and Lawrence. But we have remember that Nicador Kendall was also a partner for their first contract for Gov’t rifles and Lawrence in his biography, quoted in Sellers “Sharps Firearms” states this was the first such contract (10000 arms) finished on time. Given the comments on Kendall in the Warner/Lowe papers I wonder if he was the real brains of this. But we will never know. Making a set of adjustable scope mounts with files would be a daunting task. Though people could do very good work with a file.
Wolfgang Droege (best known as the first maker of reproduction Sharps rifles) told me of being an apprentice machinist in Germany through the WW-II era. He told me the first thing the apprentices had to do was to make a piece of steel into a perfect cube with just a file. He said some of the cubes got pretty small. Then they had to make a square hole through the middle. And of course it had to be “perfect” as well.
I need to get to the shop.
