A darn tootin nice Tennessee rifle!

[JTR]

I’m posting the pictures for a friend.

The barrel is nearly 48 inches long.
It’s 1 3/16 at breech, tapers to 1 inch and flares to 1 ¼ at the muzzle.
A bit over 45 cal. which is bigger than most Tenn. bores.
Note the feather hole, as it still has a bit of the feather inside.
The trigger guard is 1 1/16 wide.

Enjoy your weekend.
John

[Collector]

What an absolutely FANTASTIC piece!  This one has it all.  A candidate, in its' class/category, for the ALR museum, if ever there was one. 

[G-Man]

Man - that is one big barrel.  Any guess on how much that gun weighs? 

I have not seen many with the barrel forging marks left on there so prominently.  Most I have seen were dressed out pretty smooth, although there are a few that were left rougher, like "Old Scaley".

Guy

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

That is a rifle!! Any info on the builder?  John, you are amazing at finding these great guns for us!!

[Tanselman]

That's one great Tennessee style rifle in what appears to be almost attic condition, used but not abused or heavily worn. You couldn't ask for much more in a Tennessee rifle with its many regional details. The barrel offers us an idea of how well those old guys could forge items and finish them with a hammer, since it appears to be forged to final shape without filing; a great hand-made barrel.  Shelby Gallien

[Ben I. Voss]

That is simply amazing!!

[WElliott]

John, thanks for posting that jewel.  A pleasure to view.

[Curt J]

Superb architecture and all of the classic details one might expect on a first rate East Tennessee rifle! Thanks for posting it, John.

[Greg Field]

Makes all the obsession with nice, slim lock panels seem not all that universally correct, eh? No noob I've ever seen has made clunkier panels that on this original.

[G-Man]

I've been admiring this gun since yesterday.  That hardware is just wonderful.  And I can't get over that barrel - just more or less hammered to finished configuration as Shelby pointed out. 

I also love the way the cheekpiece sits so far forward on some of these rifles - a feature that a lot of the pre-carved Tennessee style stocks available today usually skip.  This one is very extreme.

The lock panels are large in part probably to compensate for the big barrel used in conjunction with that small lock.  The lock and sideplate panels and how they stand out visually from the wrist are one of the prominent architectural features that I think grabs your eye on these East Tennessee guns and gives them so much character, and when you have a barrel this massive, that lock area would look really tiny if you tightened the lock moldings down super thin. 

Most would look at the barrel dimensions and presume this gun was built as an "over the log" gun.  On the other hand, it looks to me to be on the earlier side to me as far as these types of guns go, i.e. pre-1850.  I wonder sometimes if some of these heavy barreled guns were just "made that way" due the forging process and the materials at hand and started at an early date.  When Vincent Hobbs killed the Cherokee/Chickamauga warrior Benge in 1794, it is said he used a "20-pound bear rifle". 

Guy

[Sean]

Wow, check out the wrist thickness on that thing.  I think that's a beef shooting gun.  Not much wear on it.  I think it was a competition target gun.

Guy as for your 20-pound quote, I always interpreted that as 20 balls to the pound as opposed to a 20 pound rifle.  But your point is well taken.  Most Appalachian rifles were svelte in stock architecture only, but really fat in in the barrel and way on the muzzle heavy side for most modern shooters.

Sean

[dannybb55]

It looks as if the fire scale is still on her. The hammer marks have not been dressed out at all. Maybe he was short of files or the customer wanted her as heavy as possible.
                              Danny

[Curt J]

I think that a number of makers intentionally left barrels with hammer marks and scale, because the were proud of their ability to take it this far without ever touching it with a file. I've seen this on some rifles that were otherwise elegantly finished.

[JTR]

Thank you guys for thanking me for posting it, but the real thanks goes to the owner of this one, and some of the others I've posted, for sending me the pics to post here!

I haven't seen this gun in person, just the pics I've posted here, but as for the lock moldings, if you look at the 6th picture from the top, and consider that the barrel is 1 3/16" at the breech, and the trigger guard is 1 1/16" wide, nothing really looks out of proportion. On the lock-side pic, the lock looks small in relationship to the molding, but I suspect it would have taken something like a Brown Bess lock to fill that area out, which would have looked really silly.
Maybe I can get some additional dimensions from the owner, or maybe he'll pop in here himself with more info, to give us a better idea of the actual scale of this rifle. I'm thinking it's a pretty hefty gun overall, and wouldn't mind hanging it on my wall!

John

[timM]

Darn tootin nice Tennessee rifle!  Great gun, love that barrel.  tim

[alex e.]

Neat  gun ,
Now, I am totally ignorant as to TN. guns. Maybe I just have not noticed before on them but it is common to have such "chubby " lock panels on them. It was the first thing to grab my eye when I viewed the pictures.Not trying to demean it but I just do not know.

Thanks for sharing it. Alex

[louieparker]

Alex
Those of us who have a passion for both Penn. and the Tenn. mountain rifle understand that  what is considered great styling in a mountain rifle is not necessarily great in a Penn. rifle . These mountain rifles in my opinion were developed in a remote area where the  guns from the outside world had little influence . Look at the long bbl tang, patch box , hardware ,nose cap,none of these would look right on a regular Kentucky rifle, but are what we treasure in a Tenn. rifle. How many over the comb barrel tangs have you seen on a Kentucky ? Only found on the mountain rifle . Where did it come from ? I doubt anyone can answer that question . The over the comb add no strength that I can see . Maybe some smith just liked how it looked , I sure don't know .  But today they are an important part of a great Tenn rifle .   The cross section of the stock through the lock is also different . Not  only is the flat area around the lock much wider,but the bottom where the front trigger guard extension set is completely flat . I can't say all these rifles are  shaped like the but certainly a lot are. All the Alfred Gross rifles that I have seen  are flat on the bottom as is this one . I say all of this to point out The Tenn. is a completely different kind of cat.   Louie Parker

[alex e.]

Louie, Thanks for enlightening me.Interesting.

Alex E.

[louieparker]

 A few measurements of this rifle
 OAL   ---------------------------------  64"
 TP      --------------------------------  13 5/8
 BPH   --------------------------------     5 1/8
 BP extension-----------------------     4 1/8
 BP width ---------------------------      1 5/16
 drop at heel  -----------------------     4"
 drop at comb -----------------------     1 3/8
 Patch box  --------------------------      7" X 1 1/16"
 Wrist thickness --------------------       1 1/2 "
 Wrist height  ---------------------        1 9/16 "
 Weight ------------------------------  Not real light !

[G-Man]

Louie's observation on the tang is a good point - when you have the chance to see one of these originals with the long o'er the comb tang out of the wood, the metal is very thin, and most that I have seen still ended up with cracks through the wrists.  So it seems to just be pure style.

The whole idea of how the unique features on these guns evolved, how early, and who was the "first" is really a mystery.  We know Russell Bean (son of William) was working by the 1790s, but don't have a documented gun in its original form by his hand to study, to my knowledge. One wonders if there were features that we would readily recognize as being early versions of those distinctive East Tennessee features that became so widespread on the surviving examples of later pieces - the banana patchboxes, long tangs, distinctive architecture - on his work.


The Bulls came to East Tennessee in the early 1790s and were working near, and intermarrying with, the Beans by right around 1800.  John Bull is believed to have worked in Maryland before rejoining the family in Tennessee.  So again - questions - does the evolution you see in his style indicate that he was a prominent influence on the general style of the East Tennessee rifle between 1800 and the 1820s, or did he gradually evolve his work towards a regional style and customer preference that was already in place by the time he got there?

One last thought on the lock panel thing - think of them as architectural features that were made in balance with the scale of the barrel and other proportions of the rifle, rather than simply a frame for the lock.  Just my opinion, but I believe that is what the original gunmaker thought.  He probably shaped them out to what looked right visually with the proportions of the gun, and shaped them pretty close to final form, before inletting the lock.  Small English style locks were ubiquitous by that time - that was what was available and if it worked, it worked.

Guy

[Ken G]

What a great upper E. TN gun.  Thanks for posting and thank to the owner for sharing it with us.  What a beauty even though she's probabbly topping 13 or 14 lbs with that brute of a barrel. 
Ken

[louieparker]

 To add a bit on the shape of the stock through the lock area . On a lot of Tenn rifles  if you would put a square across the lock area and across the trigger guard inlet , it would be square or very near square . In other words the lock panel go all the way to bottom of the stock .

When you think about these mountain rifles remember how unique they are . No where in the world did they make a rifle anywhere near the style of these guns .

Mention was made of the forged bbls and how good they were with the hammer . I recently had two of Alfred Grosses better rifles apart . One had a hand forged bbl the other showed grind marks on the bottom . The forged bbl was the best I had ever seen ,I didn't do it but I believe if a 12 " straight edge would have been laid in the edges would have contacted in most places.    Louie

[Collector]

The LOP is a fairly standard, so we can assume that it was built for and/or made for an average sized man and the caliber also falls within the standard range for TN rifles.   So, given the heft and weight of this rifle, do we conclude that this rifle was specifically made for specialized shooting events?      It is a real BEAUTY!!   

[Robby]

It is a beauty. I don't think most riflemen would have thought of the weight as onerous, If they thought about it all. It was probably, "I'll get used to it". Just the opinion of a left hander living in a right hand world.
Robby