Ambrose Lawing Rifle with Beals barrel on the blog

[Ken G]

Jan,
Thanks for the great photos of the rifle on the blog this morning.  Good photos like this are the next best thing to being able to handle in person.  I have them saved for future study.  
Ken

http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/

[chuck c.]

My thanks too! Photos like that are worth their weight in gold for those of us who don't get to see the real thing.

[J.D.]

Dang Ken, you beat me to it.

That is a nice  a 3/4 stock rifle. Never seen a 3/4 stock so this is a first. I wish that Art had taken a coupla shots of the nosecap. I assume that the nosecap is similar to a standard nose cap on a full stock?

God bless

[art riser]

The rifle is an Ambrose Lawing with a William Beals barrel. William Beals barrels are found on guns by several different makers in that area.  The nose cap pictures will be added to the post.

[Ken G]

Thanks for the information Art.  I was really confussed seeing the Ambrose Lawing title with the Beals stamp on the barrel.
Ken

[b bogart]

This is timely! I have apiece of walnut that is only long enough for a 3/4 stock. Ideas are forming!

[J.D.]

Dang, that is service. 

I do appreciate your adding those two photos of the nose cap. That answers the question of how the nose cap was made.

Thanks again,

God bless

[Collector]

Just curious as to the wood used to stock this piece.  The grain looks like it could possibly be Ash.  Is it Ash? 

[chuck c.]

Ken, what startles me is look at the photos from above and below. It may be my eye but I believe that rifle has cast off. I don't know as much as I want to about these rifles, but I thought they where all straight! Also I think there's a good chance that the barrel is a replacement because the lock definitely appears to be so. It doesn't fit the mortise very well, more than likely converted from flint to percussion. Maybe the stock was damaged and the rifle was converted to 3/4 while the other work was being done, perhaps by someone other than Ambrose. Very valuable photos for the builder. If there was just one key measurement, like the length of the lock, that would really help to figure out all the details about this outstanding example of a Tennessee rifle.

[G-Man]

The cast off appearance may just be an effect of the shadows.  That said, I have seen mountain rifles with cast off as well as cast on, but someone on here pointed out a while back the possibility of the thin wrists warping on some of these old guns as they sat upright in a corner over many years.  I don't know if this is the case, but there are definitely examples with cast whether intentional or not.

There are a number of mountain rifles that look to have been built as 1/2 and 3/4 stocks, and some that were cut back later.   Sometimes, if the bottom of the barrel was not dressed out as smoothly as the top, we assume it was originally a fullstock.  Hard to tell in this case - it looks like there was some work done in front of the forward cap - to both the underside of the barrel and the wood - after the barrel was browned.  So I would guess this one was a fullstock originally, but hard to say.

Guy

[Carper]

Why would you think this rife is by Lawing ? I have seen and owned a couple of rifles that were marked Beals and they all looked to be made with the same hand. They too looked very similar to the rifle on the blog, as  a matter of fact one of them was posted in photo section under original southern rifles. I sure could be wrong, but I do not lend much credence to thought of a barrel makers name being left on the top flat and the maker not signing the gun.  Johnny

[Sequatchie Rifle]

Great addition!  It should be added to the "library".