I was perusing the Mark Silver article about a documentary rifle in American Traditions for about the fifth or sixth time last night. Now keep in mind that my first exposure to building was in "Recreating the American Longrifle” and Mr. Buchele makes no secret of his disdain of what he calls a Chinese copy. With my personal twig being bent, I too have not been overly fond of copies. Now we have this article dealing with just that subject. There are four rifles that are compared side by side with the original. Perhaps that is where it falls apart for me. All of these guns are fantastic guns in their own right, but there are problems with each.
The Germanic Fowler is a fabulous piece, but the lock plate is a different shape, the cock is completely different, the frizzen is much larger and the feather spring is different. The carving, while very similar, is also dissimilar. A stunning piece, but as a documentary copy, a failure.
Next piece up is the Mansker rifle. A really good rendition, except the angle of the trigger is totally wrong, which is a major styling error in my book. There is also a pet peeve of mine in that a lot of builders of contemporary rifles take great pains to align the screw slots, whereas most original smiths did not. Could our copies at least do a little bit of work to align the slots as per the original? A minor point perhaps, but if you are trying to replicate an original a little bit of extra care is required.
The next piece is the Allen rifle from Georgia. Ironically the text of the story on that very page points out that you cannot lengthen the length of a stock and just plop the features on to the resultant stock without distorting the features, but the adjacent photos show a rifle that has done just that. The patchbox, and particularly the side plates are stretched to fit the lengthened stock and lose the original proportion. Then there is that troublesome lock and screw slots again. The lock is a totally different style than the original. Again a beautiful rifle inspired by the original, but as a documentary copy, a failure.
Next up, the Reading rifle. Buttplate and trigger guard are close, but noticeably different, and again, those darn screw slots.
Next up, the rendition of the Crockett rifle. Lock is close, but again there are easily rectified differences, and again the triggers and those darn screw slots.
Finally, the "Free Born" rifle. Only the patchbox is shown, and again close, but the domed area is too narrow and while the engraving on the original is not very sophisticated the copy is even less so. Perhaps the flavor of the original, but a failure as a documented copy.
Again, all of these pieces are well done and are excellently executed, but as documented copies, they all fall short. I would much rather see an original creation, perhaps inspired by an old rifle, but not a copy. A copy that falls a little bit short is sort of in the same category as some of those 1960’s Italian replicas that were sort of like historical arms and give the flavor of the experience of firing them, but they are still not the same.
Your thoughts ?
