If we want to do more than speculate, maybe we should look for "roots" guns and who made them, and their "French connections".
Seems to me there are two basic curved profiles on rifles from Bucks County on up to the northwest. One has the swoopy stepped wrist or classic Lehigh. The other has a single curve to the lower buttstock. Some speculate that the swoopy double curve Lehighs were influenced by Christians Spring work, where the stepped wrist was employed on a more robust architecture.
Which rifle would you pick as the earliest to display the double curve Lehigh profile?
Which would you pick as the earliest to display the single curve lower line amplified in later Bucks county rifles? I'd pick the early smooth rifle Shumway featured in an article, "Lehigh Longrifle Evolution" (or something like that). I see the Antes rifle with the daisy patchbox (RCA 52?) as an early example of this style, but 1770's-1780's. I don't know that Antes had a French connection.
Now I will throw a wicked curveball. Much as some dislike the notion, there were plenty of smooth rifles that came out of the Lehigh valley. Octagon to round barrels, big bore. Sometimes no rear sight, so on those, please skip the "I bet they were rifled when made" argument.
Since the French were not a rifle culture......... and many of those curvy rifles are smoothies.....
Playin with ya.
Original curve-stocked Euro rifle. They were around. As Stophel says, German gunsmiths worked in many styles, including Spanish, French etc.
oooooh- is that a griffon behind the cheekpiece? Nothing new under the sun, I guess.
