Dan, a couple of your premises seem to be going at cross purposes.
1) A customer wanting a rifle made like those made by gunsmith A would go to a local gunsmith ("gunsmith B") and request that he make a rifle like gunsmith A makes. Gunsmith B would gladly do it, because nobody turns down business.
2) A customer wanting a rifle like the ones made by gunsmith A would travel to gunsmith A's shop to get a rifle in the style of gunsmith A.
It's all speculation anyhow! 
Sure its speculation. There is no one answer.
Sure most guns were made for the local trade. But to say they ALL were is as silly as saying all were made for "export" to other area.
There are all sorts of scenarios that are possible and in fact likely true at SOME LEVEL.
The guy traveling from Richmond, VA to St Louis was Dr James Lawrence Jones.
This was detailed by Shumway in the August 1998 Muzzle Blasts. He did this BEFORE starting medical school.
Did he REALLY go to St Louis to BUY the rifle? Or did he visit St Louis and decided to buy one while he was there? We are not going to find out. The history states he traveled to St Louis to buy the rifle, so its not refutable no matter how unlikely it might seem. The rifle was apparently in the same family for generations being sold to a collector by the original owners great, great grandson.
The rifle is a variant J&S 1/2 stock, it has a short forend, one key, German Silver rod pipes fore end cap etc and a checkered wrist. Its fairly certain it was not something that was "on the shelf" at least based on other surviving Hawken "mountain rifles".
Add to this that there are surviving J&S Hawken marked rifles, for example, in several styles, local "squirrel rifles", Kentucky rifles and full and 1/2 stock "Mountain Rifles".
We also have to recognize that
not everyone who bought a rifle was only going to use it to shoot hogs and beeves for butcher. Not everyone that bought a gun was only buying it for militia use. Not everyone with an opinion about rifles was some rich planters son. Then as now some people were more discriminating than others. Some competed in rifle matches
some made money at it and this had little to do with how much land someone did or did not own. Think
Alvin York hardly rich but he apparently knew how to shoot and apparently had an ACCURATE RIFLE.
There have always been gun owners and riflemen they are not the same and do not have the same requirements in firearms. If the local gunsmith did blacksmith quality rifles and the accuracy was thought to be hit or miss a discriminating customer might walk or ride 20-50 miles or more to get what he wanted. OR EVEN ORDER IT and have it shipped to someplace like Kentucky.
So did Simon Kenton, as reported, order a rifle from PA just on a lark or did he have information that this maker was someone to contact with the order. Do we even have enough details to make such a decision? I don't. But would someone order a rifle sight unseen unless he had SOME inkling that the maker was reputable? And how did he find out? Personal visit? Saw one of the rifles in Kentucky?
My problem with all this it that people thinking gunsmiths were only capable of making one style rifle or that they would turn away cash customers who came to them and might want something different. OR that people lacked the motivation to go to the trouble to get what they REALLY wanted.
Yes there were people who never traveled out of the county they were born in and others that traveled to the ends of the earth. The only difference is that it TOOK LONGER in 1770 than in 1970.
The Fondersmith mentioned above being restocked is a wonderful example. If the owner was traveling and broke his rifle would he wait to have it stocked or would he trade in the parts and get a rifle that the smith might have in stock? I would likely have done this. Would the owner perhaps living next door to Schreyer take it to the maker with the simple instruction of "fix it"? Schreyer took an unserviceable rifle and made a "new" rifle. Surely done countless times. I would see this rifle as a treasure but apparently the owner considered it a parallel to a restocked and reblued Winchester since it was not "original". Would this impact the value? Would this make people resistant to the possibility of restocks in their collection.
The possibilities are ENDLESS.
Now even HAD the owner wanted it just like the broken stock there is a chance it would still have hints of being done by Schreyer, moulding perhaps and how the work was done. Carving patterns. Or Schreyer could have told him to go someplace else. But I doubt it.
Every time I see a photo of a rifle with a brass plate set in the barrel for the signature I wonder whose name was removed to install the new name.
Would Schreyer have an ethical aversion for copying another's work? Maybe he would not consider is GOOD enough and there was no way he would do this kind to work? WE DON'T KNOW.
Rifle barrels were very expensive and a good rifle barrel or even one with a bend in it was not a throw away item. A good lock, rifle barrel and hardware could save a gunsmith a lot of time in making, filing and polishing parts. This made the broken rifle valuable, the finished hardware could be more valuable than the rough castings.
I was talking to Reeves Goerhring about a Dickert buttplate recently. He told me of a Virginia rifle from which he had a chance to make copies of the hardware. He told the owner not to remove the BP since it was identical to a Dickert he had. So was this a common pattern, was it carried off to other areas by journeymen? Was some foundry casting them and selling them to gunsmiths in PA and VA? Was the buttplate in the VA rifle from a Dickert originally or visa-versa?
There are endless possibilities for discussion and/or disagreement.
Dan
