Rice's Southern Classic

[chuck c.]

I'm just seeking some input as to what those of you who have a liking for the iron mounted southern style rifles think about Rice's new barrel. I'm not concerned about quality, but would like to know if the profile is more correct than past offerings.

[Dennis Glazener]

Chuck,
It depends on the rifles you are building. As I understand from Liston and Jason, the barrel used to pattern this barrel after was an original southern rifle. I forget the make and area, I keep thinking it was a VA valley gun but can't swear to it. So if the southern rifle that you wish to build had a breech diameter around .937 and a muzzle diameter around .812 you would be right with this barrel. (see bottom of this chart http://www.ricebarrels.com/chart.html ).

However if you were building a mountain rifle similar to my Gillespie (and others from the Appalachian mountain areas) you would more likely need a breech 1 1/8 or so and a muzzle around an inch in diameter. However few folks today want to use a barrel that heavy (believe me I know!) and use lighter barrel such as B/C profiles. The problem with the B & C profile is its drastic swamp, far more swamp than the originals had. The Rice Southern Classic is much closer to the same scale of swamp as the originals but much smaller in overall diameter (hope this makes sense).

One of the reasons Rice made the new Southern Classic was to allow the front and rear sight to be the same height. Evidently some target shooters had been asking for this.

Hope I made sense.
Dennis

[Richard Snyder]

Dennis, will your Gillespie stocks be available inlet for this barrel?

[Don Getz]

That really is a neat barrel and would work great on any golden age Pennsylvania rifle.  By some strange coincidence it
has the same dimensions as the old Paris "Standard Light" barrel, which John still makes............Don

[Dennis Glazener]

Dennis, will your Gillespie stocks be available inlet for this barrel?
   

My Gillespie stocks can be inlet with most any barrel. The only difference is in the amount of excess wood that will need to be removed. The patterns were made to use with "C" weight breeches but I normally use "B" weight breeches. I have built several using "A" profile barrels, just have to remove more wood in the wrist/lock panel area.
Dennis

[rich pierce]

That really is a neat barrel and would work great on any golden age Pennsylvania rifle.  By some strange coincidence it
has the same dimensions as the old Paris "Standard Light" barrel, which John still makes............Don

Couple things come to mind, Don.  One is that imitation is the highest form of flattery.  The other is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Last is from the Good Book, where Solomon said that there's nothing new under the sun.  I guess we're all walking in somebody's footsteps.  Builders sure are lucky today.  That was brought up also in the discussion about Hawken guards.  The quality and selection of parts is amazing nowadays.  I remember the first Paris swamped barrel I picked up at Dixon's around 1978.  I thought it was the sexiest piece of metal ever made.

[chuck c.]

Dennis, thanks for the reply. I was looking for a barrel that more closely replicates the dimensions of the swamp on Eastern Tennessee style rifles. I don't know for sure what those dimensions are, just that they are not as drastic as what Rice is offering in their other barrels. When I was at the CLA show I was directed to a barrel maker who could make whatever I wanted. When I talked to him he told me to just send him the dimensions throughout the length of the barrel. Well, I don't feel like I know enough about making a barrel to safely make those kind of decisions. This barrel would satisfy my needs if it was just a couple of inches longer and in a bigger caliber (.54). I collected all the literature on these rifles that and been able to find, but most don't give measurements. Mr. Webb's book gives measurements on some barrels, but does not state the caliber. I'm pretty sure you need to know the bore size to know what you can have for the overall outside dimension.

[bgf]

You can work with the measurements you like and your selected caliber and confer with the barrel maker -- he will not let you make one too thin for his own sake.  Dennis is correct, however, that many southern barrels, lacking a drastic swamp, will be much heavier than we expect these days, so factor that in with some creative calculations.  Making it in .54 will probably help some, but I would still guess a typical southern tapered and flared barrel to be roughly 2x the weight of the Rice Southern Classic.

[Don Getz]

While I make no claims of being an expert on southern guns, I was always under the impression that most, or many of them had hand forged barrels, some swamp to them, and usually rather heavy. I remember copying one for Warren
Fitzgerald down in Virginia, this particular barrel was swamped but strangely was larger at the muzzle than at the breech.........Don

[wvmtnman]

I agree with Don.  Though I do not have the experience that others have, every southern gun I have seen have a rather hefty barrel.  Usually the calibers range fron .35 to .38 with the muzzle diameter somewhere around 7/8. 
   As for the swamp, I believe that all modern barrels have more swamp than the originals did.  However, this is because most people today (myself included) would have difficulty holding a 10 pounds rifle steady enough to hit the target.
                                                                Brian