Favorite period builder, style, school etc. and why

[Jim Kibler]

What is your favorite period, builder, style, school etc. and WHY?  Perhaps favorite isn't the right term...  Maybe what excites and interests you at the current time is a better way of looking at it.    I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before, but seems it could provide some interesting and lively discussion? 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Jim, I think that "what excites you currently" is an easier question to answer.  There are so many that it's difficult to nail one down as THE favourite.

Currently, I'm building Andrew Verner's fancy rifle RCA 63.  I know there are a lot of you who do not like to build copies of other's rifles and guns, but I hope you'll cut me some slack.  Until very recently, I had never seen or held an original longrifle, so studying them in texts was all I had.  I have found that the best way to study a rifle from a two dimensional page, is to recreate it.  And the many talented builders on this site keep me accountable, so I do my very best to capture the nuances and details that make the piece so special.
Verner's work, and especially #63, really grabs me.  This is the second attempt at this particular rifle, so you can see that it is important to me.  I feel that the original lies in the "Golden Age", and with it's unique inlays, carving and wire inlay, is very much worth emulating.  The stock architecture with the very long thin forearm and wrist have great appeal to me.  And I'm a shooter - this rifle handles wonderfully.
Just last week, I finished making and inlaying the patch box, so apart from the wire inlay, all the inlay work is done.  Now comes the incised carving and the wire inlay.  I'll post pictures when it's done, for your critique and comments.

Then there's William Antes......

[smylee grouch]

Kuntz, Hoak, Hagga, Fordney, Ernst, Noll, Krepps, Fry, and others because of the carving, engraving, and lines. They just make pretty rifles.

[G-Man]

Jacob Young  - Tennessee and maybe Kentucky ca: 1800-1830.  His rifles show such fine architecture and great metal work, and are such unique products that don't clearly fit with any of the well documented styles or "schools" - he is sort of an enigma.

Guy

[Mike Gahagan]

Jim that is like asking if you like blonds,brunettes or redheads the best.They all are appealing in their own ways.
I guess that if I had to pick some it would be Bonewitz,Reedy,Noll,Eister,Pickel,Kuntz and I.Haines because they were good at all aspects of the trade.Their building,carving,engraving and design were all done with equal ability.

[Robby]

I ran across volume I of Rifles of "Colonial America" In our small town public library about thirty years ago. I think I might have wore it out just looking, but of all the guns in that tome, it was the Andrew Verner #63 that I kept going back to. I was in an austere, minimalist mind set at the time in my life and had no real appreciation for the extra's on that gun, or any gun, for that matter. It was the clean line and architecture that grabbed me tight, and still does. I like all the Buck's county guns, but that one is still my favorite. I have grown to appreciate the extra's that were done on many of these guns, no matter the school.
If anyone can build a true representation of Andrew Verner's masterful gun, It is Taylor, I cant wait to see it!
Robby

[bgf]

Guy beat me to it.  How anyone could like any maker better than JY is beyond me.  Enigma is probably an understatement, with JY's biography being tenuous at best and his rifles having a combination of the latest features (e.g. double throated cock) and atavistic architectural elements (e.g., stepped wrist); they are graceful in the extreme and yet built with sturdy barrels that make many others look like toys.  My favorite is the Whitley rifle, due to its unmatched history (that's the tie-breaker vs. the Woodfork) -- a rifle that went with Whitley on his last charge and that many say killed Tecumseh and yet has sentimental and possibly esoteric touches in its ornamentation.

I am also fond of various relatively early SW Va. rifles, most notably one whose maker's initials are possibly G.B.  If there were no JY rifles, he would be my favorite.  I really like the stepped wrists and clean lines, along with high quality metal work (e.g. an iron box with 9 knuckles in a hinge that only spans the lid) whether in brass or iron (at least the early period where iron furniture is treated similarly to brass). 

[cmac]

My favorites are the dark, early ones, all beat up. I like the F&I war era stuff so I would hafta say an early Virginia, but it is hard to choose. I'm a big fan of the Woodbury guns and some other southern mountain guns as well but they fall into a later time frame(generally more rev. war). I do appreciate the artistic work in inlays and carving but some are too fancy for my liking.

[Meteorman]

i'm still kinda new to this craft, but I am definetly drawn to the iron-mounted not-too-fussy mountain rilfes -
I haven't tried one yet, but I believe I'll nurture a personal interest in the Gillespie school of style. 
I hope to get some of Mr. Glazener's fine materials in the near future to help me down the road.
/mike

[54Bucks]

 For sheer visual pleasure my favorite would be the Golden Age Bucks Co. guns. Andrew Verner would certainly head my list of builders. However..... my favorite gun is shown in Kindig's book as rifle #54. It's listed as builder unknown but has much in common with Verner's work. I find the bellied out lower stock and slightly longer wrist (shorter comb?) to appeal to me more than Verner or Schuler signed guns.

[Kermit]

At the moment it's Verner and Schuler.

[timM]

Peter Berry.......a grand master, an independent builder who created beautiful long slender rifles.

[bama]

Jim that is a tuff question, there is not many I don't like. I do lean more toward the early rifles with large butt stocks. Rifle 42 is my favorite rifle, followed by the Christian Spring's builders. There are so many out there that are great in so many ways it is hard to pick a favorite builder. Armstrong built very gracefull guns that are a pleasure to hold. No. 42 is a mans rifle, it's a big gun that feels like it has authority when you hold it. I have not had the pleasure of holding a Haines but I think he could be ranked at top of the ladder as far as quality and design.

[J. Talbert]

My answer is skewed by my limited exposure to originals, but of the ones I've had the good fortune to examine to some degree or another, I'm attracted to many of the same list that Mike mentioned.  I'm a big fan of the graceful stepped wrist Lehighs and I would dearly love to be able to examine a Geo. Eister rifle the way it left his shop.  The subtleties of his carving and engraving still survives in a number of his rifles to this day.
As much as like certain originals however, they all seem to have one or two traits that I'm not wild about; such as Eister's thick vertical wrist.  I also find the trigger guards of a number of the Christain Spring rifles, such as #42 rather unattractive.

But that's the fun of doing your own interpretation.

Jeff

[Glenn]

I like the Roman-nosed designs (several builders), Armstrong (and apprentices), and the Gillespies for the southern rifles.  I prefer the North Carolina builders over the Virginia and Tennessee builders.

[flehto]

Being partial to "curved" combs and toelines and long slender wrists, the Bucks county LRs have the most appeal to me.  Have done 8 so far and  am presently on #9 which hopefully emulates a Shuler. The totally slender architecture of the BC LRs requires a lot of wood removal and when I think an area is done, the next day more wood is removed and this process continues until the LR looks like what I think a BC should be. Of course this is only a guess because I've never viewed an actual  BC. Shortly will be making and inletting the long tailed entry pipe which is always a "fun" job....debating whether to make it 1 or 2 pcs, but all the previous ones have been 1 pc. .....Fred

[okieboy]

 I am pretty well focused on Appalachian rifles. I like the plainness for itsself and because it forces the architecture to make the gun's statement. I love that within what seems a rather limiting style, there are endless variations. I love many of them because they are not perfect, but often have naive aspects that charm; the work of folk artists, not artists. I also love them because they are created to do what rifles should do, shoot. An Appalachian rifle that was too pretty to shoot basically wouldn't be an Appalachian rifle.
 I like to look at everything else, especially plainer guns, but I always know who my first love is.

[Leatherbelly]

I'm a shooter.I like Bucks, Becks, and long barreled Haines'. Love them long wristed Bucks.Can't wait to see your new gun Taylor.

[Long John]

To my way of thinking William Antes is the maker I most admire.  RCA 53 is the consumate hunter's/shooter's rifle.  When you pick it up it feels alive and seems to whisper "Shoot me, shoot me!"
I keep on trying to get it right.

JMC

[eagle24]

Bull(s), Lawing, Higgins, Kennedy, Bearden, McBee.  My favorite gunmaker changes every few months, but I'm very much interested in the Appalachian Iron Mounted rifles with fine architecture and long tangs.  I guess the period would be near or during the late flint era.  At the present time, I am very drawn to a William McBee rifle I had the pleasure of seeing at the show in Clinton, TN.

[smallpatch]

There's Lehigh's, then Lehigh's, and then there's Lehigh's.  Notice a trend here?  There's just nothing more graceful than the Rupp's and Moll's.  The graceful curving comb, lower buttstock lines, and the stepped wrist.  A thing of beauty..... but a bear to build.

[T.C.Albert]

Philip Creamer...his work is very very good, and nobody seems very familiar or interested in it to any real extent...his dueling pistols are really remarkable, not to mention his gunsmithing work for the Indian Agencies on the western frontier...if I were capable, his finer eastern style work on flint long rifles would be something I'd aspire to recreate and bench copy, and his  influence on the transitional development of percussion plains rifle is something Id sure like to know more about...I feel he is a much overlooked and neglected gunsmith of some definate importance.
TCA

[b bogart]

Mr Schuler made a fine Bucks County longrifle! I like his neighbors guns too!

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

And Buck's County is just such a cool place...........

I like the Dauphin County guns, curvy and petite ... with long barrels...... Berry et.al.

But I must say that Appalachian guns are growing on me

[Acer Saccharum]

I've found that I'm stuck in a fantasy world when it comes to guns. What kind of rifle-gun did the Dutch bring with them? The Germans? Did any rifles ever exist in New York State in pre-Rev time period?

While most indicators say that the primary arm was the smooth bore fowler, and very little evidence suggests rifles existed in the Hudson River Valley and environs, in my pig-headed mind, I want to make early New York rifles.

I truly enjoy the 'what if' aspect of the early time periods where few guns exist from this time period. I like to explore the transition from bona fide European guns to the true American made product. This is where I like to travel with my gun builds, from one culture to another, one time period to another. American re-stocks of European guns fall in this time zone. Guns made of imported parts and American wood also twist my biscuit.

Tom