Years ago, I had a fellow bring a rifle by the house, that could have been that gun without a buttplate's flintlock brother from another mother. He said it had been in his family from day one. Built at the end of the flintlock era, with a round tailed plate, and double throat lock. It was from Pennsylvania. It had no buttplate, but it did have double set triggers. The trigger guard was made from what looked like a piece of an old trap spring, that fit into two hole that were hot punched into the trigger plate. The ends of the spring had a simple ear bent on the end of the bow that fit into the punched holes,and held tight by spring tension. The stock was black as night, and appeared to have been varnished originally. The barrel was about forty inches long, around .40 cal., rifled, and looked like it had been rust blued originally. It had two very short pipes and no entry pipe. He said his family came from around Reading originally. I assume this was a barn gun, but this term wasn't known to me then.
Hungry Horse
