Virginia Rifle Architecture

[Pete G.]

Just what does constitute a Virginia rifle, James River school in particular? All of the suppliers, kit offering, etc. are calling for sort of early Lancaster with Iron furniture and a round faced lock, but a quick perusal of "The Gunsmiths of Virginia" show no such rifles.
They do all seem to have a distinctive guard where the rail and bow sort of flow together as a long sweeping curve and the spur is often a bit longer than other styles, and there is a fairly common carving pattern behind the cheekpiece that is shared by almost all of them in some fashion. Other than that I can't seem to tie down any distinctive features. Anybody know about patchbox patterns or how the pipes were done? Anything else that would put a rifle into the James River school? I am putting together a gun for a friend that lives up in that area, so I want it to be right, or at the very least NOT something incorrect.

[flintriflesmith]

I think a search of the archives will be useful in answering your question. Most recently ROUNDBALL posted a question about VA vs. Lancaster PA styles on 1/23/09.

There were a lot of responses but it came down to two questions:
Do you mean the actual antiques or the claims made but kit dealers?

Kit dealers attempt to broaden the appeal of their products by assigning various regional styles to what is basically the same rifle pattern. My advice would be to ignore 90% of what you find in those sources. The attribution of original rifles to a particular regional styles is much more complex and demands a lot of study!

In my reply to ROUNDBALL I did mention a couple of well know James River makers and where you might find their work.

Gary

[tg]

I think Flintriflesmith is right on the money as to useing many of the vendors as source data, I would definatel stay away from iron for an early Virgina just to hard to support in early guns, and one needs to define early some start it at 1780 some at 1770 some at the start of trhe Rev war, I think a lot of builders go with a gun with strong English influence even though there were German smiths there at the time, going with the Engilsh influence allows some recognizable traits to be incorprated for easier identification, diminuitive cheekpiece, modest amount of carving, English style  furniture
pointed finials on butplate and entry thimble, colonia/Englishl roundfaced lock, often a Beavertail relief carving behind the tang, occasionaly a triggerguard with no griprail,  .54 and up bore size, most all the guns in RCA that are attributed to southern gunshave a bit of curve to the upper and lower buttstock rather than straight like the Lancasters.I probably missed some but this is how I see the early Virginia rifles as they are presented today in kit form or finished guns, nothing here etched in stone, just my observations, others may provide something different, I only lay clain to being a novice gun history student.

[AndyThomas]

Most contemporary builders who build "Early Virginia" style rifles tend to combine elements from several different rifles, which may have been made in VA and which may be early (before the mid-1780s, in my case).

If you look through the "Southern Rifle" section of Rifles of Colonial America, you'll find a lot of variance in their form, lock styles, mountings, carving, etc. There are, I think, six rifles I use for my Early VA rifle interpretation. I lean heavily on RCA 103 and RCA 131, because Wallace Gusler believes they were made in VA, and made about 1770, the time period I like to build to. Another favorate of mine is RCA 125, which is a "might have been" piece.

As for kits, Chambers, Cabin Creek, and Mike Brooks all base their VA rifle kits on original guns, RCA 117, RCA 132, and RCA 123, respectively. They are not pure copies, but you can certainly see the resemblance in all three cases. They are, in fact, interpretations. It can probably be debated as to where and when the originals were made. Despite that, I'd start with one of these, if I were going to build a early VA rifle kit.

Here's a Cabin Creek kit rifle I built and sold recently:

http://s498.photobucket.com/albums/rr347/FlintlockAndy/EarlyVirginiaRifle18/

Not a bad kit!

Hope this helps,
Andy

[roundball]

Nice looking rifle...was planning to have the barrel & lock browned on mine with brass furniture...

[Pete G.]

I was looking at a build similar to the Davidson rifle, but several of the details are eluding me. Specifically the tang carving, which in all of the published photos is definitely not the beavertail carving, but I can't find a top view to make out what it is. Also there is a sort of long sweeping bead of carving on the foreend. There seems to be a football shaped wear plate under the foreend, but again I can't tell much about it, the rear pipe or any carving around the rear pipe tang. I appreciate the sugestions in RCA; perhaps if I can't find the exact details I can use those for some inspiration. My main concern was to not take off and invent something that was totaly out of context and would later regret. I'm not too particularly enamored with the carving and engraving paterns on the original, so perhaps it is better to come up with an interpretation, just so long as I'm not too far out in left field.

[RobertS]

Here's a link to some photos of the Davidson rifle that you might not have seen: 

http://www.americanhistoricservices.com/html/john_davidson.html

This is an excellent place to spend some time if you haven't already been!