Southern Rifle Furniture question

[Don Steele]

I'm left-handed....there, I said it.
For several decades, I've been shooting a right hand caplock (T/C) just fine.
Last year, I inherited a right hand T/C flintlock. I shoot it quite well on the bench. Sadly, when I get up on my hind legs to shoot offhand...I'm lucky to hit ANYWHERE on the target paper at 25 yds.
To resolve this situation, I'm in the process of identifying the specifications for a LEFT-hand Southern style flintlock I'd like to get built, or purchase...already built.
 
A man's got to recognize his limitations....one of mine is that I'm not a builder.  

In conversation with a well known builder recently about "furniture", he opined that iron was the overwhelming choice on Southern rifles in the caplock era, and appears most commonly on rifles being built today, both cap and flint. He added however, that early Southern school flint rifles often carried brass furniture.

I'm curious to get some expanded conversation on that topic from the folks here with the historical reference materials I lack.
Thank you for your thoughts.

[Mark Elliott]

I would generally agree with everything you said except to say that MOST (80% or more, probably a lot more than that) Southern guns were brass mounted.   Iron mounts are particular to the area between Rockbridge County, VA and Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina in the first half of the 19th century.   They are almost non-existent outside that geographical region and time period.    However,  people, including myself, are building iron mounted guns of all types that never existed in the 18th and 19th centuries.    Also,  I have never seen an original left handed rifle.   Left handedness was considered a sign of the devil and strongly discouraged well into the 20th century.   So,  you can either build something historically correct or not.   

[Bob Roller]

I would generally agree with everything you said except to say that MOST (80% or more, probably a lot more than that) Southern guns were brass mounted.   Iron mounts are particular to the area between Rockbridge County, VA and Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina in the first half of the 19th century.   They are almost non-existent outside that geographical region and time period.    However,  people, including myself, are building iron mounted guns of all types that never existed in the 18th and 19th centuries.    Also,  I have never seen an original left handed rifle.   Left handedness was considered a sign of the devil and strongly discouraged well into the 20th century.   So,  you can either build something historically correct or not.   

 When we came to WVa in 1946 I remember hearing people say they would rather have a baby born
 cross eyed than left handed.We thought our first born son was a lefty and it turned out he's ambidextrous
 and proved that with his 14 shot para 14 pistol. 7 right handed and 7 left handed in the same group on a
 man size target.He is now a retired USAF police officer with 18 1/2 years of service and living with his family in
Texas.
I haven't heard that cross eyed/left handed stupidity for a very long time now and don't want to.
Bob Roller

[retired fella]

Welcome to the club.  I am also a lefty   and have two comments. 
A flint requires quite a bit of practice holding on the mark and you will get better with practice.  Try dryfiring at a mark on the wall several times a week paying particular attention to holding your sight picture after you set off the set trigger, or if no set trigger replace the flint with a wooden plug and dry fire.  I promise you will get better.  Practice, practice, practice.  It will also help your caplock scores.

Building is not that difficult.  It just takes time.  There are many good kits that you can buy that will aid you in building a good shooter. 
                             BUY WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY!

[shifty]

  As for being Left Handed goes some of the most skilled people i have known are left handed my uncle and one brother where left handed and where great finnish carpenters, i have a friend for many yrs now who is left handed and he can draw any thing you ask him to he can also wright upside down and backwards, no more  Devil in them than anyone else.

[Hungry Horse]

 The Konocti Rod and Gun Club, a few years back, decided to build some shooting benches, with steel frames, and concrete tops, for our range. The plan we had was for a right hand only bench. Just on a lark, I asked if we needed to make one left hand bench, just in case there was a lefty in the group. Boy, did that open a can of worms. As it turned out there were seven southpaws at the meeting, who until I mentioned a left hand bench, thought they would just work around the right hand only benched. Our benches are all ambidextrous now, and, more left hand shooters came out of the closet after we started building the benches.
 I also own an antique muzzleloading rifle built in the late eighteen hundreds that has a right hand lock, but has a left hand cheekpiece.

            Hungry Horse

[Don Stith]

Many people  equate "southern" rifles with Tennessee iron mounted pieces. Die hard Virginians insist they are still the south. Most of them won't admit that a lot of Virginia rifles are Pennsylvania rifles restocked in Virginia when they got busted up on the trail.
 Not really trying to start a fight. Just want to make  the point that you have to be specific when asking questions about what is" typical"  in style and hardware.

[WadePatton]

I'm left-handed....there, I said it.
...
Thank you for your thoughts.

I'm going to throw a curveball here and say "hands" got nothin' to do with it.  Which eye is dominant?  That is the proper side to shoot from.

To shoot well with open sights you must shoot with the dominant eye.  Now i can manage shots on target shooting "weak-handed" with a short arm (because it easy enough to bring the gun under the dominant eye) but never even fool with going to the other side of a long gun-where it gets more complicated.

IF i see brass on a Southern gun, then I'm fine calling it anything but a TN-unless the maker was certified* to be here at the time. The yellow metal just wasn't readily available here.  Iron was aplenty.  That's why we have all these locations named "Forge" and "Furnace". 

*Alfred Bearden, Lincoln Co. (thanks!)

More on eyes/hands:

Just this season we found out that the Dad/boy hunters I was camping with were--get this, BOTH shooting opposite their dominant eye.  We were plinking (the boy mostly) around camp and I could see the boy struggling and did the FIRST THING i ever do when trying to help a new or struggling shooter-I checked his eye dominance.  He is left-eye dominant (LE), but is right handed (RH).  His dad is LH and guess what we found? RIGHT EYED!  Not sure where they are going to take it, but I strongly suggested that the boy needs to try shooting the LH guns and Dad needs to give the RH's another go.   Both toting fine custom flintlocks BTW.

Also, Hershel House is left-handed, that devil.    

[Dennis Glazener]

Left handedness was considered a sign of the devil and strongly discouraged well into the 20th century.   So,  you can either build something historically correct or not.   

If I were you I would still build a left hand rifle. Life is too short for a left handed person to learn how to shoot a right handed flintlock. I am fortunate to be right handed, right dominate eye and also have never had any more problem firing a flint rifle than a caplock, but I know that others have a lot of problems learning to shoot a flint.
Dennis

[Turtle]

  The Latin word for left handed is -sinister, the history of this bias goes way back. Also, I teach hunter training and we always have students check for cross dominance before shooting. no easy solution to it, but, learning to shoot on the dominant side works best if the they start doing it early. I build one left handed rifle-it was unexpected hard for me.
                                Turtle

[gunmaker]

I to am "cack handed"  and it was a fight in early school years to stay that way.  Which has brought me to here,  Bought first ML in 1971 a Navy arms .45 capper.  As I got into sport I saw left handed parts in catalogs---but no LH ones on market.  Soooo as a heavy equip. mech/welder I thought I'll just make my own.  That was about 50 guns back---so far.  Make what you want, life is short......Tom

[flinchrocket]

H.Risingson ( 090305-2) left hand flintlock in ALR library. Pretty fancy too?

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Alfred Bearden rifles from Lincoln County, Tennessee were brass mounted.
Mark Poley

[WadePatton]

Alfred Bearden rifles from Lincoln County, Tennessee were brass mounted.
Mark Poley

I might like those but can only find miniature pics online.  See one capper and one rocker.  About all I can discern is four pipes, high-crescent, full-stock and that's it.  And the guards look a bit Hawkeny
 
Would love to see a few photographs of a Bearden where one might actually be able to discern some more details.  We'd like to learn more.

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

In Jerry Noble's book series on the southern longrifle, He shows a number of Alfred Bearden rifles that are clearly brass mounted. I talked to Mr. Noble on the phone about the Bearden rifles in particular, as my wife is a Bearden descendent. IIRC he has two Bearden rifles and they are brass mounted. Again IIRC, he told me that all of the Alfred Bearden rifles he had seen are brass mounted.
Mark

[Mark Elliott]

I do want to make the point that I don't think there is anything wrong with being left handed.   I was just explaining how it was considered during the time period in question which meant very few left handed anything. 

[Nordnecker]

I am using some photos of an Elisha Bull rifle for inspiration for a build right now. This particular gun has an iron buttplate and trigger guard, but brass pipes, sideplate and patchbox. I am not trying to build a bench copy, and I wonder how this mixed metal aproach would be recieved nowadays. Actually, I'm gonna have to commit to one or the other metal for the pipes and side plate today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll toss a coin.

[flinchrocket]

I saw pictures of the rifle with iron and brass mounts and thought it was interesting, but don't think I
would build one. I like iron on Tenn. guns. I also like the double grease hole rifle. I guess if everyone
liked the same thing it would be pretty boring?

[Hessian]

I've been shooting right handed guns all my life, even flintlocks. I too, am left handed. I do alright, but I shoot my left handed Mike Miller gun much better. It fits me and seems to just home in on the target with no effort. When shooting right handed flinters I am never distracted by the flash in the pan as others have complained about, I concentrate on the front sight. I don't believe I've ever even consiously seen the flash. I think it's probably more about the rifle fitting you more than which side the lock is on.
As far as brass hardware on southern rifles, I think if they had it they would have used it. I like iron mounts myself.
Hessian

[Mark Elliott]

I am using some photos of an Elisha Bull rifle for inspiration for a build right now. This particular gun has an iron buttplate and trigger guard, but brass pipes, sideplate and patchbox. I am not trying to build a bench copy, and I wonder how this mixed metal aproach would be recieved nowadays. Actually, I'm gonna have to commit to one or the other metal for the pipes and side plate today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll toss a coin.

To say that Southern gunmakers did not feel constrained by convention, can be something of an understatement.     I have seen all kinds of outlandish/creative things on Southern guns.   As to Elisha Bull,   I have had the privilege of handling and photographing a number of his rifles and pistols; and they are always creative and well executed.   I really like his work. 

[David R. Pennington]

The rifle I patterned my first build after had a mix of brass and iron. Two of the ramrod pipes were iron and middle one was brass. It didn't look to be a replacement either. I made mine all of iron though.

[WadePatton]

... I like iron on Tenn. guns. I also like the double grease hole rifle. I guess if everyone
liked the same thing it would be pretty boring?

single, double, rectangular, and more.  Wonder if the two-holers carried different greases?

[Dennis Glazener]

single, double, rectangular, and more.  Wonder if the two-holers carried different greases?

Sure, you know they did! One kind for short shots i.e. squirrels and one for long shots like running deer Twas a problem when you were loaded for squirrel and had to change for that running deer

[JTR]

single, double, rectangular, and more.  Wonder if the two-holers carried different greases?

Sure, you know they did! One kind for short shots i.e. squirrels and one for long shots like running deer Twas a problem when you were loaded for squirrel and had to change for that running deer

Like Dennis says, of course you'd carry two different types of grease, but my understanding was because you didn't want to taint the meat. Say like shootin a deer with a squirrel greased patch, or vise-versa,,,,,, A problem could still arise if say you were out hunting deer and squirrel, and say a coon popped up in a tree, or a lizard or some such thing, and, well, you didn't have that grease available, so geeze, you'd just have to skip the shot.

The really rare guns, seldom seen just like their outhouse cousins, are the four-holer models! 

John   

[Carper]

Don Stith, I think you are exactly right . When the Carpers came from Lancaster to Fincastle,Bot in about 1840 they having been German blacksmiths there took up the trade of gunmaker after marrying into the Becks. I saw a flintlock rifle brass mounted that was made there by them I would have put it around 1850.I also saw a iron mounted full stock  by the same hand so they must have made either while in Fincastle. They moved to then southwest Va in around that same time and then you see only half stocks with brass mounts from then on. It must have been what sold.These boys could make a piece of metal stand up and beg  so I think it would have actually been easier for them than casting their own furniture as they did.They made a squirrel rifle that was just unrivaled around the time of the Civil War.I started to have a some sets cast up so folks could build their own  but I never have but would still like to do that.I just can't post a picture. But if some one that could would do so I would email them some pictures of a tack driving half stock with distinct silver mounts, copper stars inlaid into a brass capbox,a silver pinwheel with copper stars inlaid, just stuff I have not seen on other late rifles  1860-1880. Johnny Walker