Thoughts or clues are appreciated:
I have been going through some hand me down rifles (literally every rifle in a family that hunted the PA woods since America asked the last King to leave). One Long rifle, looks to be 45-55 caliber. It has a full stock and an octagon barrel. The top flat on the barrel between the lock and the rear site is marked "J. Lord." The percussion lock itself is marked "Henry Parker Warranted" and has a scene with what looks like two pheasants or birds in a field behind the hammer and scroll work on the lock and hammer. It is perfectly fitted and fully functional. On the other side of the lock is a small brass plate that appears to say "WL Hemphill ... maybe followed by NY in smaller font." It has brass hardware but the brass is not ornate. There is no patch box. The butt is a slightly exaggerated crescent with a longer "hook" at the top than the bottom (there is the brass butt plate that wraps about 1/4 of the way up the stock top and bottom). The stock has what looks like a cheek pad (its carved out of the wood) It has two horizontal cuts running the length of the check pad. I would describe the stock as on the thin side (not thick like the stock on my old and well worn Brown Bess - a hand me down from the Connecticut Yankee side). The wood is dark brown probably plain walnut.
The second long rifle looks older and is much more ornate. Its a bit longer than the first rifle. It has an ornate brass patch box and engraved hardware. The wood looks like maple with a lot of grain, light in color. Almost tiger maple. It is a full stock with a brass nose cap. The butt is not a shot gun style but not really a crescent either. Size wise the stock is light or thin not wide like the Brown Bess. It has a brass butt plate. The percussion lock is ill fitted to the hole (clearly a replacement) and is marked J, Baker. It is fully functional. The barrel is octagon. I suspect this is the oldest of the group and was originally a flint lock. It too looks to be 45-55 caliber (the rim on a 44 mag shell is the bore size).
The last percussion gun is a smooth bore, looks larger than a 12 gauge. Its has tiger maple wood. The butt is basically straight and fairly thick, not like the other two, more Brown Bess. It is a half stock. The barrel is round. It looks to be the youngest of the three. The percussion lock is well fitted and fully functional. It has ornate brass hard ware but no patch box. Everything is engraved, not super ornate but sort of well done. Almost woodland or floral designs. Even the screws have lines radiating from the center like a sun burst. The lock is engraved but has no marks. The only mark is in the center of the top of the barrel half an inch from the stock. It looks like a flag or sort of like a map of Texas. Clearly it is stamped in as a mark, just hard to describe.
