Thoughts about a horn for an 1803 Harpers Ferry rifle

[Mark Elliott]

I have had a client approach me about making a horn for a US issued rifleman's outfit for an 1803 Harper's Ferry rifle.      Neither one of us really know what this would have looked like.   Any information would be appreciated.    My assumption is that it would be a mass produced horn probably with a simple turned base plug and a simple turned tip, but I really don't know.

Thanks,

Mark 

[Tim Crosby]

 Did you see this?

  http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=49843.msg494249#msg494249

 You would think there would be an original documented survivor but I have never seen one. Unless I didn't know what I was looking at and that is highly possible.

   Tim

[Tim Crosby]

 Don't know how honest this is but if you look at this poster and enlarge it look at the horn, it looks a lot like David's.

  Tim

https://www.harpersferryhistory.org/product/lewis-photo-poster

[Mark Elliott]

Thanks Tim.

[heinz]

Mark, I would be careful about ruling out a special batch of horns for the expedition versus "mass produced"  Mass production then was not what it is now.  Their robots were 12 years old apprentices :-)  Also almost everything for the expedition was special order or custom.  Merriweather Lewis was a personal friend of Jefferson and Jefferson was vested in the expedition succeeding. 

[Mark Elliott]

This outfit is not to be for the Lewis & Clark expedition.   It is to be a later U.S. issue along the lines of the 1812 rifleman pouch.   

[heinz]

I had not thought of it that way. Was there a standard pattern bag used for the 1792 contract rifles?  The military is very conservative about changing. Military accoutrements are a mystery to me unless it is 1917 to 1918 :-)

[David Rase]

I had not thought of it that way. Was there a standard pattern bag used for the 1792 contract rifles?  The military is very conservative about changing. Military accoutrements are a mystery to me unless it is 1917 to 1918 :-)

From what I have read, the standard riflemen's bag was  the same up till 1841.
Dave