Southern mountain rifle small parts

[AZshot]

As I was taking these pictures of the small parts on the Tennessee rifle I recently got, I suddenly saw something that I had been missing.  Helps in dating, but just that part, not the whole rifle.  Do you see it? 

[msellers]

That is an ingenious use for the ramrod end. Good solid brass with little fitting required. I like it, the rest of the rifle is great also.
Mike

[AZshot]

We have a winner!  Yes, and I believe that headstamp was used from 1911-1934.  Nicely threaded, it came with a jag.  I better go inspect the jag closer too....

[Panzerschwein]

I like the witness marks (or maybe staking?) on the sights, too.

Very clever use of the spent case. Another example of the blurred lines between the “old” and “modern” eras of the American muzzle loading rifle.

[WESTbury]

American ingenuity and adaptation at its best.

Now everybody will have to get out their magnifying glass and spend the evening inspecting the brass tips of all of the ramrods they have.

[AZshot]

I smiled when I spotted the lettering and figured out it was a .22 Hornet case.  It tells me the rifle was used for a long, long time, the round didn't come out until 1930. And the headstamp was used until perhaps the late 1930s.    The ramrod tip (or rod) obviously isn't original to when the actual rifle was made, but was needed and someone created this tip generations after the rifle.

[Daryl]

I am still using brass with that exact head-stamp in my Hornet.
I did not think it was that old.