I love these barn guns. A friend has a Bedford style barn gun that has a big square nail in the heal of the butt, instead of a buttplate. It has only a single ramrod pipe out at the muzzle. And literally no triggerguard. The hand forged trigger contours the wrist of the stock, and the turns downward at the end with a curl. It’s maple stock has enough curl to make it interesting, and the finish is superb. It gets stares everywhere he takes it.
The prettiest barn gun I every handled was a Lehigh style stock that had been precarved, but had some of everything wrong with it. It had a bark inclusion in the butt section, and a knot in the forearm, and some really ugly mineral streaks as well. The guy decided to build it anyway. The hardware is all either hand forged, or made from nonessential parts. The triggerguard is made from an old wrought iron chain link, that locks into the trigger plate ahead of the trigger with a key action that locks it down when it is put in and rotated a quarter turn. The rear finial is drawn out and secured with a screw. The buttplate return was amber cow horn, with a jacked leather buttplate. The bark inclusion became a tallow box covered with another piece of the amber cow horn with a wrapped sheet iron hinge. But the finish is what set it off. He gave it enough coats of Aquafortis to turn it jet black. He then turned it over to his wife that does period tole painting. She painted it up, and when done he gently rubbed it back a little, so the wood looked like wood, and the tole painted surface looked old and worn, then covered it with a couple coats of sealer. Wow it’s gorgeous, and just folksy enough. He’s turned down some real money for it a couple of times.
Hungry Horse
