Original SMR gun?

[Cades Cove Fiddler]

  ... Great find, Dave,.... not a flintlock, and not signed by a desireable old Tennessee gunsmith, ... just a plain mountain hog rifle,... THIS is the kind I like to see,... !!! ... I still think East Tennessee,... those modifications only make her more interesting,... You know that many old mountain rifles were bored to 58cal at the Knoxville and Asheville armory and used in the War of Southern rebellion,..? ... maybe one of those,..?? ... also, the Garland family name is common in upper East TN,.. there is one famous rifle signed "B. BEAN for E. GARLAND",...Congrats .... you've got a keeper... regards,... CCF...

[Dave B]

I have a question for those who have expeirence with fore stock repairs. I have done several over the years with minor cracks but not any substantial repairs. To the point, repairs to thin forestocks using linnen as a stuctural backing. I have heard about and was curious if that is still an acceptable why to stabilize a cracking forestock? It has been something I have come across on couple originals. As you can see I have several cracks in the forestock that need to be addressed at some level. My most worrisome is the edge crack that I in a moment of not being careful snagged and extended the crack further.







I was surprised to find the ramrod channel exposed for its entire length in the forestock.

[JBJ]

Wonderful SMR! As a youngster growing up in East TN, this type of plain, hardworking rifles were the norm (never saw anything but caplocks). It truly reflects the ingenuity of the Appalachian mountain gunsmiths to utilize what was at hand. That rear sight is a dandy! Perhaps out of ignorance, we called ALL of these rifles "hog rifles" regardless of weight or caliber.
J.B.

[RobertS]

The more I look, the more I like it!  Thanks for sharing it, as its this kind of stuff that makes this website like no other. I'm leaning toward "Garland" as the engraved name but may be over-squinting. Poking around here I found a reference to a Briggs Garland in Fannin County, GA and there is a rifle in the Atlanta History Center that is attributed to him, though it is a poor-boy style and I can't find any pictures of it that are clear enough to make any reasonable comparisons.

[rich pierce]

Outstanding rear sight. I want to make one of those!

If you use fabric in your forestock repair I can send you a piece of silk left over from making my do-rag, neckerchief, all-round piece of cloth from my kit. Very strong and thinner than linen of similar strength. I’ve got linen of varying thickness too. Just postage needed.

[Dave B]

There is a wear pattern on the bottom flat of the barrel from the ramrods use. I used some tite bond glue and my bicycle inner tube to bind it all together having wrapped the barrel with surane wrap. It seems to have worked well. I tired to wipe off the excess glue before the final binding and only had a couple area of squeeze out glue to clean up.

Rich thanks for the offer. I have both silk and thin linen. I am still of the opinion that your freshioning skills should not be ignored and am torn as to which project to send for your attention. I will be pulling the breach plug on this bad boy this weekend to see what we have. You might be getting a closer view of that sight. I did make a new sight for the one missing up front. My son and I had did some cuttle fish silver casting and I took one of the failed jobs and cut out a front blade and mounted it in a brass plate. I was wondering as I set it in place if I should have used Iron or copper to be more Pc for this type of rifle. Given its late nature I figured brass was not a deal breaker.

[AZshot]

Nice to see another TN rifle.  I think it's great how in the Appalachians they just kept making what they knew, a lot longer than the rest of the country.  Back woods was a good thing, to me. 

The transition part of the stock where the ramrod goes in looks a lot like my TN rifle.