General discussion > Antique Gun Collecting
Spring Release Buttons on Iron Mounted, Banana Patchbox Rifles
rsells:
Tanselman,
I have an unsigned classic designed TN original that has a latch which is made similar to tack with a head forged on it with a ramp an slight lip formed on the front side to push the spring back and hold the lid when it drops below the lip. I have copied this design a few times building TN rifles. Nice rifle you have.
Roger Sells
Chris_B:
Here is the release button of my Alfred Duncan, TN, rifle.
It is the usual type you describe so I don’t know if it helps,
but thought it might not hurt to post it anyhow ;)
Hungry Horse:
Shelby, I don’t have a gun, or patchbox with that kind of a release, but I do have a buttplate, lock, and set of triggers, that are very much like those on your rifle. The buttplate is very nicely done, and if I’m not mistaken like the one on your rifle has no flat surfaces just beautifully formed curves. My buttplate has three screws securing it. May I ask if the triggers on your gun are screwed in place, or simply captured in their mortise by the triggerguard? Mine have no screw holes.
Hungry Horse
Tanselman:
My rifle's butt plate is iron, beautifully formed, with the traditional facets of a brass butt plate filed on its top return. It has the typical small rivet at the heel connecting the return with the larger shoulder plate, and another typical small rivet at the toe connecting the shoulder plate with the toe plate. The butt plate is mounted with the traditional two screws, one in the top heel, and one about 2/3 the way down the shoulder plate. This rifle has a number of uncommon details for a TN rifle, including all ramrod pipes filed with facets and rings on the end like typical brass ramrod pipes. The trigger plate is held in place to the rear by the guard, and to the front by the tang bolt that threads into it, and a little bit by the guard.
Another fascinating detail is that the rifle is completely surrounded in iron, by which I mean the comb has a long iron inlay that tapers to the front to meet the tang that runs up over the comb, the toe plate has a smaller extension that runs down to meet the guard's rear extension, and the forearm has a wear plate that runs out to meet the rear ramrod pipe... making an iron "path" completely around the rifle. There is some simple but nice file work decoration on the iron surfaces that run around the rifle, at the edges where one piece of iron meets the next. And the iron banana box has a hard-to-see hashed border, and rays engraved around the screw head in the finial. It's just a really neat, iron mounted rifle that is yet to be placed.
I have not been able to attribute this rifle, and cannot find a similar gun in any of Jerry Noble's paperback books on southern guns. The guard looks like one from an Elisha Bull rifle to me, but it's not his work, and the cheekpiece is significantly different. There was a Bull gunsmith, trained at Bulls Gap, TN, who moved to Knox Co., KY in 1808 and worked until the 1830s, using a number of Bull family details from Bulls Gap guns. Now I'm wondering if this just might possibly be one of his guns, since it has the pointed side facings of his and other work in that area of southeastern KY, along with swamped barrel and faceted pipes with the rear pipe being a traditional style similar to brass rear pipes. Before you Tennessee guys jump on me... it's just a thought, not a fact.
Shelby Gallien
Hungry Horse:
Shelby I obviously was not seeing what I thought I was. My buttplate has no facets, and is not riveted at the junction of the buttplate and comb. It in fact has no mechanical part joining the comb to the actual buttplate. It is formed in one continuous piece filed narrow at the intersection of the two pieces, where it is then folded over and brazed up tight. The set triggers are held into the stock by the triggerguard with no threads or rivets. My triggers are quite short, but look like they were made quite a bit longer, and then shortened to fit into the guard, they have a peppercorn adjustment screw between them. They are single phase double set. The lock that came with these parts is a percussion Golcher of the better sort, having a half cock notch, a bridle, and a fly.
Hungry Horse
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