original halfstock Hawken flintlock conversation etc

[Mattox Forge]

Daryl, do you have more information on those builders? Again, it's an English rifle that appears to predate the Hawken halfstocks. So again, did the Hawkens copy an English pattern?

The photo is Plate XI from the book English Guns and Rifles, by J. N. George.



The info in the book is:
(1) Six-bore Big-game Rifle, by H. W. Mortimer, of London. Circa 1800.  (From the Neal Collection)
(2) Deer Rifle, by John Manton, of London. Circa 1800 (From the Neal Collection)
(3) Deer Rifle, by Twigg, of London. Circa 1780. (From the Neal Collection)

All top shelf London Gunsmiths. They were the trend setters. John Manton apprenticed with John Twigg, and the barrel maker for them was Staudenmayer, who eventually set up shop himself.
https://live.amoskeagauction.com/m/lot-details/index/catalog/25/lot/13620

The one I have is extremely handy and cut along similar lines.

Mike

[JHeath]

Mattox Forge, do you know anything of Wm Chance or W&G Chance of Birmingham? Or know a source book?

I think Manton and Mortimer were fairly high-end, no? Was Wm Chance in their league?

I assume that Manton, Rigby etc were in London because that's where the wealthy bought top-end goods. I have the impression that Birmingham was more "industrial" even then.

[Mattox Forge]

My Nigel Brown books on British gun makers do not list W&G Chance of Birmingham. This means they were most likely a small trade shop. They were by no means on par with Manton, Mortimer, or Twigg.

At the time the Chance rifle was made (ca 1810-1816) the London gun trade was supreme. The Birmingham makers were wholesale parts suppliers in general, with a few firms turning out completed guns. Most of the Birmingham trade supported the Government or export market. There were some Birmingham firms turning out complete guns for retail, but in general, the fashionable went to London to get their guns, and turned their noses up at a Birmingham produced gun. That is not to say that Birmingham makers were not capable of really good work, but it wasn't until about 50 years later that the Birmingham firms came to be on par with the London quality guns. Even then, the bigger Birmingham firms like Hollis, Webley, or Richards, had shops in London, and had their top class guns proofed in London, so they looked "London" built.

John Manton is considered by some to be the premier English gunmaker. His only rivals for that title would be H. W. Mortimer, and John Twigg, who John Manton learned the trade from, and perhaps Joe Manton, John's younger brother.

The flintlock rifle I have by Perry was made by a similar small Birmingham firm between 1806 and 1812. It has a top notch lock and Siddons single set trigger which is the same supplier that provided the single set used on the Chance rifle. The fit and finish of this rifle is as fine as some of the London made flintlocks by top name makers like Baker and Smith I have from the same period.




Another interesting twist to the tale of English flintlocks in America are the Indian trade guns the British Ordnance purchased and gave to various nations they were trying to negotiate/deal with. These have fore-end /ramrod entry pipes that are much more American styled than the typical English type.

Mike

[JHeath]

Mattox Forge -- fascinating. Thanks!

The W&G Chance halfstock at the top of this thread looks similar to a Manton, or a Bates. Same/similar trigger guard, two wedges, stepped forend tip, left side escutcheon screw, short bbl. Would it be fair to guess that Chance copied Manton on what, for Chance, seems a relatively higher-end product?

Unlikely I'm guessing that Manton copied Chance.

The biggest difference I see between the Mantons and Bates vs Chance and Hawken is the crescent buttplate. I don't see that on practically any English rifles. Is it possible that the Chance/Tortuga was made specifically for export to the US, so they used a crescent plate? We know that W&G Chance supplied the American fur trade, and this one ended up in CA for auction.

Looking at the English rifles I would almost think Hawken was buying their trigger guards from England, although the Hawken guards are made for double sets. 

With a crescent plate, this Manton could be mistaken for the unicorn "flint halfstock Hawken."

The other is a Bates.

[T.C.Albert]

What caliber are the English trade rifles pictured? I see notes about length and rifling but am missing the bore size if its mentioned.
Thank you,
Tim A.   

[Mattox Forge]

They are .56 caliber (26 bore).

Mike

[T.C.Albert]

Thank you.
Tim A

[Mattox Forge]

Mattox Forge -- fascinating. Thanks!

The W&G Chance halfstock at the top of this thread looks similar to a Manton, or a Bates. Same/similar trigger guard, two wedges, stepped forend tip, left side escutcheon screw, short bbl. Would it be fair to guess that Chance copied Manton on what, for Chance, seems a relatively higher-end product?

Unlikely I'm guessing that Manton copied Chance.

Chance undoubtedly copied Manton, or just followed the general fashion of the times. The trade then was, as it is now, driven by fashion. In the late 1700's and early 1800's the fashion was the half stocked, checkered wrist, scroll guarded, cheek pieced gun. Someone in London, probably Twigg or Mortimer started the trend in the 1780's, and everyone in the industry copied it. It apparently even spread to America. Most likely by way of the early Harpers Ferry master armorer Joseph Perkins, who was an English Master gunsmith by training.

The biggest difference I see between the Mantons and Bates vs Chance and Hawken is the crescent buttplate. I don't see that on practically any English rifles. Is it possible that the Chance/Tortuga was made specifically for export to the US, so they used a crescent plate? We know that W&G Chance supplied the American fur trade, and this one ended up in CA for auction.

Looking at the English rifles I would almost think Hawken was buying their trigger guards from England, although the Hawken guards are made for double sets. 

With a crescent plate, this Manton could be mistaken for the unicorn "flint halfstock Hawken."

The other is a Bates.

My inspection of the photos of the Tortuga Chance rifle indicate to me that the gun was originally a flintlock very much like the Bates, Manton, Mortimer, or Perry flintlocks that various photos have been posted, complete with the flatter English style butt plate and flat round ended Baker rifle style patch box. In other words pretty much identical to the standard English style. At some point it was turned over to a very skilled American gunsmith who was asked to convert it to percussion and change the butt plate and patch box to a more American style, which he skillfully did. That's just my opinion. I base it on the differences in engraving styles and workmanship on the butt plate, and the new hammer, which appears to have incorporated part of the original flint hammer.

Mike

[smylee grouch]

Question? A lot of the latter (percussion era ) English guns when viewed from above show that the lock panels were flaired out in the front as were most Hawken Plains rifles but were those late flint English ( Manton, Mortimer, Twigg ect. ) guns made with that flair ?

[JHeath]

Mike, I really appreciate your take on this and your expertise. I was trained as a historian. I see you are not just just cataloging, but ferreting out and connecting the relationships between builders, markets, design features. That is what interests me and why I am pulling this loose historical thread to see what is connected. I'm now finding the English rifles the most intereresting. Before, I was vaguely aware they had any appreciable rifle building tradition.

The Hawkens didn't pull their design features out of thin air. There are too many similarities and too much resemblance to English rifles to be coincidence. And little resemblance to other American rifles or previous Hawkens. Chance was a vendor to the American Fur Company, this rifle is 1815 - 1820. The first documented St Louis Hawken order that could be half-stocks is 1831 and from the American Fur Company.

Would be interesting to know the history of the Tortuga Chance. Seems entirely possible (but not probable) that the Hawkens did the conversion. If you were AFC in the 1830s, and had recently contracted Hawken to build rifles, they would be a likely place to update your Chance rifle.

Of course, the rifle could have belonged to a New Jersey dentist and been converted in Hackensack in 1859, too.

One distinctive feature is the two barrel wedges. I see them on Manton and Bates, apparently emulated by Wm Chance. Later they appear on the Hawkens.

It seems to be a relatively uncommon feature. Your Perry has one wedge, and the 1803 HF, and practically all the American half-stocks I see, excepting maybe some cut-down full stocks. I'm not all that familiar with them but the OH and Phila rifles I see generally have one wedge.

[Mattox Forge]

Question? A lot of the latter (percussion era ) English guns when viewed from above show that the lock panels were flaired out in the front as were most Hawken Plains rifles but were those late flint English ( Manton, Mortimer, Twigg ect. ) guns made with that flair ?

The angle between the lock flats is a function of the breech thickness. I have some small caliber English percussion rifles with the flats that are actually wider at the rear than they are at the front. The Perry rifle is .47 caliber and has a 15/16 breexh. The flats are pretty much parallel. The larger bore guns tended to have a more pronounced flair. Some of the double guns even had slightlt curved lock plates.
Mike

[smylee grouch]

OK Mike, thanks for that info. I am currently building an English inspired larger bore rifle and will be working on those panels soon so this is a timely subject. Thanks again. 

[JHeath]

Mattox Forge - the Wm Chance stock has a lot of drop. Other English rifles I see have much straighter stocks. Is the W&G Chance rifle an outlier, or within normal for an English stock? Again I'm wondering if they might have been catering to American preferences.

[Mattox Forge]

A lot of English guns were custom fit. Even if they were not, each maker did not use identical stock dimensions for their "rack" production. Each maker also made their own drawings and layouts.

I don't think it's an outlier. It was probably made for a particular customer, or it was possibly heat warped to a new dimension by the American gunsmith who altered it. Here's an example of a gun that was most probably made to a specific customer's dimensions.
https://tortugatrading.com/products/rare-english-flintlock-coach-fowler-by-gulley-london-3154-firearms

Many Americans mail ordered guns from England, preferring an English style gun over the local styles. Those guns were almost always set up with the customer's specific dimensions. In fact the practice was so prevalent that the firearms industry in the US finally got congress to pass tariff legislation on imported English guns. That didn't happen until the late 1800's though after the US industry had grown firms of a size that could command some clout in congress.   

Mike

[JHeath]

Wow, that's a steep drop. Someone must have had an arthritic neck.

This is all great information, thanks!

Can you name a few books that cover this period of English rifles? And possibly touch on their North American trade? I would especially like to dig into Wm Chance/ W&G Chance and their fur trade business, and need a starting point to find more starting points . . .

I am American (Seattle), but recently moved to the Kootenays, a region where the NW Co. expanded past the Hudson Bay Co.  And might have to relocate temporarily to Quebec, the NW Co. base. I don't live in the land of Penn rifles and SMRs, although my family was from TN, AL, AR, TX.

The English rifles are interesting on their own, and the supply of quality flint rifles to Canada for personal use, as opposed to cheap trade muskets, piques my curiosity.

Congratulations, Mike. You started another one on an expensive hobby.

[Mattox Forge]

There's a lot to learn and I am still very much an amateur. Honestly one of the best starter sources of pictures is the internet. However, it's not Google. Go to the auction houses like Amoskeg, Holts, and Rock Island for example, and search their past catalogs. Straight up Google searches on English flintlock rifles turn up a lot of pictures of the Perry flintlock rifle I bought, but sometimes you can find pictures of Mantons, Jovers, Staudenmeyers, and other flint guns. Be sure and study the fowlers too, the architecture was very similar. You will find far more fowler than rifles.
As for books, I haven't really found too many that discuss English civilian flintlock rifles other than in passing. The book British Military Flintlock Rifles is a good reference as it does cover the early development and the trade guns as well as the usual Baker and Pattern 1776 and Ferguson rifles. https://www.amazon.com/British-Military-Flintlock-Rifles-1740-1840/dp/1931464030
There are some hideously expensive books on the W. Keith Niel collection, but they don't yield much information for the cost.
 Google books has some of the books by Hawker and Baker that were written in the early 1800s which are worth a look. No photos of course.
I imagine a lot of English made guns came to the America's in the 1700 and 1800s and became American guns. There are some documented US and Canadian gunsmiths who made guns completely in the English style. One of them was BJ Cooper.
Very fun hobby.
Mike

[JHeath]

Thanks for the leads.

Here a later British rifle used on the plains, with a crescent buttplate added.

http://www.hunting-heritage.com/blog/index.php/2018/11/22/ruxtons-other-rifle/

Re the text, it baffles me how many "rifle people" have no inkling why crescent buttplates exist or how to use them. I've seen countless rock-solid-confident claims, some published by supposed authorities, that crescents were entirely aesthetic, brutal on your shoulder, and definitely *not* intended to be mounted to the arm. You wonder what these people make of scheutzen buttplates.

[Mattox Forge]

That was a good find. I think the same thing happened to the Chance although not as obvious.

Mike

[tecum-tha]

The nice thing is, that the English guns never abandoned the flatter but tplate similar than on fowlers or Jaeger rifles (Baker rifles).
While the US rifles predominantly became smaller in caliber and the butt plates more curved. The same in Germany to a degree in the specialized target stutzen (rifles).
A lot of the Hawkens cannot be fired comfortably from a prone position, but all guns with flatter butt plates can.
My Sharon Hawken (I know that this butt plate is too curved) cannot be fired prone without getting the snot kicked out of you collar bone, and this is only a .50 cal.
No problem with my Jaeger rifles. Most chunk guns have a very flat butt plate, too, because you fire from a prone position.

One problem I see with the English guns in a hard mountain man use is the patent breeches. These were most likely not as easy to maintain as a flint breech and a forged to the barrel drum.
Maybe the Hawken brothers got famous for making a very reliable gun,too?

[Mattox Forge]

I've never had a problem cleaning them. I just pull the barrel out and set the breech in a can of soapy water and punch the bore. The crud in the breech gets blown out by the water flow. It would work in a mountain stream just as well I imagine. Even if you are just patching the barrel, I haven't had a problem getting the chamber clean in a patent breech.
Anyhow, not all of them had patent breeches. A lot had plain hooked breeches. The Perry I have does not have a patent breech, just a lined touch hole. Nearly all of the decent quality English guns used wedges and hooked breeches for ease of cleaning.

Mike

[JHeath]

That was a good find. I think the same thing happened to the Chance although not as obvious.

Mike

I read the piece on the Ruxton rifle and wondered why British visitors to the West modified their rifle stocks for crescent buttplates. Usually crescent buttplates are for offhand shooting, but why modify rifles they could already shoot offhand? It is no more challenging in the West than in Europe.

Stuff like this keeps me awake at night.

Finally dawned on me they wanted crescent buttplates for mounted buffalo hunting. British visitors to the West were excited by the method of a hunting group charging on horseback into a bison herd, riding alongside a bison and shooting. I'vre read accounts of it. I think Palliser was one.

A right-handed person on horseback would naturally shoot to a bison at his left. The rifle would be bouncing and difficult to control. A flat buttplate would be no help because in that position you have almost no shoulder pocket. But a crescent buttplate hooked on your right arm would be a big help.

The Ruxton rifle description says the buttplate change is seen on other examples.

[Hungry Horse]

 The Hawken Rifle as we know it is generally (in the early versions)a heavily stocked rifle with a percussion lock, and English furniture. Although very early flint versions may have existed, no flint version currently exists. I think the Hawken Rifle derives its styling from a combination of The early English sporting rifle, and the Harpers Ferry 1803.
 Also since almost all these gentlemens guns used locks from other makers it is quite possible that they lacked the knowledge to produce a reliable flintlock, and imported first quality flintlocks were expensive.

  Hungry Horse

[rich pierce]

That was a good find. I think the same thing happened to the Chance although not as obvious.

Mike

I read the piece on the Ruxton rifle and wondered why British visitors to the West modified their rifle stocks for crescent buttplates. Usually crescent buttplates are for offhand shooting, but why modify rifles they could already shoot offhand? It is no more challenging in the West than in Europe.

Stuff like this keeps me awake at night.

Finally dawned on me they wanted crescent buttplates for mounted buffalo hunting. British visitors to the West were excited by the method of a hunting group charging on horseback into a bison herd, riding alongside a bison and shooting. I'vre read accounts of it. I think Palliser was one.

A right-handed person on horseback would naturally shoot to a bison at his left. The rifle would be bouncing and difficult to control. A flat buttplate would be no help because in that position you have almost no shoulder pocket. But a crescent buttplate hooked on your right arm would be a big help.

The Ruxton rifle description says the buttplate change is seen on other examples.

I’d rather use a NW gun than an 11 pound rifle with double set triggers when running buffalo. Imagin trying to reload. Not trying to be argumentative; just saying crescent buttplates were in vogue and few makers deviated from them in the 1830s-1850s. Trying to reason why they suddenly became “necessary” or helpful is an exercise of the imagination.

[JHeath]

I’d rather use a NW gun than an 11 pound rifle with double set triggers when running buffalo. Imagin trying to reload. Not trying to be argumentative; just saying crescent buttplates were in vogue and few makers deviated from them in the 1830s-1850s. Trying to reason why they suddenly became “necessary” or helpful is an exercise of the imagination.
[/quote]

The question was why two British rifles were converted to crescent plates. One was an expensive london rifle owned by Ruxton. According to the auction description, Brit visitors were intrigued by our crescent plates. Why? What use was happening in the US that was not happening in England?

Well for one, buffalo running. I think it was Palliser who said the trick while racing on a horse alongside buffalo was to carry roundballs in your mouth; dispense a random handful powder from a stash in your pocket; and not use a patch. Just spit a ball down the barrel, keep the muzzle up until the moment of shooting, and the spit will help hold the ball in place for an instant while you tip the rifle down and let fly.

I do not have a horse or buffalo so have not tried this. But Palliser fed an expedition doing it.

Set trigger not an issue if you use the front trigger only.

Impossible to know if a question about the evolution of rifle features is answerable if you do not try to find out.

I'm fascinated by the intense research on some minor curlicue embellishment appearing on two masters and one apprentice's rifles in a 20 year period in one PA county, while a radically different functional development like a crescent plate, appearing everywhere and virtually dictating how the rifle can be used, goes practically unquestioned.

[Mattox Forge]

The converter may not have been British. An American, who liked what he was used to, i.e. cresent shaped butt plates, could have come across an older English flintlock and taken it around to have it converted to percussion ignition and had a cresent butt added at the same time. I wish we could inject the rifle with truth syrum and interrogate it.

Mike