Circa of this rifle

[dano63]

I just inherited this rifle and know very little about it. Can anyone help me out? Any information would be appreciated.

[mr. no gold]

What a great piece of primitive American ingenuity! Looks to be a 'parts' gun made by someone who knew what he was doing. Trigger guard is ex-military paired up with a third tier Ashmore lock, Any name on the barrel by any chance? Also, photos of the other side would help a lot in making any educated guesses as to who, where and when it was made. You are fortunate to have received it and it sounds like it is a family treasure. Thank you for posting the photos. These guns are always a pleasure to see.
Dick

[dano63]

I haven’t found any other markings on it yet.

[RAT]

Rule #1... always check to see if it's loaded. A LOT of old guns have been sitting around for many years with stuff in the barrel. Since it's cocked and the frizzen is closed, treat it like a modern gun that's cocked with a live round in the chamber. A group from our guild visited the back room gun collection at the state museum back in 2017. After I mentioned this to the technician he checked all the guns in storage. Five were loaded.

To check, take a cleaning rod that's as long as the barrel. Slide it down the bore til it stops. Mark the rod at the muzzle with a piece of masking tape. Pull out the rod and lay it along side the barrel with the tape even with the muzzle. The end of the rod should be be about 1/2" ahead of where the end of the barrel meets the tang. If it's more that 1/2"... it's loaded. If that's the case, find someone experienced with muzzleloaders to help you pull the load.

[geologyjohn]

Bob (“Rat”), As a kid in the 1960’s I road my bike to to a local antique store to see if they had any blackpowder firearms or Civil War relics for sale. I was in luck. In the corner, there was a Civil War vintage .54 caliber Austrian Lorenz rifle musket for sale. While checking it out, I ran the ramrod down the barrel.  It stopped about an inch short of the breach plug. I notified the proprietor that her rifle musket (RM) might be loaded. She asked me to unload it.  I explained that I could not do that with the tools at hand (and in fact, I probably didn’t own a “tool” more elaborate than a Barlow knife). She called the local police and asked them to come out and unload the rifle musket.  She was told “We don’t provide that service”. After a few moments to digest this information, she asked me if I would buy the RM for the price that she paid for it, which was $75.00, if I remember correctly.  I told her I did not have $75.00.  Remember, I was just a penniless kid out for a ride on his bike.  She said “No problem, you can make payments and take it home when you pay it off.”  A lot of mowed lawns later I took it home.  I took a coat piece of coat hanger wire, or the like, and ran it down the barrel as a worm and extracted the “load”. It was one inch of old newspaper and rotted rubber bands.  Now doubt rammed down the barrel by some kid years earlier.  50 plus years later, it has been my experience that those old load muzzleloader contain all kinds of junk more often than a round ball and powder.  Anyone else have a similar experience? 
John.

[Tanselman]

I've had a couple rifles where a piece of wood an inch or two long and round, a snug fit, was rammed down the barrel to cover the flash hole and effectively "kill" the rifle.

Shelby Gallien

[mr. no gold]

I found an N. Beyer rifle that had a similar accumulation in the breech. Turned out to be a wasp nest made of mud that had been deposited there decades before. I just left it there for someone else to enthuse over.
Dick

[tooguns]

A true working man's gun! Thanks for sharing!

[Levy]

When I worked for the State of Florida as a conservator, at least half of all the cannons that I worked on were loaded.  One was loaded with a cannon ball and a barshot.  One swivel gun was loaded with a ball and a handful of smaller shot.  Another swivel gun was loaded with about 30 large round shot.  Some of the guns that came in from State Parks were loaded.  One of them was a Vogler rifle.  Many archaeologically recovered firearms were found loaded, which might be expected.  Many firearms have been recovered from Florida's rivers.  James Levy
   

[RAT]

We had one a few years ago with a centerfire cartridge case stuck about half way down. It was empty, fired, brass... primer up. My guess is that someone used it as a powder measure, accidentally dropped it down the bore, and it got stuck. They couldn't figure out how to get it out, so they left it like that.  I didn't hear back after it got extracted. There may, or may not, have been powder. Imagine if they were playing with the lock/triggers and the powder ignited... with a brass case stuck halfway down the bore. In this case the breech plug would have to be removed to push the case out with a rod.

Now I'm remembering all those old cannons at city parks growing up back east.

[Top Jaw]

I’d put your gun in the 1820-1840 range as a restock of parts. 

[Daryl]

I found an N. Beyer rifle that had a similar accumulation in the breech. Turned out to be a wasp nest made of mud that had been deposited there decades before. I just left it there for someone else to enthuse over.
Dick

Wasp nests, happens often I feel, in the East where the Mud Dauber's live. We had those in the barn back in Southern Ontario - nasty sting.
Mud Dauber's mud 'nest' on top of a load would also "likely" be common.

[dano63]

I’d put your gun in the 1820-1840 range as a restock of parts.

Thank you, it belonged to my great grandad who was born in 1894. I am sure it was handed down to him.

[JHeath]

Civil War battlefield pickups sometimes had multiple loads, one atop the other, from panicked soldiers. A placard at Springfield Armory Museum said, iirc, that one rifle-musket retrieved on the Gettysburg field had 21 loads stacked in the barrel.

[smokinbuck]

Bought a 61 or 63, Springfield don't remember which, years ago at a garage sale and found it was loaded. Asked the seller if he had loaded it with the answer being no. He had bought it 35 years before and just stood it by the fireplace. I removed the charge and when I put a match to it it still burned.