The story: In early 2017 I was contacted by a professor from a small Texas college who was inquiring about having his "family rifle" restored and a shooting contemporary copy made also. He explained that his earliest ancestor who immigrated to America was from France and had settled in the Bedford, PA area. His relative was a hunter and ranger who patrolled the trails and paths looking for signs of enemy activity. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the relative joined many others to become a member of Thompson's riflemen. He served at the siege of Boston, survived his war service, and returned to the Bedford area. The rifle that he used was passed down through the generations, and its history was noted. The rifle, a Jaeger which I believe shows French influence, suffered the ravages of time and service. It was broken at the wrist, and a crude frontier repair was made. The forend was broken or shortened; the triggerguard was broken and some parts lost. The gun was converted to percussion and shortened about an 1" from the breech.
The client asked that the restoration put everything back as it likely was at Revolutionary War time with the exception of the wrist repair, which was to be kept in place. He also asked that I make a bench copy of the original without the wrist repair which he could shoot and hunt with. After the restoration of the original was completed, I received notification that the client had suffered a stroke and had significant motor loss on the left side. This negated shooting and hunting, so the copy was cancelled. The original was returned, and the box of parts, barrel and stock were set aside.
Fast forward to 2021, and I now had an opportunity to deal with some old projects. In the beginning of April I started the copy. Being a fairly unadorned Jaeger of what I believe to be French origin, the build was fairly straightforward. The buttplate was a challenge, but a Brown Bess buttplate had enough material to make a reasonable copy of the original. The triggerguard is a much modified commercially available one. The front latching butt trap lid was a bit of a challenge, but was accomplished. The original barrel was about 33" long, 50 cal. 1" at the breech and muzzle. The Davis Jaeger lock is a close match for the original. The whole package weighs just under 7lbs., a real ridge runner rifle. Here is a look at the copy:
Now for the poll -- do I put a faux wrist repair on the copy or not? I have two students taking opposite views on this, so what say you? Wrist repair or not?
