Buttplates left off

[New2this]

How common was it for a rifle to not have a buttplate added on? I ask because in theory, it seems like such an important piece, but I have seen examples which look as though they were never inletted/drilled for one to begin with.
Are there certain regions/types which were especially known for this? I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the subject. I can't seem to find too much from my books.

Thank You

[bountyhunter]

A number of Southern Mountain rifles, Early East Tennessee rifles and those called Poor Boys were known to not have buttplates.  They had hand forged triggers and trigger guards, and may or may not have had rod pipes and no nose caps, but they had the finest locks that could be boughten.

[Mike R]

Personally I like a buttplate on my rifles/guns, but some southern mountain rifles and some PA 'barn guns' did not have them.  Even today some otherwise fine double shotguns made in Europe are without a buttplate--just checkered wood. 

[Don Getz]

New2......you will never, or rarely ever, see a what we now call a "barn" gun in any of the gun books now available.   They just were never collectable item.   In the earlier days of collecting, many of these plain guns were merely avoided or discarded  as of no interest.   I have never seen the Kindig collection but am willing to bet that you will find very few in it.
The early collectors were looking for fancy guns.   No one knows how many plain guns may have been made but I am sure it must have been considerable.............Don

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

FWIW, my  40 year old SC  squirrel rifle has a heel plate and  a toe plate both similar to an old-fashioned steel shoe heel plate you could self-install on your shoe. After long but reasonably careful,  use the top of the unprotected heel for an inch and a half down the comb is  worn and scarred from being in the dirt, etc. while loading. The toe  is ok. 

I think the  old makers knew that happened  too, and  that so-called barn rifles were in fact simply a  man's rifle used and kept everywhere handy to be ready for use: behing the kitchen door. It is just hard for me to think a common general smallholder in outlying or even more settled rural areas would not have a buttplate of some kind even if it cost a few pennies more.   

Along these lines, the indians may have removed a buttplate for  other reasons, but probably few were sold that way.   Now that's my opinion and I like it.  Lon

[Dan'l 1946]

New2......you will never, or rarely ever, see a what we now call a "barn" gun in any of the gun books now available.   They just were never collectable item.   In the earlier days of collecting, many of these plain guns were merely avoided or discarded  as of no interest.   I have never seen the Kindig collection but am willing to bet that you will find very few in it.
The early collectors were looking for fancy guns.   No one knows how many plain guns may have been made but I am sure it must have been considerable.............Don

  It's a shame that more of these simple rifles haven't turned up. If folk art is truly the art of the folk or common people, then a rich part of our history may well have been lost or at least marginalised. Perhaps, as their significance is realised, more of them will come to light.  Dan

[Curt J]

I have three Midwestern rifles, all made here in Illinois, that were made without buttplates. Two are by Samuel Smith, who started out in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, then worked in Ohio, before coming to Astoria, Illinois just before 1850.  There is nothing crude about either of them, both are well fitted and have nice architecture. One is incise-carved and has a bit of engraving. The other has a beautiful hand-forged iron trigger guard. Both are maple fullstocks. I have two other rifles by Smith, that have brass buttplates. One has a full patchbox.  I think that what the customer wanted to pay, determined what was or wasn't on these rifles.

The third one is by John Daniel, a gunsmith/blacksmith who's family came to Mason County, Illinois from Tennessee during the 1830's, when he was still a boy. That one is a very graceful, iron mounted, walnut fullstock, which does have a heel plate and a toe plate.

I also owned an Iowa-made "chunk gun" for a number of years, that was made without a buttplate. It weighed 25 lbs. and was a fullstock, stocked in red elm. The maker was Michael Zerbe, who had apprenticed in Pennsylvania before moving to Cedar County, Iowa, during the 1850's.

[jwh1947]

Some locals refer to the plain guns of the Blue Mountains as "Schimmels."  This is a local term, and entirely a superfluous misnomer, but, none-the-less, they are referred to as such.  No butt plate, normally a tinny, hokey trigger guard, and no adornment.  I call them hog guns as my grandaddy used to dispatch the Easter dinner with one.  Many poorer folks just wanted a gun with no extras, and there were most likely many more of them than there were the fancy ones.  Don Getz is correct, and I'd bet that most were simply worn out and the remains used as a tomato stake, or whatever. 

[Nate McKenzie]

I had a rifle display at a heritage day event a few weeks ago. An Amish family was there and when I explained about the schimmel, they told me the word meant            " moldy" like maybe the guns were moldy from being in the barn?

[jwh1947]

In the 19th century, there was a Mr. Schimmel, reportedly an itinerant vagabond around Carlisle, who did wood carvings for glasses of beer.  Today if you had a half dozen you could put an addition on your house.  The rifles never took the value jump. 

[smshea]

Ive heard the term used around here to refer to Mold or even a a moldy or mildewy place such as a cellar of damp basement of out building.

 I saw a display of those Schimmel carvings at the folk art museum at Williamsburg a few years back....very neat.... you never know what might become collectable?

As for the guns , I really cant say that Ive seen any Pa. guns that were not from east of Lebanon that were this plain. Certainly not that there couldn't be, In fact I ask this more as a question to wayne who would certainly know. Have you seen many Lancaster /Lebanon or Dauphin Co. guns that you  would  say are that plain?

[jwh1947]

No, I associate them, as you do, with the territory east of us...what you and I might see as the "hex sign" area.  Lots of Pa-German farmers, inherently frugal and utilitarian, hard Protestant ethic, no glitter; they just wanted something to get the job done.  Dixon has, or had a bunch of these that came from the local area, and he would be in the heartland of the area I am imagining.  JWH

[New2this]

You're correct... As someone who speaks English and German, schimmel means literally "mold". I imagine that as guns were left in barns and such places the mold would appear. This may have led to some Pennsylvania Dutch folks to call it a schimmel. Quite interesting. 

[jwh1947]

New2this.  Would "moldy" then be "verschimmelt"?  Perhaps they should have named them "hasslich." That would make more sense than "mold."

[New2this]

Jwh-
Its with all the variations that the PA Dutch put on the German language, its probable that schimmel held any number of meanings. Verschimmelt would be correct in the case of describing the gun. But they may have just used the generic term for mold as a whole. All of this is just my assumption.
I'd be very interested to know the earliest usage of schimmel in reference to these guns. Its hard to imagine that if a farmer was existing with a single gun to rely upon that he would leave it to rot in his barn. My modern perception would be that these guns would be more so cared for, as they were so important for existence.

[Kermit]

My Swiss grandfather used "schimmel" as a name for a gray horse. Sometimes a white that wasn't quite white. I always thought of a shimmel (gun) as something that lived in the barn, and worked for it's keep.

[jwh1947]

My point exactly. 

[northmn]

I think we forget to realte to recent times also.  Look at the large number of break open single shot shotguns used as barn guns as well as 22's.  There was a gun shop in Hutchinson when I worked in the area that had piles of these used guns for sale.  My father used to carry a 22 on his tractor to shoot ground squirrels, fox or whatever varmit he could see.  Sometimes a cottontail. I keep an iold 12 ga singleshot handy on my tractor when I put up firewood.  My point is that they wanted something that could take a licking and keep on ticking as Timex used to say.  ML's for farm use would have been for roughly the same reasons.  Guns of opportunity, not so much for hunting.

DP

[Mike R]

I think we forget to realte to recent times also.  Look at the large number of break open single shot shotguns used as barn guns as well as 22's.  There was a gun shop in Hutchinson when I worked in the area that had piles of these used guns for sale.  My father used to carry a 22 on his tractor to shoot ground squirrels, fox or whatever varmit he could see.  Sometimes a cottontail. I keep an iold 12 ga singleshot handy on my tractor when I put up firewood.  My point is that they wanted something that could take a licking and keep on ticking as Timex used to say.  ML's for farm use would have been for roughly the same reasons.  Guns of opportunity, not so much for hunting.

DP

Good point, I have two "barn guns"--an old single shot .22 and a single shot .410 that I keep handy on our rural place, and I'll wager these two cheap guns have slain more game and varmints than all of my other fancier guns combined!