Military use is hard on guns. Having taken a private firearm to war once upon a time I can tell you that 9+ months with the infantry will put 4-5 years of “civilian” wear on a pistol.
Based on one of my nearly identical carry guns today.
And I DO understand at some level the aging thing. Especially if the rifle is not used much and someone want a little wear to make it look like they actually used it for something besides a prop. But there is a BIG difference between used and beat up. And a gun with 5-10 years use is not going to look like its 200 years old.
So far as the Cumberland Gap thing. Sorry I cannot show an original with 10-20 years of use. What about the Haymaker rifle? It’s owner was killed on a survey expedition in 1775 Kentucky IIRC. It was brought back and then used by the family or an employee hunting for who know how many years, or how often. Then who knows, isn’t the lock a replacement? This hints that it may have been a plaything at some time or some fool wanted to make it “safe”. Its still in pretty good shape. What did it look like when the original owner died? We do not know. All we see is the rifle 250 years after the fact. This is a long time for an firearm. Its not how it looked in 1775 or even 1800.
I can also tell you that a lot of rifles got used up on the frontier. You can see this in survivors of the 19th C in the West. I knew of a 1890s design brass suppository rifle kept hanging in the tack room of a barn. Not a good atmosphere. I have a brass suppository rifle belonging to my Dad that is pretty rough. But it was over 30+ mostly “off grid” years in AK and much of that as a homesteader and trapper along the upper Copper River much of it in what is now Wrangle-Mt St Alias NP, which they could not stop him trapping there after it was established since it was “subsistence”.
The William Antes Swivel is in pretty rough shape. But I have also been told that it was, at one time, in the hands of some hack to “preserve” it and did damage to the gun and even lost parts. So how much of the condition is from use, later abuse, someone fiddling with it in 1876 or the hack we do not really know.
I have no idea how long this rifle was in use. 50 years maybe longer.
http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2013/09/rifle-and-hunting-pouch-carried-by.htmlAND you have no idea how a rifle looked after 10 years of use. Since ALL of them are well over 100 years old, some well over 200. Rifles were very expensive and were not “throw aways” like the various trade guns were.
But not all owners were as careful as others were.
I have examined 19th c rifles with a LOT of wear (astounding would be a good word) in the bore from PP bullets and still in pretty good shape. You will find others showing less or almost no wear to the bore but pitted and were pretty rough outside. Horses and horse drawn wagons are realy hard on rifles and shotguns and most of the “saddle wear” is really wagon wear. I have spent time in “occupied Gbear habitate” as they say on the signs now with a 50 or 54 cal ML for as much as 20 days at stretch. Horseback, sometimes my horses sometimes my employers. On foot hunting or leading/following hunters (clients) around. I can quarter an elk with an axe and something to drive it. And pack it on horses. I have handfished trout for supper, shot grouse with a FL pistol or rifle for supper other times. With the horse back stuff, falls in the snow now and then, I have only broken one wrist when I was a kid 16 or so, from being a kid. I did have one split down the grain at the lock bolt don’t really know why but it did. But it was used horse back some.
We are easier on guns than life was 150-250 years ago, true. But we have original guns that still look pretty much as they did in service to look at. Mostly stuff captured during the Revolution or maybe 1812 and taken back as trophys. Some, unfortunately were reworked in England. And those not “fixed’ may have been handled a lot after they were trophys.
Blackening the finish as some do is not representative of what the rifle would have looked like if it was used in Kentucky in the 18th c and probably the 19th. The blackening of the remaining finish, if its oil based, as I have stated before is industrial revolution stuff when lots of coal was being used for industry and home heating. IIRC its the sulfur dioxide. So blackening the finish will make a rifle/gun look as it would in maybe 1860-1890-1960. Not what it looked like in 1800. So this is fantasy. But then thats what aging is. Many years ago I read of some Kentuckians in the 1960s or 70s tipping a canoe and losing rifles in a small river or creek and when retrieved a day or two later, they were badly pitted. Apparently the mud was corrosive. Can’t remember who this happened too. Travel by boat or canoe can be hard on guns as well. So there are variables. Horses are notorious for messed up guns even if you don’t fall off with it. If you have it in a “rifle loop” on a saddle horn it will stay on the horse after you are bucked off. Yeah….
Most of what I have stated here can be confirmed with a little study.
Unfortunately we have very little documentation on ML rifles of the 18th and 19th c. Who used them and for what, for how long…
I do know that in the later Western Fur Trade era a man going to some post as a clerk was advised about a gun among other things, told not to have a varnish finish on his stock but a “grease” finish that was less reflective. I have an idea what this might be but it would be pure guesswork. And it was more important where a reflection could be seen at 5 miles than in the East where visibility was limited.
Finally we have the survivor thing. Lots and lots of rifles/guns of the ML era were used up. We have the Haymaker Kentucky and a few others that something is known about. Then Carson and Bridger Hawkens and I think the Modena rifle as well. These IMO are guns these men owned late in their careers. We have not the slightest idea what Bridger used in the MTN man heyday, since the S Hawken dates to probably 1850ish. I don’t think I have ever seen or seen a photo of the J&S Hawken that that I thought was pre-1832 or so. Most that we see are 1840s-1850s or ever later. They HAD to make flintlocks into the 1830s for the Western trade but we see none. So a lot of rifles and guns simply got used up, lost in a river, burnt in a cabin/house fire, traded to someone who used the barrel for a crow bar, a story from the CA gold fields, true? Could be especially after the advent of the self-contained cartridge. A wounded owner holed up in a hollow tree or cave and died. A trade gun (I was told) and skeleton was found in a “cave” within 10-15 miles of where I live.
We have early looking Kentuckys that were converted to percussion in the 1830s-40s. After 50-70 years maybe? And other than corrosion from cap flash look pretty decent. But what were they used for over maybe a 60 or 100 year life span? I think Dillon and/or maybe Cline were buying rifles one flintlock at least IIRC that were still in use, and not by re-enactors, in the early 20th c.
There is no pat answer to any of this, but there are things done to age guns that are not consistent with actual use but rather to make them look like a rifle did after it had been in a closet or hung on a wall for 50 or 100 years after 50-100 years of use.
Finally I have to admit that some simply don’t get to use their guns much. I don’t as much anymore. But I outgrew running around the back country for days or weeks at a time I guess. And I have a powder horn I made in 68 and used for years and years. It does not look “aged” either.. Wonder why? But it you know what to look for year it looks old enough for Social Security. And it is retired now and is probably duller than it would if I was using it.
I was working on the Guild Newletter. I guess I should get to work on that before my wife gets me back on the remodel….
