Author Topic: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel  (Read 747 times)

Offline Dietle

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Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« on: July 11, 2024, 04:08:01 PM »
Can anyone tell what musket this barrel is from, based on the markings? It's somewhere around .69 caliber, and is stocked like a Bedford County, Pennsylvania rifle.


Offline Bigmon

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2024, 04:21:50 PM »
Any chance for a few more photos?  Looks interesting?

Offline JV Puleo

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2024, 05:19:15 PM »
Really...this is like trying to assess a painting by looki8ng through a keyhole.
Are there any more markings? What do the mounts look like...etc. without enough enfor4mation you are asking the impossible.

Offline OLUT

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2024, 05:58:02 PM »
I bet this barrel  is a from a civil war era converted Model 1816 musket. Mine has the same stampings in the same spots  (but a different inspector's 2 letter abbreviation) including the tang dating

Offline Seth Isaacson

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2024, 06:05:44 PM »
Given the markings, I would say that is a barrel from a converted Model 1816 musket as OLUT mentioned. There were hundreds of thousands of those muskets made by the national armories plus more by individual contractors.
I am the Lead Historian/Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
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Offline OLUT

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2024, 06:14:31 PM »
It's too hot to work outside, so I just pulled up INSPECTORS'S MARKS in an old Dixie Gun Works catalog. The stamping  "JM " was used by the armory sub inspector Justin Murphy. In the period 1813 through 1833, he inspected guns at Jennings, Pomeroy, Starr, etc, etc, etc, so identifying the original  Model 1816's  gun maker is pretty doubtful.

Offline Dietle

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2024, 03:41:45 PM »
Here is a link to the pictures of the gun, on a web page I'm just beginning to work on: https://korns.org/gunsmiths/shotgun-7112024/shotgun-7112024.html

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2024, 04:36:37 PM »
Odd that it has set triggers.
Andover, Vermont

Offline Hungry Horse

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Re: Bedford style stock with a musket barrel
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2024, 07:57:44 PM »
 I would say this gun was originally built with a small caliber straight octagon barrel. Because the retro fitting of the musket barrel looks well done, I would say it was gunsmith converted. Many eastern guns were either converted as this one was, or bored out smooth to a larger caliber, for the trip to the Western states.
 I own a similar gun that was a little older, and was converted from flint to percussion. They were oblivious to the fact that such a small caliber gun would have a hard time harvesting enough game to feed a small family on the plains.
 My gun made it to California where it moldered away in a closet, or shed, until Californias dry climate shrunk the stock so much it split the forearm end to end and pulled the brass barrel lugs out of their dovetails.

Hungry Horse