Possible trade gun relic

[Sam B]

I just picked up this older stock it seems to have some decent age on it. Picked it up mostly to have around the shop as a cool little piece of history. Let me know what you all think about the piece.
It has a thin two piece brass sheet metal nailed on for a buttplate. Looks like a missing English style entry pipe at one point? Breech is large 1 1/4 -1 3/8.
Trigger guard is iron with a nail holding it on the back.

[rich pierce]

Cool.  How long is the lock inlet?  Looks like a colonial gun to me.  Can you tell or give a good guess on what wood it's stocked with?

[Sam B]

It’s just shy of 6 inches. I had a kibler colonial and sat it in the mortise the kibler is a hair longer but the overall profile of the lock matches pretty well. Here are some other photos. Any idea on the triggerguard finial design?

[backsplash75]

Neat stock! Lack of a sideplate is not necessarily a 19th c thing, the ventral screw from the TG to the tang is an early feature that fossilized in trade guns (as is the slot vs trigger plate). Generally speaking trading guns coming here had a 3 screw lock and light 20 ga barrels. Buttplates on those are also slim. I think it is a great naive American restocking with lots of charm, hard to nail down if it was a trading gun without the missing bits.

I have a similar gun (Ex Dresslar, lock is a recon). Very light, rear sight, funky American tg and nailed on sheet brass buttplate with sheet brass wrist repair.

[rich pierce]

To me a lot depends on the stock wood. Trade guns weren’t really being made here much pre-1800 as far as I know. So if stocked in cherry or American walnut or maple it was likely stocked or restocked here. The guard isn’t a prototypical trade gun guard. It could have been forged here. For similar looking gun look at Of Sorts for Provincials by Jim Mullins, pages 73-76. That gun I’d called an American composite gun 1750-1770 and utilized a very old Dutch lock, a forged iron guard, and no buttplate. I’m finishing a gun based on that one now. Robert Wolfe https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=58700.0 and Ken Gahagan have built guns  inspired by that one from Jim Mullins’ book. I think a lot of composite guns were made in the pre-War and Rev War years, and probably after.

[Sam B]

The wood I’m fairly certain is walnut. And thank you I was thinking the same thing on the “composite” Fowler. And that is a sweet profile on the Fowler backsplash75. Thanks for the input. I’m excited that it could be 18th century. I don’t own any fully intact antique Longrifle yet(hopefully one day) but these broken stocks and remnants are fun to think about its origin and potential history that’s it’s experienced or taken part in.

[Robert Wolfe]

I'm with Rich and others in calling it a composite or parts gun rather than a trade gun. Interesting relic! Thanks for posting it.