A question of style...

[JV Puleo]

Gentlemen,

The three pictures below were recently sent to me by a colleague in a batch of photos for one of my ongoing research projects. I have some ideas about the possible origin of the rifle (which is unusual) but rather than prejudice the suggestions, I'd like to ask folks who have much more knowledge of regional features what they think. This isn't a quiz and I'm not trying to  embarrass or trip anyone up. It wouldn't surprise me to find that it has no identifiable regional features. In any case, the barrel is .55 caliber, 32" long, secured by three wedges passing through silver diamond shaped inlays in the forend. There is no indication it has been shortened.

Joe Puleo

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I don't have a clue.... but that is a very pleasing gun to look at!!

[The other DWS]

pretty nice looking,  I don't have a clue what it is.  I'd like to see more of it.  barrel straight, what size,  what does the loch look like, that kind of stuff.

[Mike Brooks]

I'd say North Carolina based on the buttplate and stock architecture.

[Tanselman]

Looks like the barrel is shortened at least 10 inches, and maybe more. This gun might be identifiable if we can see more details. Can you provide additional pictures of: 1) the full tang area, 2) the toe plate, 3) a closer shot of the engraving on the patchbox borders around the lid, 4) closer shot of cheekpiece inlay, and 4) the rear ramrod pipe?  Shelby Gallien

[Fullstock longrifle]

The patchbox, with the key hole upper finial, reminds me of something from Western Pennsylvania.

Frank

[Mike R]

Looks like the barrel is shortened at least 10 inches, and maybe more. This gun might be identifiable if we can see more details. Can you provide additional pictures of: 1) the full tang area, 2) the toe plate, 3) a closer shot of the engraving on the patchbox borders around the lid, 4) closer shot of cheekpiece inlay, and 4) the rear ramrod pipe?  Shelby Gallien

I agree, the 32" bbl plus the position of the rear sight would indicate it has been cut-off from the breech end--or is that a peep sight?.

[mbriggs]

No North Carolina School used that style Patchbox as a rule. I have not seen a North Carolina rifle with a Patchbox release button in the toe plate. I also have not seen any North Carolina Longrifles with a single trigger.

Photos of the barrel tang and forestock are very helpful to identifying where a rifle came from.

I think the rifle is very attractive and I like the look of it.  I doubt that it is from North Carolina but have been known to be wrong on occasion.  (Smile)

Michael Briggs    

[The other DWS]

is the trigger-guard characteristic of anything particular?   it looks quite graceful with some nice detail but then has that rather stark straight "spike" at the end.

[JV Puleo]

I'm going to try to process a few more of the pictures. The rifle is in a public collection and has been for many years, although not on display. I'm trying to get some more information on the man who assembled the collection and the approximate dates so that when I fill in the rest of the story I'll have as much data as possible.

Joe Puleo

[JV Puleo]

Here are two more pictures... It also appears to have an iron ramrod, something I didn't notice before. I'm still convinced that the barrel is probably the original length and, as far as I can tell from these pictures, it does appear to have a peep sight.

[Majorjoel]

I see English proof marks on the barrel. Interesting! Did the English try copying later period rifles like they did during the time of the Revolution??

[lexington1]

I'm certainly no expert, but the patchbox and general styling does look like Western Pa. The barrel with its patent breech is very similar to the English 1776 pattern rifles. They are not exactly the same, of coarse, as the barrel is a bit longer and of reduced caliber. Also the tang of the patent breech is a bit longer and pointed.  But it does have British proofs and the rear sight is quite similar. The 1776 rifle barrel also was held in place by keys. What does the ramrod look like? Did the barrel ever have screws near the muzzle for a swivel ramrod carrier?

[Fullstock longrifle]

I agree that the barrel has been shortened, and I'm not sure why the barrel has English proofs, but I feel certain that the rifle was made in Western Pennsylvania.  I also think it was most likely made by Henry Wolf or someone associated with him.

It's unfortunate that the barrel has been shortened, but it still a nice rifle that has good architecture and is pleasing to the eye.

Frank

[Robert Wolfe]

If the barrel has been cut away so much at the breech wouldn't the proof marks have been lost?

[The other DWS]

other than it is an overall short barrel for the bore diameter, and the short eye-relief on the sight is there anything else that indicates that the barrel has been shortened?    If the sight is indeed drilled for a peep it would be located closer to the breech anyway, right? and adding or 10 inches to the breech end of the barrel would put the proof marks a lot farther away from the breech than normal--I think.

It looks to me like a real handy, little bigger-bore, almost-carbine with a peep sight that would be ideal for hunting deer and eastern black bear in brush and woods.  i'd be real proud if it were mine.  bet it'd be a fun one to recreate and hunt with

[JV Puleo]

OK... The rifle is at Tatton Park in Cheshire, England. It is part of the extremely extensive collection put together by a member the Egerton family, the last of which died in 1958. I am still trying to find out when the rifle entered the collection. I'm not even certain which Lord Egerton acquired it... but, at the moment, I strongly suspect that it has never been out of the UK. The lock is marked W. Ketland & Co. The marks on the barrel are Tower private proof marks (i.e. proof done by the Tower for private makers) and likely pre-date 1808 (at least current thinking by Dr. DeWitt Bailey suggests that the practice ended around this time) although the business name, W. Ketland & Co. appears to have been used at least until 1816. The short barrel, iron ramrod, hook breech and Tower proofs all point to an English-made product. I also have definitive proof that the the Philadelphia Ketlands (brothers of William Ketland but not the same company) were importing "rifle barrel guns" in wholesale quantities as early as 1797 so we have to accept that Birmingham-made rifles were available in America before 1800 in sufficient quantity that they were offered "by the package only"!

I suspect that the lack of an identifiable "regional" look is because it isn't American at all, or rather was made elsewhere for the American market utilizing what appeared to be American features, something like modern Italian-made repros that don't follow any known style.

Joe Puleo

[Fullstock longrifle]

I seem to recall that other American made rifles have been found in England that were taken there as souvenirs, and then worked over by an English gunsmith. I suppose that was done to bring them up to the English standards of the time.  Not saying that this is the case here, but it could be.

Just a thought.

Frank

[lexington1]

That would make sense to me. The gun definately looks like a typical Western Penna. rifle. Possibly it was rebarreled and the stock shortened in Britain? Not Rev. War period, of coarse, but later. Who knows how it ended up there, but there are quite a few longrifles found in British collections. I bought a nice New England rifle made by John Jennison (probably made in the 1820's) from a collector in the UK several years ago, so these things have been going back and forth for quite a while.

[JV Puleo]

I rather doubt there was much rebuilding of American rifles going on in Britain. In fact, the demand for rifles (actually for all sporting guns, but especially rifles) in Britain was almost zero outside the landed gentry - the only people who owned enough land, and had hunting rights to it, to make use of them. At the risk of offending everyone, the standard of gunmaking expected by this class of British buyer virtually precludes the work of any American maker. I've never seen an American made rifle, at least not until well into the percussion period, that would have been given a second look by anyone who owned a deer park.

Yes, some excellent rifles have come out of Britain, including a least one of the best Hawkens known - because it was purchased by a wealthy sportsman touring the west, taken home and never used again. The same can be said for some rifles brought back from the Revolution and probably the War of 1812 but the overwhelming evidence is that virtually all the trade was from Britain to the US, not the other way around. Prior to the Civil War, rifles are the only firearms product where American-made (or at least assembled) examples predominated, but even then its hard to imagine that the B'ham trade, which controlled virtually all the business in smoothbores, wouldn't have produced some rifles as well. Besides, as I've said, we have documentary proof of rifles being exported to America but none of their being imported to Britain except as curiosities and war souvenirs.

[The other DWS]

"I also have definitive proof that the the Philadelphia Ketlands (brothers of William Ketland but not the same company) were importing "rifle barrel guns" in wholesale quantities as early as 1797 so we have to accept that Birmingham-made rifles were available in America before 1800 in sufficient quantity that they were offered "by the package only"!

I suspect that the lack of an identifiable "regional" look is because it isn't American at all, or rather was made elsewhere for the American market utilizing what appeared to be American features, something like modern Italian-made repros that don't follow any known style."

This sounds quite reasonable as an explanation,  however my usually foggy logic asks me why, if these cute little critters were imported in "package" lots why have we not seen more of them?

[lexington1]

I don't mean to sound totally ignorant, but just playing the devils advocate. Why would anyone here want an import of a copy of a longrifle with a short barrel and steel rod? I could understand why before the Revolution, when Britain was trying to monopolize trade but it doesn't make sense after. I can totally understand why British mass produced barrels, locks, etc. would be used, but not a totally manufactured short longrifle patterned after a Western Pa. style. 

[The other DWS]

one thing to consider is that GB was a world-wide empire and had markets in the rough and frontier areas of almost all the continents.  I could easily see a short handy medium bore rifle of a well proven American design being attractive to some markets in africa or asia for medium-sized non-dangerous game. It'd be real interesting to know if there are any other markings under the barrel.

Speculation: Could it be a prototype or a one-off sample for a rifle for non-north american use that never caught on?  It sounds like it must date from the midst of the Napoleonic War era when the English gun industry probably had a lot on its plate with military production.

[Fullstock longrifle]

This is an interesting conversation, so a good exchange of ideas and opinions are in order.

The one thing I have learned during my many years of collecting is that there are very few absolutes when it comes to antique guns, especially longrifles.  I agree that there wasn't much rebuilding of American Longrifles in Britain, but it did happen.  An excellent example is the John Thomas rifle pictured and discussed in George Shumway's Rifles of Colonial America Volume II on page 526.  Granted, this is a much earlier gun, but who's to say guns weren't brought back after the War of 1812?

I've been wrong many times in the past (just ask my wife  ) but I agree with Lexington1 that this rifle could have been re-barreled in England, that would explain the English proofs and the shorter barrel.

Also, look on page 157 of Dr. Whisker's book "Arms Makers of Western Pennsylvania"  and compare this rifle with that of Wolf.  You can also look at pictures of Thomas Allison rifles on pages 82 and 83 of the same book and see the similarities of the upper patchbox finials.  

One last point.  If this was an English version of an American gun, why go to the extent of using curly maple wood?  Other English rifles used walnut, wouldn't that be more practical for them?

I suppose we will have to agree to disagree about this, but that's what makes life, and politics, interesting.

Frank  

[JV Puleo]

Curley maple, and birds eye maple, enjoyed a degree of popularity in England from the late 1780s through about 1820. If you can find a copy of the catalog, look at the rifles in the Metropolitian Museum exhibit of the Clay Bedford collection of English firearms.

Besides, the purpose was to make something to sell to Americans, not Englishmen. By the turn of the century (if not the middle of the 18th century) most of the walnut used in England was probably American in the first place - in fact one of the first things the Ketlands did in America was to purchase thousands of acres of walnut forest. I'd be curious to know if Pennsylvania restricted land purchases to citizens at the time, as this may have had something to do with their naturalizing as US citizens.

As to British made rifles for the American market, I don't think that many were made. There may only have been a 100 or less - after all, at 20 to the case, that would still be 5 cases and its more likely they were only 10 or a dozen to the case. The Ketlands were wholesale merchants, not gunmakers in the American sense, so just about everything they sold was in quantity.

I suspect that the potential customers were just as happy, if not more so, with the locally-made product. Of course, depending on what they look like today, they could just as easily be accepted as cut-down American products. I have seen what may have been others. In fact, I've known about them from the documentary side for years but they are very elusive to identify, partly because no one is looking for them. I particularly like this one because of its un-British use of a flamboyant American-style patchbox and butt design but I have seen others that are thicker, heavier and a good deal more clunky.

Some high quality English rifles were likely also imported but these would have been indistinguishable from the home product so, short of a slam-dunk provenance, we'd have no idea where they were used. I know of an excellent P. Bond (gold touchole, flashpan etc.) single barrel fowler that was the personal property of a prominent NE rifle maker though we'd have no way of know this were it not still in his family.


JVP