Scottish Long Gun by Gulielmus Smith

Here are some photos of one of my Scottish long guns made by my friend Gulielmus. This is the first one I acquired and is a gun which was made in Inverness around 1670 but brought to the New World by its owner. Some time around 1710 the stock was worn out and the ramrod thimbles lost or damaged so it was carried to Charles Town in the colony of South Carolina to be refurbished by a gun stocker who was trained in the French style of stock making. A new stock was made of straight grain maple which received a coat of black paint as was customary at the time. Everything which could be re-used was. A new butt plate was installed. The lock was converted from a snaphaunce to flintlock by welding a pan cover to the bottom of the battery. The various now unnecessary holes in the lock plate were filled and the gun started a new life. It has a 42 inch Green Mountain .50 caliber barrel. The lock, with the exception of the internal workings, was all made by GS. The guts are Siler, making for easy repair or replacement. A nice subtle antiquing was done to all metal parts. My apologies for the busy background and less than perfect quality of the likensses. I will try to do better. Comments or questions are welcom.

Hi
Thank you for posting , it is a beautiful rifle . the attention to detail is absolutely astounding .

Best regards

Agreed top self

:shake: That is good :thumbsup:

Now THAT'S a cool gun!!! Love the dark stain/paint and the butt plate with square nails.
Wonderful idea with the lock conversion. Rick. :thumbsup:

Looking good. I trust it's serving you well. I recently ran across a painting of a Scottsman titled "Lord Mungo Murray" by John Wright circa 1680. In it he's holding what at first glance appears to be an early French style long gun. Unfortunately, the lock is facing towards his leg. But very clearly you can see the battery of a snaphaunce and its upper jaw works. Is this Lord Mungo's old national style snaphaunce re-stocked in the most current fashion? It would be most proper to show off his newly reworked piece in his portrait. I think so. It's almost identical to your rifle, except the trigger guard. Yours has a 1600-1620s guard fit onto a later piece. It seems the Scotts stopped using them after that point in time. Lord Mungos has an English/French guard in brass. The original gun probably had no guard. When restocked a new current style guard was added. I also found a few lines in the book "Firearms in Colonial America" by M.L. Brown, page 137. He makes note of many Scottish firearms being brought to the colonies and notes Stuarts Town a Scottish settlement. They probably brought some of their fluted snaphaunce long guns and pistols with them. These in all likelyhood, would have been repaired and restocked to keep them serviceable. GS

Gulielmus Smith said:

Looking good. I trust it's serving you well. I recently ran across a painting of a Scottsman titled "Lord Mungo Murray" by John Wright circa 1680. In it he's holding what at first glance appears to be an early French style long gun. Unfortunately, the lock is facing towards his leg. But very clearly you can see the battery of a snaphaunce and its upper jaw works. Is this Lord Mungo's old national style snaphaunce re-stocked in the most current fashion? It would be most proper to show off his newly reworked piece in his portrait. I think so. It's almost identical to your rifle, except the trigger guard. Yours has a 1600-1620s guard fit onto a later piece. It seems the Scotts stopped using them after that point in time. Lord Mungos has an English/French guard in brass. The original gun probably had no guard. When restocked a new current style guard was added. I also found a few lines in the book "Firearms in Colonial America" by M.L. Brown, page 137. He makes note of many Scottish firearms being brought to the colonies and notes Stuarts Town a Scottish settlement. They probably brought some of their fluted snaphaunce long guns and pistols with them. These in all likelyhood, would have been repaired and restocked to keep them serviceable. GS

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Always great to hear from you and I learn something new from your research every time. I am familiar with Lord Mungo's portrait, which is one of two which depict what appear to be Scottish National long guns. The other is a portrait of the Laird of Grant's champion, Alisdair Grant (I believe) from about 1715. A long gun is standing upright in the background. It has the distinctive butt stock and ball trigger without trigger guard. The painting has occasionally been mistaken for one of Rob Roy Macgregor but the subject is wielding a basket hilt with a curved blade and Rob was not known for using that type of sword. Also, the provenance of the painting places it in the Grant household. Fascinating stuff.

Very nice. Is this strictly a Scottish style, or does it have other influences? Does anyone else see a strong overall resemblance to later Colonial/American rifles? I don't know what school it may be closest to, but it looks familiar.

You (or someone) mentioned the Scots brought over their own guns. How come I never read about Scottish weapons influencing long rifle development? Is it something everyone missed? It only takes one small seed to grow a tree.

Just wondering.

John

My friend GS, who made the gun, can answer your questions better than I and I am sure he will respond. This particular gun is intended to be a Scottish gun that was restocked a number of years after it was made and brought to the Carolinas. The style of the stock is French rather than Scottish. GS has replied regarding the import of these guns to America. IMHO any influence on American gun making by the presence of Scottish guns on the continent was vastly overshadowed by the German gun makers who developed the Pennsylvania Rifle. Scotland, as supported by the extreme scarcity of Scottish-made long guns from the 17th and 18th centuries, at least in the "Scottish National Style", simply did not have a large enough gun making industry to be influential in any major way.

Thought you might want to see a couple of original, highly ornate Scottish pieces, photographed at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh by my friend, Thomas MacDonald. The close up shows the signature of Gulielmus Smith quite clearly. The gun, though not dated, probably was made in the 1670s. I am not sure that the other gun was made by him but suspect that it was. The Royal museum has four of his pieces and I would expect them to be displayed together. Two of them came from the Earl of Seafield's collection (Grant) which had the largest number of Scottish National long guns of any armory in Scotland - 13 - at the time they went to the museum. We do not know how many may have been there in the past which were destroyed, used up or otherwise disposed of.

These guns are of astonishing beauty. I hardly have words for them.

BillinOregon said:

These guns are of astonishing beauty. I hardly have words for them.

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I completely agree. Most of the Scottish gun makers did outstanding work - all of the surviving pieces are not this nice - but who knows what may have been made and lost. It is a pity that so few survive although as I stated above, it is unlikely that very many of these guns were produced. Scotland, being an extremely poor nation during most of its history, simply could not support a large gun making industry and long guns were especially expensive.

Being of Scotish heritage, McCreary { McRory }which is a branch of the MacDonald clan, I am ashamed to admit I was unaware of such pieces or even the existance of Scotish gunmakers. I see some research in my future...

Now you are aware. It is a very interesting study to pursue.

MacRob46 said:

Now you are aware. It is a very interesting study to pursue.

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:thumbsup: