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Chopped Flintlocks. How early?

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Trade guns got shorter for a fact. I just did not know when and why. I’m trying to get my facts straight about the matter. I’m not trying to change things. However, it seems some want to change the fact that it happened eventually. This is a simple conversation about the fact of the matter. I appreciate those of you who are being helpful.
There is a huge world of difference between those that were cut down in the barrel for whatever reason and those that came over as 36” and the occasional 30” barreled versions. What cut downs did happen it wasn’t a highly common thing. In fact I think I’ve have more images of original English trade muskets with modified butt stocks than chopped barrels.
 
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Trade guns got shorter for a fact. I just did not know when and why. I’m trying to get my facts straight about the matter. I’m not trying to change things. However, it seems some want to change the fact that it happened eventually. This is a simple conversation about the fact of the matter. I appreciate those of you who are being helpful.
Often a reason bespoke is because of horse mounted Indians used shorter guns, so as the trade moved west and horseback was more seen with the tribes there was a move to shorter.
I’m not convinced by this one. Long hunter and other easterners were often mounted but enjoyed thier long guns.
And we see a general shorting of guns east and in Europe at the same time.
Eighteenth century powder could be very effective, but by the nineteenth century powder was more uniform and equal.
We know by modren testing that extra barrel length doesn’t add much to gun performance and by the 1750s ballistic pendulums had well established how velocities worked
Makes one wonder
 
There is a huge world of difference between those that were cut down in the barrel for whatever reason and those that came over as 36” and the occasional “30 barreled versions. What cut downs did happen it wasn’t a highly common thing. In fact I think I’ve have more images of original English trade muskets with modified butt stocks than chopped

There is a huge world of difference between those that were cut down in the barrel for whatever reason and those that came over as 36” and the occasional “30 barreled versions. What cut downs did happen it wasn’t a highly common thing. In fact I think I’ve have more images of original English trade muskets with modified butt stocks than chopped barrels.
So the "Chief Gun" trade gun came out later around 1830?
 
Often a reason bespoke is because of horse mounted Indians used shorter guns, so as the trade moved west and horseback was more seen with the tribes there was a move to shorter.
I’m not convinced by this one. Long hunter and other easterners were often mounted but enjoyed thier long guns.
And we see a general shorting of guns east and in Europe at the same time.
Eighteenth century powder could be very effective, but by the nineteenth century powder was more uniform and equal.
We know by modren testing that extra barrel length doesn’t add much to gun performance and by the 1750s ballistic pendulums had well established how velocities worked
Makes one wonder
Yes, there were advances in powder continuously going on both here and in Europe, but gun barrels in the east, outside of military rifles, didn’t start shortening until the percussion era. Eastern woodland Indians were largely foot mobile and often enough preferred the longer guns. And whether horse culture Indians influenced the barrel lengths we may never know for certain, it does seem the closer we pushed towards the Mississippi River, the shorter the trade guns became.
 
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Someone mentioned earlier that shorter lengths came out about then? To your knowledge when did the 30" and 36" rade guns come out?
IIRC, the English had shorter barrels, at least down to 36” fairly early, it’s just they we usually the minority compared to the 42” and up lengths until about 1800 +/- a decade. I’m thinking 30” started showing up occasionally around about that time as well.
 
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IIRC, the English had shorter barrels, at least down to 36” fairly early, it’s just they we usually the minority compared to the 42” and up lengths until about 1800 +/- a decade. I’m thinking 30” started showing up occasionally around about that time as well.
Are you talking about specifically smoothbores or flintlocks in general?
 
In the 1680 to 1700 period, English trade guns were ordered for the Hudson Bay company with 54 and 60 barrels. They were ordered increasingly shorter for the next 100 years but it was a long process. By 1800 42 to 36 barrels eere becoming more common. By 1830 barrels 36 to 30 were more common.
i have never understood why everyone todsy is so hot to document short trade guns. They were quite rare in the 1700s.
There are some great books out there documenting all of this in detail year by year. You should go buy them.
 
Becau
In the 1680 to 1700 period, English trade guns were ordered for the Hudson Bay company with 54 and 60 barrels. They were ordered increasingly shorter for the next 100 years but it was a long process. By 1800 42 to 36 barrels eere becoming more common. By 1830 barrels 36 to 30 were more common.
i have never understood why everyone todsy is so hot to document short trade guns. They were quite rare in the 1700s.
There are some great books out there documenting all of this in detail year by year. You should go buy them.
So many people are used to short modren guns, and until one gets used to longer it feels unwieldy,
Added to the fact that out side of a longer sighting radis long serves no purpose
So some one is drawn to old guns but would like it to be ‘handier’
Just cosmetics
 
So what were Canoe guns? A short barreled gun! What about a Baker rifle? Seems short to me. Then there were Jagers that were fairly short IMHO. I always say, never say never !
 
Trade guns got shorter for a fact. I just did not know when and why. I’m trying to get my facts straight about the matter. I’m not trying to change things. However, it seems some want to change the fact that it happened eventually. This is a simple conversation about the fact of the matter. I appreciate those of you who are being helpful.
I think usually can find all sort of different styles including short barrels if you look hard enough. It is whether they were common or the exception? I can imagine some one ruining the end of the barrel on their firearm,and cutting it off because rhat is all they could do to make it usable. Then They found out th a t it actually still shot well? Who knows for certain?
 
So what were Canoe guns? A short barreled gun! What about a Baker rifle? Seems short to me. Then there were Jagers that were fairly short IMHO. I always say, never say never !
Canoe guns are a modern fantasy. No guns were built for canoes in the 18th century. The conversation was about trade guns, not jeagers or post 1800 british military rifles.
 
There is a big difference between the average length of manufactured guns getting longer then shorter over time and people "cutting down" or "chopping" and existing gun.
I agree, but it seems to me that since none of us were alive 250 years ago etc . I do not understand how some people can be so adamant that there were no "short" barreled trade guns or otherwise? Is it impossible to think that someone experimented with making one shorter for ease of handling, a small statured person etc? Just because we do not have reams of documentation, does not mean to me (IMHO) that it did not happen.:dunno:
 
So what were Canoe guns? A short barreled gun! What about a Baker rifle? Seems short to me. Then there were Jagers that were fairly short IMHO. I always say, never say never !
As said ‘canoe guns’ don’t seem to have an historic analog nor do we read about such guns being made.
Central European rifles were generally short, and across Europe and America we see a general shorting of guns after 1800.
We can never say never, Indians were known to be very picky about what they bought, and picked up lots of skills.
There is no reason why a Great Lakes Indian could not have modified a gun about 1700 or after. However traders had to be responsive to needs, competition was fierce
Should there have been Indians making or having modified for them short guns, you can bet some trader would have been offering pre shorten guns. And we just don’t see that.
In early colonial America the French, English, Dutch and for a short time Swedes offered long barrel guns. Not just for trade but also civilian use.
Early eighteenth century would see some rifles and they seem to have been built like European rifles and short. But the buyers seem to have wanted longer, and that’s what smiths turned out.
I THINK this is because the buyers were used to long guns and wanted that
Maybe they thought the guns shot harder or were more accurate, but I THINK style drove the trade
Trade guns get short at the same time as civilian guns got short
Maybe a coincidence, but I think style.
Injun Joe saw Dog Face Pete with a short rifle about 1820, and Dog Face Lou and then Dog Face Jim and said he wanted short too.
HBC writes home say he needs short guns cause that’s what’s selling
American fur says Boys we had better catch up here, so the contractors back east bought from Belgium or made them selves short trade guns
 
I agree, but it seems to me that since none of us were alive 250 years ago etc . I do not understand how some people can be so adamant that there were no "short" barreled trade guns or otherwise? Is it impossible to think that someone experimented with making one shorter for ease of handling, a small statured person etc? Just because we do not have reams of documentation, does not mean to me (IMHO) that it did not happen.:dunno:
STOP! There are reams of documentation!
 
I agree, but it seems to me that since none of us were alive 250 years ago etc . I do not understand how some people can be so adamant that there were no "short" barreled trade guns or otherwise? Is it impossible to think that someone experimented with making one shorter for ease of handling, a small statured person etc? Just because we do not have reams of documentation, does not mean to me (IMHO) that it did not happen.:dunno:
Documentation is our only nail to hang on. I notice that a lot of inventions just seem to show up. I THINK bullet boards and short starters were in use long before documented, and been known to use them, will argue all day by the campfire over their use….. but if in an historic setting I don’t use them as they can’t be proved
The earliest reference I’ve seen to patched ball in a smoothbore is 1847, and talked about as if regular practice, I bet it goes back a long time. I hunt with PRB but in an historic setting I don’t use it, and after shooting bare and patched ball I’m leaning toward it not really helping, but makes me feel better in the deer woods
Unless we have a patent date we can’t say x is too early, 99.99999% of life went on undocumented
However part of the sport is stepping in to the past. You may not want to play dress up to shoot your gun, that’s ok.
Your gun doesn’t care if your in blue jeans
However shooting an old gun in the way that type of gun is known to have been shot adds so much to the enjoyment
 
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