Poorboy style Flintlock

[Donny]

I wuz thinkin... of protecting the wood, not thinking of how it shouldered.. leaving the toe plate off, results in a chip. On my guns, guaranteed. Even on my bottom roundish fowler buttplate. I can imagine the brutal abuse the butt of that type would have received, after just very few years...I suppose if one used hickory or Bois d'Arc, it may never chip, but maple ???? ::

 

[tg]

I load my guns with the butt on my foot, one has no plate and a 42"barrel one has a 44" barrel, no problem, the gun can be tilted quite a bit if one is verticaly impared due to genetics.

 

[Hota]

I don't think you can consider one without the other
period correctness IS historical accuracy.

I disagree, I think from the discussions above it's been shown that if we were reenacting, either a fancy or plain rifle would be exceptable as period correct. However the prevalence of one or the other would be more historically accurate.

 

[scott k]

Left out of this lengthy thread is the idea of post Rev War militia groups and their weekend shoots. Those week end militia shoots served a function similar to our present gun clubs. People running for an elected office would campaign at the militia shoots. Really fancy guns got the attention of the crowd. Fancy guns were ststus symbols at the militia shoots. So during that period there were fancy rifles for the militia weekends and common guns for work.

Another thing about the shimmel is that I thought most of them were smooth bores. Better for shooting rabbits foxes and hogs. PA dutch cook books always seem to have a recipe for hasenpfeffer. There are a lot of places to use a gun on a farm that you might not want to use your good rifle at. Like Putting hogs down in the barn yard for slaughter. :imo:
Lehigh..

 

[BLAHMAN]

I wuz thinkin... of protecting the wood, not thinking of how it shouldered.. leaving the toe plate off, results in a chip. On my guns, guaranteed. Even on my bottom roundish fowler buttplate. I can imagine the brutal abuse the butt of that type would have received, after just very few years...I suppose if one used hickory or Bois d'Arc, it may never chip, but maple ???? ::

If you notice, some rifle makers allow the end of the but plate (by the toe) to extend past the toe by just a smidgen. That kinda prevents the chipping in that area.

 

[Elnathan]

Blahman, I was speaking of pre-Rev pieces. I happen to have a copy of Neumann here, and I don't see any "poor-boys" there. On page 233 he has two without patchboxes. One has a buttplate and a fowler triggerguard, and while the pictures are not very good quality, the gun looks to me like well made piece in fowler-style, which would preclude a patchbox anyway. The other is an extremely plain type, but it also has a square-to-octagon barrel, and is not definitely pre-Rev. Now there are two other pieces on page 234 worth looking at. number 1 is obviously made by an amateur, but one that was intent on making the best gun he could- the thing has the whole set of possible parts, including a toe-plate. In other words, not a "cheap" gun, just an amateur job. It may be a nineteenth century replica! The other one, number 2, is actually a fairly fancy piece with a lousy patchbox, probably a later addition.

Letrs look at two more rifles for a moment. In shumway's Rifles of Colonial America, number 137 is missing the buttplate and entry thimble. However, it has a patchbox and is carved behind and around the cheekpiece. Having said al that, I now notice that Shumway dates it to 1785-1810, making it irrelevant . The second piece is here
http://www.palongrifles.com/home/PicturePages/Pics_white.htm
This is the closest I have found to a poorboy type that can be confidently dated to the revolutionary war or better. Note that it has a buttplate, nosecap (I think) and sideplate, but has only one thimble. I can't tell if it has a greasehole or just a missing lid.

By the way, straight rifling, while rare, is not due to lack of money- there is a very fancy JP Beck piece with straight-rifling, a single-set trigger, and silver mounts.

Anyhow, to conclude, I still don't see much evidence for poorbys earlier then the 1790s, if you define a poorboy as missing at least both the patchbox and the buttplate. The only one that might qualify is the square-barreled piece, which is something of an oddity. I think y'all are getting hung up on the supposed costs- simple carving is not that hard to do, compared with other tasks, and people liked decoration. Even Brown Besses were carved! There are rifles obviously built for use out there that still have carving, patchbox, etc., even those that were evidently made from re-used parts.

 

The problem with paging through the picture books and then concluding that there were few or no plain rifles is two-fold: (1) these books purposely selected only the better looking guns to include according to several people knowledgeable about how they were put together and (2) these books by necessity can only show selections of surviving rifles from known collections. It has been estimated that only a few percent of the early rifles survived to be collected and photo'd--and the survivors are skewed towards the fancy guns. A third factor is the purposeful destruction of thousands of southern guns by Federal forces during the aftermath of the Civil War. The people I know who have researched this topic and who are most intimate with the old guns are my main sources of info. But common sense tells us that most common backwoodsman could not afford the fancier guns and that much of the hardware we consider 'typical' of longrifles is superfluous. Gunsmiths then as today work to the customer's request and price range. When I contact a maker today he gives me a quote on a 'poorboy' and then the list of extras (buttplates, sideplates, entry thimbles, nosecaps, patch boxes, carving, etc.) starts adding up--a lot up! Can't imagine D. Boone (plain Quaker upbringing) asking for fancy brass inlays and the like--but he would want a good shooter!

 

[BLAHMAN]

Elnathan, this is what I mean: I get a call from a guy asking me to make him a rifle, we agree on a set price based upon the material goods needed and the amount of work I am going to do. Extra stuff is extra cost. Mostly, the guy just wants a rifle to hunt with and the one we decide upon has virtually no frills. There is no nosecap (what's the purpose?) two thimbels, simple trigger, a butplate, no toe plate and simple washers supporting the lock bolts. Sometimes I even do away with the buttplate. I have in essence made a "poorboy", it can even be called other things. What I have done is provided the customer with a tool to go hunting with.

What is the difference in what I have done in the present tense to that of others in the period of time after 1756?

I referenced Nueman for the purpose of showing that the rifles illustrated were really not that fancy to begin with. In fact I would personally believe they were made under the influence of an apprentice, in study to somebody else. I would believe that there are better rifles made during and before the revolution, but I am suggesting that for expediance and time, more could have been built as utilitarian.

Now, do I have any proof of this...not one bit....but I hypothosize this based upon what I do in regard to rifles and what I see others do with regard to rifles.

I'll go one step further.....I was lucky enough, two years back, to attend the Detroit Auto show as a guest. There are auto's that are completely custom built to the customers spec's. Trust me, I don't believe you, I or two thousand souls could afford one...but others do. For me, I settle on stock auto's, something I can afford and one that fit's my budget. Kinda sounds familiar to the village smithy who not only manufactured guns, but repaired them, made horseshoes, repaired gate hinges and an entirety of other various needs of the village.

Fundementally, I am thinking these things through. Those souls of yesteryear are not to far from us and it is in that reasoning that I make the statements I make.

As for the barrel with straight rifling....I found that to be fascinating...I wonder how that would shoot. I have never seen (by looking down the barrel) straight rifling. I tried to talk the guy into selling me just the barrel because I would have made a gun out of it just for the purpose of seeing how it shot...that's all.

Thanks for the comments though, I'm sure more are to come.

 

[rich pierce]

Shumway showed some butt-ugly guns in RCA (Rifles of Colonial America) I and II. He made no attempt to bias toward better quality or fancy guns as did Kindig and others who were out to show what was the best. Neumann in general also used a "take all comers to represent what there was" approach. Some "picture books for the coffee table" do represent only the best and finest. Not true of RCA of much of Neumann's work.

As I said before, there are hundreds of plain, simple, muskets and fowlers in books and collections of Revolutionary War guns (used in the war) and plenty of those somehow survived despite being plain, missing the full complement of parts, obviously being made quickly, etc. This argues strongly against the idea that "only fancy guns survived." Many of these plain guns still in collections from the Rev. War were from the South also.

So- why would plain butt-ugly muskets survive in great numbers, but plain or poor-boy rifles from the same period disappear at a much faster rate? Confusing to me. I'm just a fool Yankee though.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Muskets were made in huge numbers and were cared for to a certain standard during their military service. They were repaired and even rebuilt if needed. It's not so surprising that more of them survive than inexpensive and hard used rifles from the same period. And the parts from these cheap rifles were probably recycled into new rifles--perhaps fancier ones that still survive 'til this very day.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

While I doubt that the rifle's maker ever thought of it as a "poor boy", it does have many characteristics of one. I
remember when I first saw the Bill White rifle a few years ago. I was struck by its simplicity and early date--probably
F&I War period. The rifle did not have a butt piece and as the photograph shows, it has no nose cap. It is about as simple as a rifle can be. I believe Bill White has his e-mail address on the web-site and it might be worth contacting him as he may have new information on the rifle. The information on the web-site is a few years old. This one of the oldest plain style rifles that I have been able to find. It is possible that people bought a plain rifle because that was all they could afford, and then added fancy bits when they could afford them. Maybe many of the "poorboys" ceased to exist simply because their owners dressed them up at a later date.

 

[loojack]

Elnathan, I believe the rifle with the square to octagon barrel is available as a print you can get from The Log Cabin Shop. I bought the print some years ago, looking for a print of iron mounted Tennessee poorboys. It is from the collection of George C Neumann and is on page 140 of The History of Weapons of The American Revolution. It says the rifle is circa 1760, And "may have played a part in the battle of King's Mountain" and looks like the inspiriation for several "barn guns" listed for sale by several gun builders. No butt plate, or entry thimble, with a large flintlock, a fowler trigger guard and a cresent cheek piece. The print has a lot of information on it....loojack

 

[rich pierce]

OK, I'll make my last post on the "prevalent early poorboy theory". If earlier poorboys were used for parts on fancier guns at later dates they would show evidence of early parts (barrels and locks). It is easy to determine when barrels were made by their profiles. Almost all octoagon barrels used before the Revolutionary War were swamped in profile. That went out of phase by 1790 or so. After that barrels tended to be tapered or straight but not swamped. Locks have characteristics that allow relative dating as well.

Any rifle made from old parts* (*that must have come from a plainer gun or a poor-boy)at a leter date with nice decoration and all the features would have a barrel with an early profile or an early lock or both. But even if there are plenty of those around, there would be no way of determining whether the parts came from a plain or fancy gun.

Furthermore, it is not clear that anyone in 1800 getting a new FANCY gun would want the old parts from an old hard-used gun as the basis for their new fancy rifle, when they could have new parts. if they could afford fancy.....

Therefore I view this as another perfectly untestable hypothesis- the best kind when nobody wants to change their minds!

 

Well, you got your mind made up, so there is no point in going any farther on this. I was trying to think of a good analogy to argue "my" point (really the conclusions of several experts I respect), but it would be of no avail....I remember Earl Lanning talking about how Shumway and others (especially Whisker, Kindig...) selected there examples...you might discuss this point with him on the American longrifle site. In RCA 1&2 Shumway was trying to illustrate the best surviving examples of early rifles he knew about and could photograph and document. Many of the others tried to show "the best" of various schools. You have to admit that only those guns that survived in good enough condition to publish photos of are typically shown in these books. Furthermore, the guns had to be in known collections accesible to the compilers. Most of these collections were put together by major collectors who high graded what they bought. Fancier guns were sought over plain guns. There are other examples of items besides guns that exist both as art works and as usable and oft used items--knives for example. The fancy ones were less used and more admired. Over and over we read that the old timers carried "butcher knives" and these plain knives were used until they had no more use and then discarded or scrapped. I collect knives. try to find a good working knife of even pre-WW II vintage in excellent condition. Yes they exist and the best ones are pictured in books on knives, but thousands were used up and thrown away. Fancy presentation 1830s Bowies? Yep, they survived and ended up in collections and museums. How many 1830s butcher knives can you find? :m2c:

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I'm not sure where the line about old parts that must have come from a plainer gun or a poor-boy comes from, but in any case, it has usually been accepted that many parts were recycled in the old days---gunparts, wagon wheels and pretty much any thing that was usable. People didn't throw things away as quickly as they do now. It is true that lock and barrel styles change, but it is also true that these changes didn't happen overnight and styles did overlap.
I would like to know for certain whether or not plain rifles were built prior to 1800 or not. It seems logical. I would not want a lot of shiny brass on a rifle that I was taking into the forest on a long hunt in Boone's time and I knew would take a beating and might well be lost. It seems that a market for such guns would indeed have existed and where a need occurs someone usually steps in and addresses that need. But actual proof is not likely to be found because folks didn't tend to keep records of the simpler things in life.
Nobody wants to change their minds. I guess that means both sides of the discussion. For the record, I think that there were simple rifles built prior to 1800 and as early as 1750-1760. I do not think that they were called poor-boys
or barnguns or schimmels. I think they were probably called rifle guns. I think some of them were made without butt pieces and little or no adornment. And I feel confident that many of them, when their stocks broke or their barrels were shot out, had whatever parts were still usable on them recycled into a new gun. I will cheerfully stand corrected when incontrovertible proof to the contrary is presented.

 

[Hota]

I would like to know for certain whether or not plain rifles were built prior to 1800 or not. It seems logical. I would not want a lot of shiny brass on a rifle that I was taking into the forest on a long hunt in Boone's time and I knew would take a beating and might well be lost.

It's funny you mention that. I believe in Disney's Daniel Boone movie the old man "Finney?" commented on Boone's new rifle saying it had so much shine that bear would see him a mile off. Somethin like that. Just hit a retrieval cue, thats all.

 

[BLAHMAN]

In reply to your post, Russ, I would on occasion stop by Jim Johnson's place. He owned Golden Age. He had piles (and I do mean piles) of old original barrels. I tried like the devil to get him to sell me some, but he wouldn't let them go. I say, yes, many other rifles may have been consumed as something else.

Also, I wonder how many firearms crept to the west as trade items for hostile indians, especially when cartridge guns were being developed.

Also, before, during and after the Revolution, our little country was an agrarrian society. Wealth was made through the aquisition of land. Some of those who farmed the land were indentered servents, some not. Wonder what ever happened to those old plows and wagons and farm implements? They were probably consumed as something else. You don't see any primitive furniture being spotlighted, but you do see old, fine antique furniture spotlighted, especially furniture from that era.

This "poor-boy" theory stuff, is the original question pointed to their existance or the numbers that may have been made? Or are we batting around the question of when that term "poor-boy" came into being?

If we are questioning the numbers of rifles, fowlers or guns made with little or no adornment my answer is: look at the people, what did they do, who had wealth and who didn't. Those that had wealth had all the trappings of wealth to show for it: fine horses, fine furniture, fine homes, land, servants, fine rifles/guns.

The other schmucks were a very hardscrabble type of of individual. They had to work the land, stay alive, learn a trade, look for better livihoods, make their own clothes, furniture, whatever. Do you think these people had those types of rifles we see illustrated today?

I just approach the question through common sense.

 

[SimonKenton]

Blahman,

While most longhunters couldn't afford a $25 rifle, I agree, I am sure they would part with 40% less for a simple York or Lancaster with NO patchbox (MAYBE a wooden slider but I am not sure) and definitely NO engraving, carving or wire inlays. I have seen fine shooting examples of such guns made by modern artisans precisely because such guns did see service and were carried as "working guns".

I am sure that if a good serviceable gun had severe stock damage and needed restocking some hunters later had aquired a modest "nest egg" for limited luxuries and may have asked for limited carving and maybe a simple unengraved or lightly engraved patchbox when the job was negotiated. There must've been some serious horse trading going on between smiths and customers.

-Ray :m2c:

 

Another thing I failed to mention earlier: quite a few guns pictured in the books are listed as the only example known of a particular maker or something like that--and they are invariably 'fancy' guns. I have often wondered if they were the apprentice's 'masterpiece' guns. In many trades and arts the apprentice was expected to produce a fine piece to demonstrate his 'mastery' of the trade or art. If the apprentice then went off to some frontier burg and set up shop, his clientel, mainly farmers and frontier hunters, would more likely be requesting plain guns and the occasional squire might want a fancy one. In all of these discussions I have been talking of the early age. Probably in the late Golden Age (of Kindig)fancier rifles became more common--a fad, if you will. Also I am talking PLAIN rifles, not just the modern 'poorboy'. Rifles that may have had buttplates, but may not have had boxes and extraneous brass. Not all gunsmiths were Germans. Not all American rifles looked like the fancier products of SE Penna. English and French influences were commonplace and they tended not to put patchboxes and the like on their guns. As I said earlier the modern 'poorboy' style is a late style of the southern mountains, but plain rifles and guns of earlier styles were made. How common they were can only be conjectured because of the biased and incomplete record of early guns that survived and have surfaced from collections (or attics)to be studied.

 

The records I have seen indicate that a "fine" rifle costs at least 50% more than a plain rifle. The old records clearly indicate at least two grades of rifles and the 'fine' ones are numerically fewer in purchase lists. Remember that the average joe in the mid 1700s made only a few cents a day, if that. A fine rifle may have been as much as a years cash income for many people. So, I am being told that they would opt for a half years wages upgrade on their hunting rifle? I think not. The Squires and the occasional hunter with extra cash and no family, maybe.