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Brass tacks and other bling

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TreeMan

Blunderbuss
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I’d see to see some pics of some Yalls smoothies or rifles decorated in tacks and/or faux wrist repairs and so on. Leather or brass. Kinda wondering what a Native American owned trade gun may have looked like with their personal touches added.
 
CB2B60B4-987E-47CC-BEDE-718A67086FED.jpeg

Here’s a smooth rifle that I built a couple of years ago. A faux wrist repair
 
It seems somewhere, maybe The Log Cabi Shop there is a book of about 100 or so pages which covered the Native American owned trade guns.

Can't remember the title, maybe some one here will know.
 
Here is an original from the Ambrose Antiques website:

Blanket Gun 1.jpg
Blanket Gun 4.jpg


There is some evidence that at least a few guns were tacked before being sold. Henry Boller mentioned guns on the rack at the trading post where he worked, with tacks gleaming. Tack work on these old guns has always interested me, and in fact I wrote an article about it, published in Muzzle Blasts in the January 1981 issue. However, I think tacks need to be used judiciously. Tack work, like tattoos, can be easily overdone and hard to "un-do." Something simple, like the cross design shown above, can sometimes have a lot more appeal than more elaborate patterns. If there is even a remote chance that you might want to sell your gun in the future, you might think twice before tacking it. The design that is "big medicine" for you might look like defacing the gun to somebody else.

There have also been articles in Whispering Wind and the Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly about brass tacks. I can look up the references if anybody is interested. For photographs of original tacked guns, R. L. Wilson's The Peacemakers is an excellent reference. You can find used copies online at very reasonable prices. Ryan Gale's For Trade and Treaty shows a few tacked guns, but not that many. I don't think they were as common as we like to think.

Notchy Bob
 
Once agian thank you Notchy Bob for the always welcome info! It never occured to me that tacked rifles would've been available at retail! They may not have been common but it appears that even then the tacked rifle was perceived as a 'blingy' commercial upgrade.

There is some evidence that at least a few guns were tacked before being sold. Henry Boller mentioned guns on the rack at the trading post where he worked, with tacks gleaming.

Notchy Bob
 
Notchy Bob's advice is good... If you are convinced that the gun's a keeper for life, have fun with tacks and faux wrist repairs. Otherwise, think twice. I personally don't like the looks of tacks and wouldn't buy a gun with them. As for the fake wrist repairs, I would see that as a weakness in the stock, personally, unless I KNEW that it was just for decoration. Of course when you're buying a gun from a stranger, without removing the faux repair, you'll have to just trust the guy if he tells you it's decoration only. Again I'd walk away from such a purchase. Just my $0.02. To each their own!
 
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