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Bedford County Rifle

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fishmusic

Always a Newbie
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My dear wife went to a genealogy site and there discovered I am a direct descendant of Jacob Ake, founder of Williamsburg Pennsylvania. He settled there in 1790 or thereabouts. Being me I looked up where Williamsburg was located in hopes of guessing what type of gun, if any, he might have had. Williamsburg is just north of Bedford County. So I looked up some examples of a Bedford County rifle in hopes that I might build one. WOW! My very limited experience with building (production kits) would be put to the test to build this from parts. Does anybody have experience with the various kits that are out there? I am thinking .45 cal, would like a swapped barrel and flint.

Perhaps this a bigger bite than I can chew at the moment.
 
The Bedford rifles are long, slim, sleek and just amazing. IIRC Bedford county was basically still frontier when the smiths were making guns there. They are my favorite rifle of the North, and if I ever build a yankee gun, that's what I'd want in flint or percussion. Come to think of it, I have an ancestor from Pennsylvania up in the branches of my family tree somewhere, and my bride Janet has an ancestor from Penn. that fought with the Americans in the AWI named Cunningham. (Sounds like a John Bull name to me, Ha!) You just have to admire folks that could farm and smith fine rifles under the threat of Native discontent, much less the white man's miseries.
 
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Here are some pictures of the Bedford I built using Pecatonica Rivers #3 curly maple.
It is not a reproduction but it is somewhat based on a rifle built by William Defibaugh.
His rifles often had 4 barrel pins as does mine.

Note, the Bedfords are very slender guns with a lot of drop at the heel of the stock. The comb of the stock is very straight and some folks say it looks like a hockey stick. Because of the drop of the butt, the rifles tend to raise their muzzle when they are fired. Perhaps that explains why the .45 and smaller calibers were popular with them. This rifle uses a 13/16" .45 caliber X 42" Green Mountain barrel to keep the recoil down and to maintain the slender look.

The slender shape is even apparent in the locks that most Bedfords have. They are about the same length as other locks but the height of them is very narrow.
The lock on this rifle is 5 7/16" long and .86" high.

Speaking of locks, some say that Bedford's were only made in percussion but in fact, there are some that were built as flintlocks. Mine is a convertible and it can use either lock.
(It is wearing its percussion lock in the picture but currently it has its flintlock mounted and the percussion lock is in my lap.)

The Bedford's are one of the rifles that used a full patchbox, well into the percussion era. The patchbox's usually have loops that are inlayed into the wood, making them one of the more difficult patchboxes to inlay.

If you want to pursue the Bedford as your choice of the gun to build I recommend buying the book, "The BEDFORD COUNTY RIFLE and Its Makers" by Calvin Hetrick. It is a 41 page paperback with many pictures and a lot of information about some of the more well known builders.

If you do choose to build a Bedford, I strongly suggest that you make it a Flintlock.
Flintlocks are less fussy about the alignment between the lock and the barrel.

These "kits" from the well known companies that sell/make them will usually take at least 150 hours of actual work to complete.
A good knowledge of filing, layout work, drilling and tapping as well as using chisels and a sharp Hobby Knife is needed to build these.

The lock is almost finished but it will require locating and drilling the screw holes for the lock screws. The rest of the cast parts are rough sandcastings that will need a lot of sanding and filing to make them presentable.

This is one of my earlier rifles and the width of the lock panel around the lock is wider than it should have been but I think I'll leave it alone.

BedfordWeb1.jpg
BedfordWeb4.jpg
BedfordWeb2.jpg
BedfordWeb3.jpg
 
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Beautiful, Zonie! The Bedford I'd like to try would be a .32 -.40 cal with about a 46-48 inch barrel in 3/4" ATF. It would really challenge my skill level. I'm just beginning a build for a friend that is a southern mountain style in .40 x 42" x 3/4 atf. and it is almost wand like. I love the carving and inlays you did on yours, got to have fish and hex signs. I especially like the 'Wheat' carving on the wrist. Since the Bedfords extended into the percussion era, I'd probably make mine percussion. Thank you for sharing, and good luck to Fishmusic on your build!
 
I have one that is in flint 45 cal with a 44" 7/8" Douglas straight barrel. It shoots great. I think they're cool because they're so unusual. Bear in mind that Bedfords evolved after the typical "Golden Age" rifles---post 1815-20. Guns of that period generally lacked raised carving, (but many had incised carving) and many have a lot of metal inserts. Engraving on them is also not overly ornate and sophisticated. Most that you see will be in percussion, and they have a really goose-necky looking hammer, which is sort of cool.

Sights are high, which makes shooting them easier. With that abrupt angle to the comb you will need to be very careful with your layout and angles to get your cheek to lay down just where YOU need it to to acquire a clean sight picture. The abrupt comb angle will also contribute to cheek slap if you don't get the comb profile just right too.
 
Zonie, nicely done. I'm thinking that for my first "real" build this might be too ambitious. I haven't yet built up a supply of tools and would probably do a build on the kitchen table, much to my wife's chagrin. For now I will tone my enthusiasm down to the realities of experience and budget. I have watched Bill Raby's videos which is what started me on this path to begin with.

I will look for the book you recommend because of my historical and ancestral interest.
 
Zonie, nicely done. I'm thinking that for my first "real" build this might be too ambitious. I haven't yet built up a supply of tools and would probably do a build on the kitchen table, much to my wife's chagrin. For now I will tone my enthusiasm down to the realities of experience and budget. I have watched Bill Raby's videos which is what started me on this path to begin with.

I will look for the book you recommend because of my historical and ancestral interest.

Just go for it. A Bedford rifle is not going to be any more complicated than anything else. It would actually be a bit easier than some styles. The toughest part would be inletting the patchbox. Those open holes would make it a bit harder. So just practice inletting it into a piece of scrap wood until you can do it. Also perfectly acceptable to not use a patchbox at all. In the old days a patchbox was typically an optional thing that cost extra. Bedford rifle is no more ambitious than anything else. And a swamped barrel is no more difficult to inlet than a straight one. But it will take longer.
 
Because of the very straight comb, very minimal comb nose, straightish cheek rest cross section, and straight belly lines it should actually be a somewhat easier style to get the architecture "right" on. Because of the very acute and abrupt angle of the stock change at the breech area (as well as the wrist) pay particular attention to exactly WHERE that happens, and the curvature / radius of the change on historical guns. You don't want a "breech hump" if it isn't appropriate for the style, and you don't want a sharp and acute bend if it isn't right either.

Like all guns, and particularly those with an upward sloping comb, it is critical to get your measurements correct if you want your eye to naturally line up with the sights when you mount the gun. In order to do this, take just about any gun with a curved BP, and mount it tightly. Don't pay attention to sight alignment here. Measure how far from the deepest part of the BP your cheek area engages the comb (it will be an area 1 1/2"-2 1/4" long depending on your personal anatomy.

Now go ahead and adjust the stock so that your eye lines up with the sight plane (with your face vertical again. Mark this general area as before. LAy That will be your drop at the comb you'll need to design in to your architecture and accounting for the sight height you are planning on using.

If your eye doesn't line up perfectly with the sight notch then try to figure out how far left or right you are. That will be your cast-on or off.

If you naturally scrunch your trigger arm down when shooting likely the gun will be canted outward. Try to figure out how much cant adjustment it takes to get the gun level, and that will determine the amount of toe-in you need at the toe.

From there you can go ahead and lay out your stock.

Another way to do it is to make yourself an adjustable "try gun" out of plywood (such as is described in some of the gun building books) and fiddle around with all of this until you have it just right for you.

I know it sounds like a lot of Micky Mousing around, but having a perfectly fitting gun is a true joy to mount and shoot, and one of the real benefits of doing your own builds (particularly from a blank), and generally is not possible with a pre-carved stock.

Good luck to you, adn please keep us posted with your progress!
 
Based on the book I mentioned earlier and other readings that I've done, patchboxes were used on almost all Bedfords.
Out of 20 different rifles shown in the book, 19 of them had pierced patchboxes with only one having no patchbox at all.

On page 7, the author also says,
"It is a matter of some interest that many of the Bedford County makers continued to decorate their stocks with relief carving long after the makers of other sections had discontinued this form of ornamentation. The designs of the carving, however were much simpler than on the earlier rifles of the flintlock period..."

"...The Bedford County gunsmiths almost never made a barrel shorter than 40 inches and many ran to 44 inches and longer in contrast to the 39 and 40 inch barrels of the makers of other counties adjacent to Bedford."

Of the three flintlock Bedford County rifles I see in "THOUGHTS ON THE KENTUCKY RIFLE IN ITS GOLDEN AGE", by Joe Kindig Jr., all of them have pierced patchboxes.


The "hockey stick" stock shape Bedford is known for also was used on some of the rifles from Franklin County. I don't recall just where I got the photos the rifle below was based on but generally speaking, it is Bedford shaped but a little less slender and used a more normal lock shape.
Frankln-Cropped.jpg


Franklin-Cropped-Left.jpg




It is a .50 caliber rifle and it does do a bit of cheek slapping when you shoot it.
 
All, Thanks for yor encouragement. Plywood is cheap enough to play with for the architecture so, like Bill said, "just go for it."

A little off topic but my wife now has me connected up to a Colonel Thomas Lygon. He was visiting Dr. John Woodson when an Indian attack began. He grabbed Dr. Woodson's matchlock fowler and managed to help fend off the attack. Dr. Woodson did no survive the attack but Lygon is credited with saving Woodson's wife and children. The gun was 8 feet long. You can find pictures on line though over time the gun was restocked, shortened by 6 inches and converted to a flintlock. I have no ambitions about building this
 
Sir(s),

With all reverence I have got to say the the pictures above are of the most beautiful gun I have ever seen. What wood was used for the stock? How was it prepared to look like that? Serious case of envy from across the pond in the UK.
I am afraid our gun laws have killed off such artistry.
Steve
 
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