My yardsale find

I bought this American longrifle at a yardsale this past weekend (for $35 so I think I did alright even in the current condition). I place it in this section as I believe it to have started life as a flintlock. I realize it is currently percussion so if it is better in the percussion section I understand. The barrel is an American jaeger style large caliber. It is 41" long and .68 caliber. It has a JH on the rear site. I believe the barrel was reused for this rifle. There is a notch on the bottom of the barrel that does not match anything on the current stock. It was converted from a normal front action to a back-action lock. I cannot imagine why anyone would convert percussion to percussion with different locks so I assume this started out as a very late single screw flintlock ca 1820s. All iron furniture, definitely a local piece SW Virginia style.

few more photos

One interesting note. This looks like it was repaired by a cobbler. He used leather with tiny square nails. Very interesting. It is pretty unstable so one of the first repairs will be removing the old repair and fixing the tang.

$35? I wouldn't have been able to open my wallet fast enough!

I know how you can double your money.

WOW! What a deal. Looks pretty old.

Cool! Maybe it was John Hancocks rifle.

Looks like a good example of a gun that was kept running as long as repairs were possible. Some poor folks were using such guns right up until WWII to put a deer or turkey on the table. Repairs were probably made by anyone with some ability, and with whatever parts could be scrounged up, or would possibly work. I think that more than explains the "why" as to what was done.

Backwoods Appalachia seems to still use them. Not solely poor, often used by tradition. I grew up 45 mins west of Asheville NC in Cherokee Country. Had a Cherokee friend in school that still hunted with his six-greats grandfather's flintlock rifle. It was well-loved and gorgeous. I'm sure it hadn't sat on a shelf for a single year out of its 200-year existence.

That sure is a great find. The stock looks more Appalachian rather than jeager.

hanshi said:

That sure is a great find. The stock looks more Appalachian rather than jeager.

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Oh, I wasn't saying the rifle was a jaeger. I just meant it had an older large caliber barrel in the jaeger style.

To me it appears to be an early percussion rifle. It has what appears to be an original percussion breech not a drum screwed into a touch hole. The shape of the lock plate, although it is covered somewhat by the leather repair, is squared off which is a style that came into vogue after 1835. The muzzle appears to be filed to cone the muzzle. You have a nice find.

Grenadier1758 said:

The muzzle appears to be filed to cone the muzzle. You have a nice find.

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WHAT??? A coned muzzle? Impossible! We all know that's ramrod wear!

I don't usually mess with rifles. What is a coned muzzle and the significance coned vs not coned?

Flintlock1640 said:

I don't usually mess with rifles. What is a coned muzzle and the significance coned vs not coned?

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Coning (more appropriately called "relieving") allows for easier loading. Historically, it seems to have been done with files, as here. Commonly today it's done with a tapered tool.

There are some who say any examples of such are due to ramrod wear, despite it being too symmetrical for random wear. Hence my sarcasm before.

is this to allow the entrance of the bullet? I think I had heard about using a starter to get the bullet into the rifling. Is that related?

Think of it like a funnel.
Walk

JB67 said:

WHAT??? A coned muzzle? Impossible! We all know that's ramrod wear!

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Not when the grooves are equal. Okay, its a filed muzzle based on the rounding at the bottom of the grooves.

Flintlock1640 said:

I don't usually mess with rifles. What is a coned muzzle and the significance coned vs not coned?

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As Walkingeagke said, a coned muzzle is one that has been tapered so that the entrance is larger than the rifling grooves with it tapering down to bore size within a few inches.
The idea is to make a hole that is as large as the outside of the patch with the ball in it so it can be easily started into the bore with your thumb. Once started this way, a ramrod can easily push it down to sit on top of the powder charge.

A rifle that has this sort of thing usually looks rather like a smoothbore right at the muzzle but the rifling grooves soon become apparent shortly down the bore.

Just think, that rifle was someone's pride and joy when it was new.

JB67 said:

WHAT??? A coned muzzle? Impossible! We all know that's ramrod wear!

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That one made me smile...!