• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Half-stock flintlocks

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Feb 22, 2019
Messages
1,279
Reaction score
3,048
Location
up a holler near Nameless, TN
Been reading my copy of "When Skins Were Money", and came across this painting from 1830.
Appears to me to clearly show a half-stock flintlock rifle.
So, unless the artist "made it up", it seems that half-stock flintlock rifles did exist, rare though they may be.

1655560958944.jpeg
 
I could be completely off base, with my memory not up to speed this morning, but.....
I wasn't aware that there was a debate about the existence of half stock flintlock. I'm pretty sure the English Sporting Rifle design is pre-caplock and is half stock.
The only debate along these lines I recall at the moment is specifically about rifles made by the Hawken Brothers. I don't remember if it was a debate about the existence of a half stock flintlock made specifically by one of the Hawkens, or about full stock Hawken Brothers guns.
 
While half stock guns were more common west of the big creek, Flintlocks were still being used long after the introduction of cap locks simply due to the unsteady availability of caps, which were called detonators.I remember reading where one group of trappers had to convert their rifles to detonators because the quality of their powder would not work well with their flintlocks. We often fail to realize how much gunsmith work was done on the spot in the fur trade era. Lewis had in his journals that their gunsmith/blacksmith refreshed the rifling in his rifle and how much better it shot afterward. How many of us today could refresh our rifles?To refresh a rifle I use both a lathe and a Bridgeport mill to make the tooling. Their gunsmith had hammers, chisels and home made files.
 
Last edited:
John Manton was producing 1/2 stock Flinters in the 1780’s. (Photo of one, era 1785).
British were decades ahead of the USA in arms development until around the CW.
 

Attachments

  • 89631953-B698-4594-9DBF-90F57D1259FF.jpeg
    89631953-B698-4594-9DBF-90F57D1259FF.jpeg
    87.3 KB · Views: 0
Back
Top