Rifle Style Identification

I recently came into a fairly high end collection of rifles (builds by Bill Shipman, Bob Harn, Frank Lehto, John Bergmann, Brad Emig, Robert Ashe, etc) and I've started my journey on identifying them....I'm a gun guy, but never into muzzleloading until recently....I've identified several, but there are so many similarities between some of the regional styles I want to make sure I get them right...is there a resource any of you would recommend for newbs to learn about all the styles as I dip my toe into muzzleloading 101?

Americanlongrifles.org forum

Man if weren't into muzzleloading before you sure are now.

To be completely honest with you they all look the same to me except some are flintlocks or percussion or full stock or half stock. All the little nuances of styles and regions are lost to me. I don't really find it important as some others do. I just shoot them.

There are two hawkenhiemers in there. The rest really aren't school specific enough to identify by school.

rdavidson said:

Man if weren't into muzzleloading before you sure are now.

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The more research I do, the more I definitely am getting into it. Most of these will be rehomed at some point, as I am a lefty.....I am mainly helping do research and making sure they get fair value on the resale as we go, but as I go down the rabbit hole, I am feeling the muzzleloading fever starting

A beautiful collection.

Great God almighty! All at once!

I’d like to see more of the half stock hawken.

mushka said:

To be completely honest with you they all look the same to me except some are flintlocks or percussion or full stock or half stock. All the little nuances of styles and regions are lost to me. I don't really find it important as some others do. I just shoot them.

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The only two percussion guns I see are the pistol and the fourth gun from the top. All the rest are flintlocks. Nice collection!

Gtrubicon said:

I’d like to see more of the half stock hawken.

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Ill get you some this weekend...that one was built by John Bergmann

I am a lefty also but see one I would be interested in, if you decide to sell these in the future and once you figure what you want for them, and the conditions, cal. and things such as that, post them here on the site, really believe you would have no problem selling these on here, very nice-looking collection.

All appear somewhat generic, which is neither here nor there. They all look very nice from the photo and the stocks of some of them are gorgeously figured. The thing about "schools" is the way a bit of variation can be found. Schools are a modern concept to help place them in time and place.

Best guesses from very limited data presented.

Top (#1): contemporary creative rifle of Germanic influence, meant to be a possible 1770 rifle.

#2: creative early York county/ influenced.

#3 J P Beck-ish 1770s rifle.

Next.
Percussion Hawken
Mythical flint Hawken (messing with ya)
English model trade rifle
Fred Lehto Bucks County

Those are worth pretty good money these days depending on the maker.

I just drooled all over my keyboard.

This is a pretty good article about the various “Kentucky” styles….

https://americansocietyofarmscollec...19/06/1969-B20-Kentucky-Rifle-Silhouettes.pdf

Art Caputo said:

This is a pretty good article about the various “Kentucky” styles….

https://americansocietyofarmscollec...19/06/1969-B20-Kentucky-Rifle-Silhouettes.pdf

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Be careful with the dates on that link.

Art Caputo said:

This is a pretty good article about the various “Kentucky” styles….

https://americansocietyofarmscollec...19/06/1969-B20-Kentucky-Rifle-Silhouettes.pdf

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That will definitely help...thanks!

I subscribe to ToW archives to look up the builds and values and that has been helpful as well....