Wm Turvey Rifle

Here is a Wm Turvey breechloading rifle.

Interesting!

A good looking g gun. You know we all want to see some closeups o f how it loads.

lexington1 said:

Here is a Wm Turvey breechloading rifle.

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With no pictures of what makes it interesting,,, the breech....

Is that a pipe plug in the top of the barrel?

That is some serious flair on the swamped barrel at the muzzle, I find the whole gun interesting, even if it wasn't a breech loader.

I'm with @Brokennock. The pictures show an interesting rifle, but don't show what makes it a breech loader. @lexington1, how about some pictures with the breech open showing us what makes it a breech loader?

As the others have questioned - "breech loader" - how?
You sure it's a rifle. To my eye it has the lines of a smoothbore. Very nice looking gun, though.

From what I see, it has an octagon to round barrel, no rear sight, and wedges holding the stock to the rifle.

I tried to add a video of this, but it was too large for the site. If you are on FB look for it on the Flintlock Era page. I added a bunch of pictures and a video of how it loads.

Turvey died in 1745, so this precedes the Ferguson rifle by a few decades. The 34" barrel is approx. .75 caliber and rifled with an approx. twist of 1/48". This is a very nice handling rifle and I'll bet was quite the shooter in its day.

It uses the same principle as a Ferguson in that the chamber is slightly larger than the bore. A ball is pushed into the throated area and the chamber is filled with powder. The threaded plug is screwed back into place, you primed and were ready to fire. The Ferguson has the advantage of having the attached lever that you wouldn't lose, unless you got carried away and accidently unscrewed.

Here are some additional pics

lexington1 said:

Here is a Wm Turvey breechloading rifle.

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Excellent !!!

lexington1 said:

Here are some additional pics

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Thanks for the additional pics.

lexington1 said:

The Ferguson has the advantage of having the attached lever that you wouldn't lose,

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Great point,,, 'cause I'm dropping that rear sight while loading for sure

Brokennock said:

Thanks for the additional pics.


Great point,,, 'cause I'm dropping that rear sight while loading for sure

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That's not the rear sight. The notch at the end of the breech serves as the rear sight. Also, it could be loaded as a regular muzzle loader if you didn't want to breech load it.

lexington1 said:

That's not the rear sight. The notch at the end of the breech serves as the rear sight.

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So it is just grooved that way to see through it?
Interesting.

I would still drop it at some point while loading..... Probably while hunting and standing in snow or a small brook.

Brokennock said:

So it is just grooved that way to see through it?
Interesting.

I would still drop it at some point while loading..... Probably while hunting and standing in snow or a small brook.

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Yes, it's just grooved so that you can see through it. This definitely came before the Ferguson design on the evolutionary scale. What's interesting is that before Turvey died he was making Ferguson like rifles with a screw breech/trigger guard.

Adam in WI said:

Is that a pipe plug in the top of the barrel?

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No, it's a mount for an 18th century ACOG. Just kidding.....

lexington1 said:

Here are some additional pics

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Awesome rifle, somebody was clever and thinking things out. Beautiful rifle, now I have to mop up a pool of drool.

A positive note. You would be able to tell if plug wasn’t tight. Wouldn’t be able to see past it.