Barn Guns and Hog Rifles

[Vol423]

I was talking to Tip Curtis today and he mentioned that many people in Tennessee in the early days of modern muzzleloading began building guns by restocking and otherwise reworking barn guns and hog rifles. I have heard both terms, but with Tip's comments, I wonder if there is more to it. Barn guns, as I understood the term, were original muzzleloading guns with no adornment, possibly no buttplate or patch or cap box, and were held in such low regard that they often were relegated to storage in the barn. That sounds an awful lot like the southern "poor boy" rifles as well. I always got the impressions that hog rifles were used to hunt wild hogs in the mountains. But I know from my childhood that southern people kept hogs for meat and often penned them up for fattening before slaughter. A 22 long rifle behind the ear from three inches away will put a hog down quickly. Now I wonder if the "hog rifles" were just short range butcher's tools. They certainly wouldn't need to be rifled for that. I'm thinking that hog rifles must have been larger caliber rifles for hog hunting. In the early part of the 20th century, there weren't enough deer in my part of the south to make it worth having a larger bore rifle to hunt them. Maybe the only large quarry around was wild hogs....but then there were bears.... Please chime in if you have any definitions to share.

Allan

 

[Mike Brooks]

"Hog" rifles are for dispatching domestic hogs in the barn before butchering.....at least they are around here. I suspect "barn" rifles are the same thing just a different name used in a different part of the country. I have always had a barn rifle, a Glenfield .22 single shot bolt gun does service for me. Rusty and knocked up it has killed more game and freezer meat than any other I own. I was pleased too see the butcher in the next town over uses the same model as I do...his gun was equally rusty as mine. :haha:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Yep, a barn gun is a gun kept in the barn. Rarely, if ever, maintained. It is also usually the family hog rifle. Used as mentioned to dispatch hogs for butchering. This practice hasn't changed much over the years. Only today the barn/hog rifle would be a .22.

 

[barnettshale]

Last job I had before the Army and RVN was at a slaughter house in Uvalde, TX. Killing floor was on one side of the street and processing on the other side. The man who did all the slaughtering used an old single shot 22 on the bovine kills and a really sharp knife for just about everything else. He was an artist with that thing. Never saw him take more than one shot. I would imagine that him with a muzzleloader would have been an a sight to see.

 

[barnettshale]

A man I shoot with occasionally at matches has a .22 cal muzzleloader he built for kids to use. That might be the ultimate barn/fun gun.

 

[hanshi]

Just the thought of leaving a gun in a barn, letting it get rusty and not maintaining it makes me cringe. Of course I'm OCD with a rust phobia. I tolerate FW&T but never understood abuse. Even pieces of s&#% I treat like heirlooms. Being OCD has it's advantages.

 

[necchi]

I'm with the others here that the two terms are one in the same just a regional or local variation of the butchers tool. Actual field "hunting" would be done with a better conditon gun or rifle and the olde rusty but trusty shot out bore would be delegated to the butchers task.

An hanshi;
It's CDO cause that's how the letters are in the alphabet,,
It's our Order and folks shouldn't be diss'n it!! :haha:

 

[hanshi]

Did they arrange the letters that way because of that song? :grin:

If you already have a junky (NOT "junkie" :hmm: ) rifle I don't see a problem with such treatment. Even without rifling I don't see a problem from shooting just inches away.

 

[Maynerd62411]

We always used a .22 Magnum for slaughtering cows and hogs. We never kept it in the barn, tho. It was actually an over/under .22WMR/20 ga. rifled Savage. It was kept in the truck during planting season. SHot a few skunks in the field near the back hog lot.
There is actually a USDA regulation that allows "small caliber" rifles for slaughtering.

 

[nkbj]

The barn would make me cringe. I tend to think in terms of house gun. Short fifty, flint or cap. Inexpensive and reliable is the thing to have loaded.

Current house gun is the flintglock, a Traditions flinter "black rifle" (good grief that gives me the giggles) that just goes bang every time with a cast lead slug and cost a c note from a disinterested raffle winner.

 

[kbuck]

I thought the idea behind a "barn gun", or one that was unadorned and kept handy in the barn, was the fact that they were relatively cheap to produce. I believe there were a whole lot more folks who could only afford a barn gun compared to the number who bought a rifle with lots of frills. Somebody please get me straight on this.

 

[Stumpkiller]

The only thing I would keep in the barn is a gun I don't mind ruining or having stolen. I wouldn't buy a new one for that - more likely one found cheap and already beat or some ancient family hand-me-down piece with a bit of life left. The Zulu shotguns made from old muskets are a good example.

The modern usage of "barn guns" and "schimel rifles" came about recently to describe plain pieces.

 

[M. De Land]

I was raised on a farm in southern rule Michigan and we always kept all our guns in various corners of our farm house. We used them mostly for shooting red squirrels, pigeons and rats but never left them in the barn to rust up.
Had I been able to afford it I would have carried a short .22 pistol like a Colt Woodsman or something similar as it is short, light, handy and accurate. We spent a good deal of our time on a tractor farming our section and always had need of a quick light caliber gun for pest control. MD

 

[buford87]

As I understand it, until the early twentieth century in the state of Tennessee there was a "free-range" law. In other words You had to build a fence around your crop fields to keep everyone's livestock out. Hogs were not kept in a barn lot but fattened up as best they could on whatever they could find. When it came time to kill some hogs you took a rifle out to the woods and went hunting for some of your hogs. The term hog rifle was used to describe a rifle larger than a squirrel rifle that was used to kill hogs for the winter. I really don't know about barn rifles...................watch yer top knot.....................

 

[Larry Pletcher]

Don Getz uses the term "Schimmel" to refer to a barn gun. I believe the literal translation is "moldy". I don't speak German - someone else can help here.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[mhb]

'Schimmel' is, indeed, German for mold or mildew.
'Schimmelig' is moldy or mildewed.
PRD1 - mhb - Mike

 

[hanshi]

IMO "barn gun" and "canoe gun" fall into the same category.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I have never had my barn gun in a canoe. :shake:

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

When I was a much younger man first getting into muzzle loading, I recall some "old timers" calling big bore muzzle loaders "Hog Rifles". I have not heard this term used for this in a couple of decades.

 

[rafterob]

I have never had my barn gun in a canoe.

If I keep my canoe in the barn, then when I take my rifle in the canoe, is it a canoe in the barn gun by association?