Crooked Dickert

[54ball]

It always helps to see originals. Last October I was privileged to handle a signed "Dickert" at a show.
Handling originals helps. There were many there and I got to study and feel them. A few like the Dickert I got to handle.
My phone was dead so I did not get a photo of this rifle.

First impression...
What a nice rifle....rather plain for a Dickert no carving other than a forestock groove. It had the typical Dickert Daisy patch box....nicely engraved. Some engraving on the side plate but other than that it was rather plain.
It shouldered well, so much so I wanted to take it home and go hunting. Sweet.

Then I turned it over.

I thought That's Odd...something is crooked here. The entry pipe finial does not line up with the triggerguard finial. There was something else to....It just did not look right upside down looking down on the bottom of the rifle.
I turned it back over....It looks perfect....bottom side up....it looks crooked. :hmm:
It is almost as if the belly of the forestock was not inline with the barrel. This is not evident until you turn it over.
My mentor said on some, the cast off started at the entry pipe...maybe that's what you saw ?.....

This is what I think...

I think the barrel was inlet at a cant. This mistake is vey very easy to do...inlet a barrel with a definite list or lean. I think this rifle was finished this way. Any evidence of this was not noticeable until the rifle was turned over.

Have any of you seen such?

 

[Pete G]

It is also very easy to make the forestock asymmetrical in the shaping of the bottom. When the rr pipe is inlet on the center line it ends up being slightly higher on one side than the other, giving the appearance of being off center. (bet you can guess how I know this) :cursing:

 

[jerrywh]

Some of the old "Masters" weren't as masterful as you think. That's just reality.

 

[2158]

Often a lot of the work wasn't done by the master!! Was there any evidence of a repair or replaced wood/fore stock.

 

[54ball]

Very true.
Jacob Dickert was one the more prolific makers from the Revolution on. For lack of a better term, his shop was pretty much a factory.

 

[54ball]

This is another rifle but you can see the same trait.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

This could easily win funniest title on the forum! :rotf:

 

[Elnathan]

"Factory second."

During and after the Revolution, Jacob Dickert was a major figure in the effort to convert the rifle business from small shops of a few artisans to a network of shops working together in order to be capable of cranking out large numbers of guns. He organized a lot of the effort that went into the 1000 or so rifles the Lancaster supplied to the US military in 1792, IIRC.

Dickert himself was capable of some fine work, particularly in his early years when his eyesight was good, but after that I think that a lot the work that went out under his name was mostly done by someone else and only passed by him. I suspect that this one was stocked by a sub-contractor or apprentice, and was sent out without carving because it was deemed to have too many cosmetic flaws to be worth the effort of decorating. Perfectly functional, though, so the customer gets a bargain....

Incidentally, those first 1000 rifles for the government turned out to have major design and quality issues. It took awhile to get things up and running well.