cute little barrel

[George]

I was doing some periodic cleaning of some of my guns last night and noticed again how small the barrel on my .30 cal. squirrel rifle is. I measured it and found it was just a bit less than 11/16", came out to .675" on my plastic calipers, best as I could tell. The muzzle is no bigger than my thumbnail, and I have small hands. I don't recall seeing such a small barrel on a standard muzzleloader, other than this one, and that made me wonder if any others were out there. Anyone have a barrel this small?

Spence

 

[Jumpshot]

Do you have a picture of the whole rifle? Who made it?

 

[rabjr]

Yes please post more pics!

 

[George]

The rifle was made back around 1970 by a fellow named Louis Smith in Johnson City, TN. The barrel is 38.5"

Spence

 

[mazo kid]

Wow!! Now that rifle would be a pleasure to take to the woods or anywhere else. :thumbsup:

 

[Jumpshot]

Looks nice. What's the diameter of the rod?

 

[F_Thomas]

Beautiful rifle!

 

[wattlebuster]

I bet that lil jewel is a pleasure to shoot :thumbsup:

 

[410-er]

Very nice rifle! :thumbsup:

 

[George]

The rod is 1/4" and limber as a willow switch. :grin:

The rifle has always seemed the perfect squirrel rifle, to me. It is so slender you think of it as a woman's or youth's gun when you first see it, but length of pull is 3 3/4", weight is just about 7 lb., and with the 38.5 inch barrel it is a very comfortable, steady gun for offhand shooting. The William Large barrel has a twist of 1:56, which is very slow for the little round ball, and has always been a tack driver.

But, I didn't intend to open discussion on this gun, I was asking if anyone has seen a barrel this small. No takers?

 

[ohio ramrod]

You wanted a taker. So I'll take that Bill Large barrel. :idunno: :idunno:

 

[hanshi]

That certainly is a beautiful rifle! I have a .36 SMR 38" x 3/4" and a 13" lop. It weighs over five pounds but doesn't get anywhere close to six. Not quite as trim as your barrel, but close; a bit bigger caliber, though. I shoot "youth" guns and my next one has a 12.5" lop. I'm that small.

 

[George]

You wanted a taker. So I'll take that Bill Large barrel.

Yeah, good barrels. If you want to build a good rifle, you can't go wrong starting with a Large barrel. Too bad they are no more.

Spence

 

[George]

I have a .36 SMR 38" x 3/4" and a 13" lop.

I've seen a few 3/4" barrels, and you are right, they are trim and neat.

This .30 caliber rifle is also the only one of those I've ever seen, and I have wondered about that. It seems such a natural for squirrels, and squirrels seem so much the perfect game for small flintlock rifles, I'm surprised there aren't a lot of them around.

Spence

 

[duckhunt93]

Thats a pretty rifle :thumbsup: you must have slain plenty of squirrels and rabbits.

 

[George]

Thats a pretty rifle :thumbsup: you must have slain plenty of squirrels and rabbits.

A fair number of squirrels, yes, but no rabbits. Rabbit hunting for me is a shotgun game. I shot the first squirrels I ever killed with a muzzleloader with this little rifle, many years ago. Shot at 4, killed 3, and I knew I was going to like hunting with it. :grin:

Sepnce

 

[BrownBear]

I have a .36 SMR 38" x 3/4" and a 13" lop.

I've seen a few 3/4" barrels, and you are right, they are trim and neat.

This .30 caliber rifle is also the only one of those I've ever seen, and I have wondered about that. It seems such a natural for squirrels, and squirrels seem so much the perfect game for small flintlock rifles, I'm surprised there aren't a lot of them around.

Spence

Yup, that's small! I've got a 30 cal too, but it's mounting a 3/4" by 42" Rayle barrel. Mine seems trim and relatively light, but I can just imagine that yours qualifies as svelte!

 

[George]

I've got a 30 cal too, but it's mounting a 3/4" by 42" Rayle barrel.

What do you use it for and how do you load it?

Spence

 

[BrownBear]

It's gonna be my snowshoe hare gun this fall, almost certainly replacing my 32 and 36. I got it in the white and am slowly finishing it, though I did put several dozen shots through it before breaking it down for the finish work. A charge of 20 grains of 3f under a .290 ball and patch very nearly cut a ragged hole at 25 yards, and 15 grains did so. Then I switched to offhand and proceeded to shoot targets of opportunity.

More range work required and greatly anticipated, but that will have to wait till after the king salmon run slows! :rotf:

 

[Okwaho]

The rifle was made back around 1970 by a fellow named Louis Smith in Johnson City, TN. The barrel is 38.5"

Spence

Spence, Louis Smith was one of several gunsmiths in the Washington/Sullivan Counties area of upper East Tennessee who built rifles in the 60's and 70's and maybe before and after.They were Louis Smith who died in 1994, Leroy Fleenor whom I knew and may still be working although I doubt it and Lester Smith who was an apprentice of Hacker Martin. I believe Lester died fairly young.Leroy and others built a lot of guns which they sold to Turner Kirland for resale.This was about the time Joe Kindig's book came out so while we had pictures nobody had access to photos other than each side and we saw a lot of slab sided guns.The "school" concept was just emerging and so it was mix and max as far as building Kentuckies went. Thus it was common to see a roman nose Reading butt with a Lancaster box and a York County guard.Carving was pretty sparse and engraving was whatever turned the builder on.Then a few years later Shumway's books came out along with all their different views. These along with Kindig's school concept brought us out of the dark ages as far as Kentucky rifle building went.We now had the various schools which made up the "Golden Age".Earl Lanning then built the "Genesis" gun and introduced many of us,me included,into the joys of early guns {pre Golden Age} and that's where a lot of us find ourelves today.Where once a Frederick Sell or John Armstrong gun was the holy grail now it's a gun by Andreas Albrecht or Christian Oerter.

I really didn't mean to get so deeply into this subject but it's sometimes hard to stop. :yakyak: :bow: :v
Tom Patton