Hello to everyone I’m may build a Daniel Boone tick licker this winter if I can find some information on . Like what does the stock look like? I know it’s a 66 cal and it’s 46- or - 48 long. It’s brass hardware . Thats all I know . Any information will be appreciated thanks to all
"Tick Licker," and Daniel Boone's rifles, have been discussed on this forum several times. If you use the Search function on the upper right of your screen, you can look them up and discover what has been written in the past.
As noted above, Mr. Boone had several rifles over the course of his life. I think at least a couple of them were "plundered" by Indians, and I think he lost one of them. There are several rifles in existence which are said to have been Boone's, but most of these are fakes, or at least they are not likely to have been his. Marshal Ralph Hooker, of Missouri, owned a Boone rifle that had pretty good provenance, and he wrote about it in his book,
Born Out of Season. I re-read and went through this book a little while back, and wrote down Hooker's comments about the rifle, which follow:
“I carried an old flint lock rifle which had a hand-hammered barrel; it was made by Elisa [sic] Buell around 1775. The length was 5 ft. 2 in. and it weighed 10½ pounds. It shot a .457 ball. This rifle was purchased from Daniel Boone by Byron Ash’s grandfather, who lived on the banks of the Ohio River. On his long trips Boone often stopped at the Ash’s place to rest. The rifle was kept in the Ash family until it was given to me in 1946. It is still very accurate and in good shooting condition.” (p.52)
“I put Boone’s rifle between my feet and wrapped my arms around it and slept. During the night the rats smelled the grease in the grease hole where Daniel Boone had used grease on the patchings. Those rats chewed the rim in this old maple wood by smelling that grease of so long ago.” (p. 56)
“First buffalo killed with Boone rifle at Maxwell Game Preserve near Hesston, Kansas” [caption] (p. 60)
“Now the barrel of Boone’s rifle is soft iron and a hammered job.” (p. 77)
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This was a rifle Boone owned later in life, while he was living in Missouri. I believe he actually lived longer in Missouri than in Kentucky, but that's another story. I doubt the Ralph Hooker rifle was "Tick Licker," but it could have very well been one of Boone's rifles.
From Hooker's description, and the rather fuzzy photographs in the book, we know this rifle had a very long, hand-hammered barrel. Every old, hand forged barrel I've ever seen was swamped, and I doubt this rifle would have been an exception. The .457" ball Hooker shot in this rifle would indicate about a .47 caliber bore. Hooker tells us the stock was of curly maple, and in the photos the triggerguard and buttplate appear to be brass. There was no patchbox, but an open, circular grease hole in the right side of the buttstock. It's hard to discern much about the lock. It appears from the photos to have a round tail.
Hooker said the rifle barrel was signed by "Elisa Buell." I think this is an error, and the name was probably Elisha Buell. This is what I found about him:
Elisha Buell was listed as a maker of colonial fowlers and muskets, 1812 and 1816 Contract Muskets.
E. Buell listed as a maker of 1795 and 1808 Contract Muskets.
Buel, Elisha, I Hebron [CT] 1776 Muskets
Buel, Elisha, II Marlborough [CT] 1797-1850 Musket contracts, model 1795, 1808 [Son of Elisha I]
Buell, Enos Marlborough [CT] 1825-1850 1831 Muskets [Son of Elisha II]
From: Lindsay, Merrill. (1975).
The New England Gun: The First 200 Years. The New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, Connecticut, and The David McKay Company, New York, New York. (pp. 149-150).
Elisha Buell, Sr., made muskets. I'm sure he was capable of making sporting rifles, too, but I don't know of any. Ditto for Elisha, Jr. I suppose one or the other of them might have made Boone's rifle, but given its backwoods style, I think it is also possible that some westering pioneer carried a Buell rifle or rifle barrel to Missouri, and the barrel and possibly the brass mountings were recycled into a rifle made in the local style. We know a number of Virginia and Kentucky gunsmiths moved to Missouri in the early 19th century, and it is likely the more conservative ones continued to build longrifles in the style to which they were accustomed. You can read more about this in Victor Paul's
Missouri Gunsmiths to 1900 and in James Whisker's
Gunsmiths and Allied Tradesmen of Missouri.
Getting back to "Tick Licker," I have read in multiple places that Nathan Boone stated that Daniel carried a rifle that shot a one ounce ball when Boone moved into Kentucky. A pure lead sphere weighing one ounce measures .663", so, allowing for some windage, we are talking about a .67 - .68 caliber rifle. That was a big bore, even for its day. In
An Excursion Through the United States and Canada During the Years 1822-23, an English gentleman named Blane had this to say about the bore sizes of the backwoodsmen's rifles:
Blane referred to several ball or bore sizes. For reference, balls of 50 to the pound would measure .453", 60 would be .427", 80 would be .388", 100 would be .360", and 150 gauge balls would measure .314". Incidentally, the .457" balls mentioned by Ralph Hooker would go approximately 49 to the pound.
Blane's travels took place some years after Boone's forays into Kentucky, but he discusses some of the same game Boone would have encountered. A .66 - .68 caliber rifle would have been out of the ordinary. However, rifles of that size did exist. Jacob Hawken built a rifle for William Ashley in about 1821 that shot a ball that size, and another Hawken carried by John Brown, the Mormon pioneer (not the abolitionist) was of a similar bore size:
I recently read of an early Kansas pioneer named "Pap" Austin who had a rifle of that size which he named "Kill Devil" (see
Plows & Bibles, Rifles & Revolvers, p. 41), and George Andrew Gordon carried a flintlock rifle that shot a one ounce ball on a hunting trip into Texas in 1846 (see
Recollections of George Andrew Gordon). The point of all this being that rifles of that bore size were unusual, but they did exist, and I don't doubt the veracity of Nathan Boone's description.
If you want to build a .66 caliber rifle similar to what Boone carried, I think you can do no better that to watch that Mike Miller video clip in post #5. I think Mr. Miller also produced a full-length video that shows the build in much greater detail. Mike is a renowned gunsmith and I would trust his documentation of sources.
Good luck with your project! Let us know how you are getting along with it.
Notchy Bob
