Daniel Boons Gun

[BJC]

Is that a NW Trade Rifle in the TV show Daniel Boon?

 

[ohio ramrod]

I don't have any documentation but it is my belief that they used a "prop gun" that was made specificly for the show. It did not even have a complete bore. It was made to shoot smoke and sound. :idunno:

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

If it is for your persona, why not emulate somebody similar to Boone? The real Boone is thought to have started off with a Berks County I believe?

 

[skypilot39b]

The Alamo museum has one of his rifles on display, I was impressed to see that it was percussion, I'd always pictured him with a flinter, but hey, whatever works.

 

[Joe Yanta]

The flintlock would have been the only ignition system available most of Daniel Boone's (1734-1822) life. The percussion cap was invented around 1807 and I would imagine it would take several years for the word to get out and mass production of components for the system to gain traction.

An engraving of Boone by Alonzo Chappel clearly shows him holding a flintlock. Quite possibly a fowler.

Seems like I read years ago that Daniel's brother Squire Boone was a blacksmith and made guns of time. And Daniel could have made at least one gun during this time.

During the course of ones life during early America I would think that a frontiersman could have own several types of weapons. It wouldn't surprise me if history shows Mr. Boone owned a nor'west trade gun at one time or the other.

Just my thoughts and opinions, others will vary.

Hie

 

[tenngun]

Boone's rifle at the Alamo? I have never been there. Is it Crockets rifle?

 

[Rick Boylan]

Hey, what the heck. They were both played by Fess Parker. Maybe it was his gun. LOL :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Snakebite]

Boone's rifle at the Alamo? I have never been there. Is it Crockets rifle?

You're right, there is a rifle at the Alamo and it is supposed to have belonged to Davy Crockett and it is percussion.

I've read (don't remember the source now) but there were supposed to have been percussion weapons at the Alamo. IIRC, they recovered percussion caps in some of the excavations and they were supposed to have been from the time of the battle.

 

[tenngun]

My info points to 1818 as the invention of the true cap, as opposed to pill and tube locks and sent bottles before that. Caps were being carriered in to the mts and plains at least 5 years before that. Flint locks were known to be used 20 years later. Nipple hugers at the Alamo??? Must have been. Rock in the locks used by Rangers 9 years later, I betcha.

 

[skypilot39b]

Boone's rifle at the Alamo? I have never been there. Is it Crockets rifle?

yeah, it is...I got a brain cramp...I hate it when that happens...

 

[vtbuck223]

My info points to 1818 as the invention of the true cap, as opposed to pill and tube locks and sent bottles before that. Caps were being carriered in to the mts and plains at least 5 years before that. Flint locks were known to be used 20 years later. Nipple hugers at the Alamo??? Must have been. Rock in the locks used by Rangers 9 years later, I betcha.

I am almost through reading "Carry the Wind" (thanks to those...who recommended it...really enjoying it...except that I read before I go to bed...and I have been getting less sleep as a result!) This period of transition from flintlock to percussion is portrayed in the book. At the rendezvous of 1832...the two main characters are choosing a rifle for the younger...and the experienced mountain man...looks over the percussion cap rifles...but guides his protégé into choosing a flintlock. I understand that this is historical fiction...but I am guessing that T. Johnston did his homework. Seems like there was about a 15-20 year period where the 2 systems equally shared the stage.

 

[Artificer]

Colonel Crockett's Rifle on display at the Alamo is a percussion half stock rifle, BUT it is (best I recall from a visit there in the first years of this century) a .36 caliber rifle and NOT the one he used at the Alamo during the battle - according to most historians. It is a "squirrel rifle" he gifted or left behind before going to the Alamo to fight. BTW, if you have ever seen John Wayne's 1960 film "The Alamo," it seems the rifle he carried in that movie was a copy of the Crockett Rifle at the Alamo.

There is a large discussion/disagreement on exactly which rifle Crockett actually carried at the Alamo, that is way too voluminous and intense for this thread.

Gus

 

[smoothshooter]

Someone like Boone would have owned many guns over the course of his lifetime.
He would have owned quite a few that he never even used, such as some he would have taken in on trades, or sold through his retail business ( taverrn and general store ).

 

[sixpak1]

The rifle that Fess carried in Daniel Boone is what got me started in black powder over 40yrs ago. He actually carried a smoothbore with a lot of engraving in the stock and it must be at least a 48" barrel as he was 6' 6" -would love to know where that gun is now

 

[smoothshooter]

That's the gun that got me started too!

I thought I read somewhere that the gun Parker used was in a museum or private collection somewhere.

 

[Mickc01]

Here's a link to a thread I posted in this forum back in 2011 with a similar question. You might find it interesting...Mick C
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/.../1377847/hl/fess+parker/fromsearch/1/#1377847

 

[Gene L]

Daniel Boone was captured three times by Indians, so one has to assume they took his rifle when they captured him. "Tick Licker" was the name of one of his rifles.

Boone was a fascinating man. Pragmatic and self-reliant, an unsurpassed frontiersman.

 

[Nativearizonan]

I remember reading Stewart Edward White's book The Long Rifle, as a teenager, and this thread reminded me of it. The rifle in the fictional book, carried by Andy Burnett, was supposedly Daniel Boone's rifle.

That book certainly had an impact on me.