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Is it a Leman? Warning Picture Heavy

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44-henry

45 Cal.
Joined
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Since moving to Lancaster, PA I have been enjoying traveling around the region and one of my favorite spots to visit so far has been Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop. This afternoon I made a visit and walked away with an interesting smooth rifle that sure looks like it could be a Leman. It sports an approximately 7/8" octagon 51 caliber smooth bore barrel that measures about 36" Long. The plain maple stock has a faux curly finish painted on the stock, much of which still is remaining. The triggerguard is brass and looks identical to Leman rifles I have seen elsewhere, as does the butt plate which is iron. The barrel tang, trigger, and trigger plate are also dead ringers for others that I have seen pictures of. The ramrod thimbles are (unlike what Track of the Wolf states on their website), not cast but formed of thin sheet brass which can be seen by the seem in the photographs I took. The pipes also have the squiggly line engraving on them. The ramrod is tapered and has a sheet steel ramrod tip formed at the end. The nosecap also looks to be formed of sheet brass.

As for the differences it has a beavertail cheekpiece, no rear sight, as is a smooth bore. The lock also does not have a flat at the tail like some of the others that I have seen, but than again I have also seen pictures of Leman's with this style of lock. Just for fun I placed the rifle over one of the Leman rifle plans that TOW produces and though the barrel on this one is longer than the one on the drawing by a couple inches, the rifle matches up almost perfectly. The only differences were the locations of the upper ramrod thimbles.

One possiblity that I was told was that this could be a rifle built by a Leman factory employee from parts from the factory rifles. The idea is that sometimes workers were paid in parts, or purchased them and built rifles using them. It wouldn't be too hard to imagine that that a factory barrel blank was used unrifled to make a shotgun and this would have negated the need to install a rear sight. Not sure, but I took some photographs for you to look at, what do you think it is?

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It certainly has all the lines of a Leman and barrel length can vary with originals. Most surviving pieces are 30 or 32 inch barrels but old order records mention 36 and 42 inch lengths as well. Both smoothbore "Northwest" style as well as this style trade rifle. I'd feel safe calling it a Leman and a very interesting gun. The fact it's now a smoothbore is just probably a result of a lot of use and not every gun had the typical Leman patchbox. May have to drag out the "neat" classification! :thumbsup:
 
It sure has the Leman style. Lacking any provenance, I'd say that it was either made in the Leman shop or made by someone who apprenticed under Leman.
 
Regarding the smoothbore aspect, there is no indication that this ever had a rear sight.
 
I does look quite a bit like something that could have come from Leman.

The only thing that seems to be missing to say "without a doubt" is the stamp on the lock.

Just about all the Leman's I have seen, and there is a pile of surviving ones out there, have "Leman Lanctr.PA" stamped into the lock.

Of course there could be numerous reasons for that to be missing...
 
That's interesting but not conclusive. Leman's surviving receipts mention smoothbores and rifles but not always specifically the style of gun. He contracted military muskets and made N.W. style trade guns as well...makes identifying actual type a bit tricky sometimes! :wink:
 
All the lines look like a Leman. I know they used s lot of patch box/ cap box styles. Triggerguards also varied a lot. Marks on it may have worn away, or just full of patina and invisible. Leman made a lot of smoothies and even mounted some rifles with NWG style ram rod pipes.
 
I was looking it over a bit more tonight and measured the barrel with a caliper. I found that the barrel has a straight taper of .950 at the breech to .875 at the muzzle. The ramrod pipes are very thin, about .020" and are definitely formed from sheet brass. They also have remnants of the zig zag engraving around the edges.

Regarding the markings there is some heavy pitting about where the stamp would be on the lock so that could explain the lack of markings. I looked it over under a magnifying glass and it looks like some kind of mark was there, but I can't really make anything out. I might try photographing it next and enlarging and see if that helps.
 
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