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Jim Kibler Woodsrunner

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Well, there was a Issac Haines "transitional" rilfe like the kit/stock that Dunlap Woodcrafts sells, that is characterized by the short, balanced, 38″ long barrel, but the shape of the comb is entirely different.

I personally don't care for the Woodsrunner buttstock and comb profile at all ... looks too "Lehigh" of school to me, which means very 'droopy'at the nose of the comb. Ugghhh ...
 
I pulled up Jim Chambers website and compared his "Isaac Haines" rifle to the Kibler "Woodsrunner". They seem a bit similar to my untrained eye, but...
 
Well, there was a Issac Haines "transitional" rilfe like the kit/stock that Dunlap Woodcrafts sells, that is characterized by the short, balanced, 38″ long barrel, but the shape of the comb is entirely different.

I personally don't care for the Woodsrunner buttstock and comb profile at all ... looks too "Lehigh" of school to me, which means very 'droopy'at the nose of the comb. Ugghhh ...
I don't mind the Kibler Woodsrunner comb nose too much. I am not a fan of Lehigh Valley combs at all, but the Kibler Woodsrunner(as opposed to the original rifle) is surprisingly close to at least two known Golden-Age Jacob Dickert rifle combs. True Lehighs are (purely to my own eye which is not objective) gross.

Apart from this pic in PA Rifles of Note, there is another signed Dickert rifle for sale on the net right now that has an even more similar comb to Kibler's Woodsrunner.
 

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The woodsrunner has a big English Round Faced lock, looks like the same one Kibler used on his Colonial. The original I looked at in my book (and I don't have many original examples of Haines to go by) has a smaller Germanic lock, flat lock plate, square pan. The Chambers kit has a Golden Age Germanic lock.
The nose on the woodsrunner is round which makes the wrist look long and the comb is very curved. The nose on the Haines I looked at stands proud and the comb is pretty straight.
The woodrunner looks to me to have a lot of drop in the heal and a short length of pull. That might be an optical illusion due to that shark fin comb though.
 
the woodsrunner is patterned from a southern rifle with an early english lock no real options offered. The stock does look similar to a transition period Reading rifle.
The transition period Issac Haines you can get from Dunlap Wood crafters or Chambers it is not patterned after any specific rifle more like a typical Pa. transition rifle. Has a Germanic style lock. both offer an option if you need a longer pull and your not locked into a wood patch box cover. The stock can be modified to represent different Pa. schools
 
Simple to figure out. Add the barrel length to the LOP plus a couple of inches for the trigger offset, and you will get real close. 40+14+2"= approx. 56" in round numbers
 
Hi,
The Haines rifle kit from Chambers or anyone else is not a transitional long rifle. The 38" barrel has nothing to do with some sort of early design. It is that length because in the 1970s, the Getz brothers could only produce that length of barrel in large numbers to meet the contracts for the Bicentennial rifles from the state of PA. John Bivens designed those rifles based loosely on Haines' work but they were not copies of any original gun. The barrel on the original rifle used as the model was much longer and the gun was from the 1780s at the earliest. Later, kit manufacturers including Chambers used the Bicentennial rifles as models for their "Isaac Haines" kits. Fortunately, Chambers replaced the Bivins butt plate and uses a more correct one. You can turn Chambers kit into a passable version of an Isaac Haines gun but with a short barrel. However, there is nothing transitional about them. The Woodsrunner rifle is very different and lacks the angular lines of most Lancaster products. In my opinion, its pedigree is more English fowler than German rifle.

dave
 
I guess I am spoiled by the SMR, but I find the Woodsrunner to be heavy and a little less, what can I call it, 'agile'? I don't have a Colonial or other like guns from other makers. My flintlock experience had been with a Pedersoli Jaeger prior to that. I will say, I like my Woodsrunner, but it is a different beastie for me compared to the SMR, which I had been using almost exclusively. Would I get a Chambers or Pecatonica kit now? I don't know, but I really have to hand it to the fellows from the old days for hefting these big guns on a regular basis. When I was younger, I could have done it, not so much nowadays.

The Doc is out now. :cool:
 
I guess I am spoiled by the SMR, but I find the Woodsrunner to be heavy and a little less, what can I call it, 'agile'? I don't have a Colonial or other like guns from other makers. My flintlock experience had been with a Pedersoli Jaeger prior to that. I will say, I like my Woodsrunner, but it is a different beastie for me compared to the SMR, which I had been using almost exclusively. Would I get a Chambers or Pecatonica kit now? I don't know, but I really have to hand it to the fellows from the old days for hefting these big guns on a regular basis. When I was younger, I could have done it, not so much nowadays.

The Doc is out now. :cool:
I also have to admire those guys from 250 years ago. Back then the average size was 5'6" which was my fathers height and he was a stocky guy. I love to look through The Rifles of Colonial America and I look at all the info on the rifles. The size of many of those barrels is just amazing. What we think of as a heavy rifle today doesn't even come close to what many of those originals must have weighed.
 
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