smo said:
According to Wallace Gusler in The Early Rifles of the Shenandoah Valley rifled fire arms appear in Virginia in th late 17th century. However it was approx. 1730 to 1740 that significant numbers are recorded. Even 1740 would still be 40 years prior to Pennsylvania becoming a colony...
You can't equate "becoming a colony" to producing rifles.
Unless you are nit picking and saying that because it wasn't "Pennsylvania" YET, a rifle made there was not "actually" built in Pennsylvania.
(and since the region Gusler is referring to is now West Virginia, wouldn't it be more correct to say "West Virginia guns" not Virginia guns, since the area which like the area that "became" Penn, became W.Va at some later point)
In 1850 the Hachen brothers, both gun makers, emigrated from Switzerland.
Nicholas Hachen (later changed to Hawken) set up shop in Hanover and Wolfgang Hachen (later changed to Haga) set up shop in Reading.
If either of them ever actually built guns, as opposed to simply repairing existing guns, they certainly never signed one (although dozens have been attributed to Haga).
And I believe if you re-read the article by Gusler he does not state or even support the notion that the rifles present in the Shenandoah region in the late 17th century were "produced" there.
And the quote "1730 to 1740 that significant numbers are recorded" is footnoted. The footnote indicates that in a "1683 INVENTORY" a screw gun (early term for a rifled barrel) was noted and in 1702 a note referring to someone using a "rifle gun" was "recorded" - nothing about where they were made.
Gusler goes on to say that it wasn't until the 1750's that the American Rifle evolved (which is
when Haga "may" have started building rifles in Reading and Haymaker, who would have been in his late teens in the early 1750's, "may" have started building rifles in Frederick Virginia - of course there were others, but these are two examples).
Gusler goes on to say that in the period between 1725 and 1750 there is "insufficient evidence" to conclude than any rifle was actually made in the colonies.
(you have to be careful when quoting an article to not take excerpts that support one position only if you exclude the entire article)