Gus, nobody can agree on what is a 1750's rifle here.
How many people toting rifles were there? The population of the colonies exploded by the 1770s.
How many Colonial gunsmiths were building rifles versus mostly doing repairs in the 1750's?
What proportion of 1750's rifles were made here versus imported? And what proportion of imports were English, German, or Dutch? What did each of those imports look like, generally?
My main interest is in the early rifles made here, and I have my favorite candidate 1750s Colonial made rifles. Most of these are largely unknown except for s few rabid students.
For all viewers, RCA stands for Shumway's 2 volume set of Rifles of Colonial America. He numbered the rifles and we refer to them that way.
RCA 19 has characteristics we would expect in a 1750's to 1770's rifle. Furniture is early with Baroque finials on the guard. I built a close copy, stocked in walnut and with an octagon to round, .54 rifled barrel.
RCA 40 has an open, early guard that would seem out of place on a 1770's rifle. It's very robust. I built a rifle based on this one in .58 caliber.
There are a couple others in RCA that could be 1750s rifles but I don't have the book handy. RCA 17 (if I recall correctly) is a smooth rifle which is tentatively and cautiously attributed to William Antes and late 1750s.
A rifle known as the Musicians rifle has a scratched in date of 1756 inside the 2 piece brass box. This rifle is elegant and if not stocked in maple and having a 2 piece brass box, would pass for a European rifle. Note it was clearly never a rifle.
A rifle known as the tulip rifle with a rounded cheekpiece, stocked in maple, sure looks like it predates 1770 and there's nothing on it that precludes it from being 1750s. The furniture is Baroque in character.
There are 2 rifles Shumway featured in Muzzle Blasts magazine in the 1980s that are easily 1750s or possibly earlier and stocked in plain maple and collected here. On both the barrels are 36-37" long, large bore, and extremely thick at the breech. Because of the maple stocking it seems likely they were made here. Wish I could post photos from magazine articles but these are copyright restricted.
Does anyone else here have favorite early rifles that are candidates for the 1750s? I know some folks feel the Faber rifle could be that early. I've handled it and it's a dandy.
I'd surely like to see what the earliest Lancaster rifles looked like; rifles made before Dickert's earliest known rifles. Likely also had the triangular buttstock, sliding wooden patchbox, much like the earliest English trade rifles sent here.
