ebiggs said:
Neither camp is going to convince the other of the correctness of their view, but we shall continue to argue about it as long as the forum is around, I suspect.
The real issue that can not seem to get past is this. Close enough is close enough for some people.
For some people close enough isn't until you actually have an original in your hands. Fine.
To others Mr. Pharris' rubber band lock and a piece of wood is close enough.
My personal close enough is it must be reliable. That is one reason why I love my TC's. Of my four Pedersoli's, one, the Blue Ridge, is a little less reliable so I like it a little less. But it's HC/PC aspect is great,..............to me!
:grin:
But many people cannot even determine "close enough" due, for the most part, to lack of exposure or being so used to modern "functionality" that they have "no idea what they are looking" at when looking at a good Kentucky.
This from the wife of a master builder after the builder finished showing a Kentucky to a guy.
Many people when shown a really nice Kentucky visibly go into "test pattern" mode, you can see it on their faces. This is not because they are stupid, it generally ignorance. They REALLY DON'T understand what they are looking at.
People are so used to machine made mediocrity that they do not, cannot, appreciate workmanship.
The Kentucky is a functional art form. To make it so requires careful attention to the smallest detail when shaping the stock. This cannot be done on a production line. The Italians have tried to make a GOOD Hawken and finally refused to do it. Even though they had a good modern copy of a J&S as a pattern. THE SHAPING IS TOO COMPLEX.
This was tried 35 years ago, a friend of mine copied a rifle in the Montana Historical Society collection and Western Arms sent it to Italy to be copied. After a couple of attempts the Italians gave up.
What we have now is the "Santa Fe" Hawken etc which is loosely based on this rifle.
The mass produced Kentucky's fall into the same category. There is no time to make the contours as they should be. If the finer points and this is strictly in the SHAPING, are blurred or left out all together the gun FAILS the "eye" test. Its missing key elements that the average customer, used to looking at a model 70 or a TC does not even realize are supposed to be there.
From looking at the Kentucky's that come from overseas I get the idea the people that chose the designs had no idea what they were looking at either.
Within a decade or 2 of the end of the American Revolution the Baroque/Rococo art died in Europe. In the previous 100+ years everything of any quality made of wood from picture frames to tables to gunstocks was carved for decoration. By 1800 this was all dead in Europe. The artistic decorations came to be looked upon as old fashioned and even vulgar. Even Thomas Jefferson stated this.
While America, to some extent, held on the relief/incised carved rifle stock until about 1840, by this time a great many rifles had plain stocks. Some had brass and silver inlays, some looking like they had been simply tossed on the stock and then inlet wherever they fell.
The art form largely died out. The training that was given the pre-Revolution gunsmith apprentice slowly died away as the factories like Leman and Henry dominated the market. A friend of mine believes the Golden Age rifles were the result of actual gunsmiths showing their skill over people who had been "trained" to stock things like Committee of Safety Muskets during the war and then thought they were gun stockers. A look at some of these muskets will show that their only redeeming quality was that they would expel a ball if loaded properly. Very ugly. But ugly paid as well, or better than graceful...
This said there are some modern custom makers who make guns with poor lines and angular transitions. People who make "the American" rifle of the 18th and early 19th c. have to be able to tell a good line from a bad one but many cannot.
I simply will not shoot ugly guns. What is the point? Yeah, yeah beauty is in the eye and all that. But I suspect that few people here have Kindig's book or "Rifles of Colonial America" or If interested try inter-library loan for "The Kentucky Rifle a True American Heritage in Picture" by the KRA. Look through it. Image the rifle with NO decoration just the basic lines. You will find both grace and clunky page by page as you progress through the book.
Look at the rifle by George Kreps. Look at the Armstrong's, pg. 7 esp. Look at the Daniel Border. Its a classic. Look at the N. Hawk swivels with the brass forend panels. Look at the LINES. Look at the wonderful patchbox designed to fit HIS buttstock.
Look at the excessively decorated rifle on page 88. It all well executed. This rifle would be a dandy with NOTHING in the way of decoration.
I have seen photos of a wonderful rifle that was totally devoid of any decoration and stocked in curly Hickory. It was wonderfully laid out and executed.
Don't have time for this? Go to the Track of The Wolf website and look at FL rifles. Sometimes there are real jewels here priced too low. They often go fast. Look at the Jim Chambers made rifle and compare it to a Lyman GPR. The Chambers is surely reliable, its surely accurate and its beautiful. Yeah it costs a lot. H similar rifles by "unknowns" are generally under 2000. This is sweat shop wages for the maker if the gun is stocked from a blank. Its a barely livable wage if made from a pre-carve. How can Lyman sell a GPR for what they do? Perhaps people should think about this a little more and consider...
If you want a decent Kentucky get some books, buy or borrow and do some research develop an eye for line. Then frequent the TOW site and the Contemporary Longrifles Assoc "for sale" pages. There are bargains out there that are often several thousand dollars under priced. There are semi-custom makers who will make guns complete or in the white are prices almost anyone can afford if they set their mind to it and stop thinking of the ML as a toy that needs to be bought as cheaply as possible. Look at the price of Ruger #1 or a Colt 1911. They cost at least double what a GPR does, but they shoot a cartridge and are "real" guns. I love 1911s they are wonderful functional art forms in their own right. But a Kentucky pistol is more pleasing to the eye.
I am lucky I am a reasonably skilled maker. I can MAKE a better rifle than I can afford to buy.
Why, when I can shoot a rifle that IS good looking AS WELL AS very ACCURATE and RELIABLE would I shoot something with poor lines, sloppy inletting, improper assembly, and if decorated poorly done?
Aesthetically a person could be better off with a Pedersoli or a TC than a poorly executed "custom".
See the
contemporarymakers.blogspot
go to Sept 3, 2009 and look through the ads... I have run better looking stocks through my wood stove.
I need to get to the shop.
Dan
Same with flintlocks: I do like a beautiful flintlock, and allthough I try to learn about them I will be in trouble if I have to point out which is more original or less original build... :idunno:
