I don't think I can answer the OP's question, but as the topic is "Southern Rifles," I don't see any harm in extending the discussion a little.
Today's stock makers have selected "typical" rifles from the past to use as models for their pre-carved stock patterns. I think it is accepted that a lot of southern mountain rifles have more drop and possibly a somewhat longer LOP than rifles from some other areas. I believe several factors may have been at play. One was certainly shooting style. We wonder if another might have been climate. It does indeed get cold in the mountains of north Georgia, but maybe not quite as cold as in Pennsylvania, and winters may not be quite as long. This pertains to the discussion of the effect of heavy clothing on one's preferred length of pull.
One other point I have not seen discussed is "anthropometrics," or the study of human proportions. Human populations in the 18th and 19th centuries were smaller and less mobile, and possibly of more uniform ethnicity. Horace Kephart explored this concept as it related to the white people of the Great Smoky Mountains in his book, Our Southern Highlanders. Kephart indicated the typical mountaineers of his day tended to be tall, thin, and lanky... Just the body type that would "fit" a rifle with more drop and a longer LOP. We wonder if this might have factored into the stock design of those classic southern mountain rifles. Maybe some of the stock patterns developed in the various "schools" of Pennsylvania gumaking originated in a similar way, being designed to fit the typical body type of the most common ethic group of each area. I recall reading that some of the northern Indians complained to the Hudson's Bay Company that the stocks of some of the trade guns were "too straight," bearing in mind that many of those customers were Athabascan people, who tended to be tall. The old Green River Rifle Works took this into account when they designed the stock of their own Northwest gun, taking the pattern (I believe) from an original Leman gun, which had more drop than the typical British muskets.
As for myself, I am thin but short. Obviously, a shorter-than-common LOP will fit me better, but I also need less drop. If there is too much drop in a rifle stock, it tips the muzzle down and I have to "hunt" for the front sight. My people are all southern, but from the Deep South rather than the mountains, probably reflecting a greater admixture from other nations than in the nearly pure stock Kephart encountered in those isolated mountain communities.
Just a few random thoughts, probably worth about what you paid for them.
Notchy Bob
