Templates of Rifles

[dave_person]

Hi,
Eric von Aschwege (von Aschwege Flintlocks) sells drawings that are very detailed and historically correct. He has one of a really nice George Schroyer York county gun. I note he does not list them on his site so you might need to e-mail him about the plans.

dave

 

[Treestalker]

Years ago in my misspent youth I was learning to build ML guns from an East Texas ML gunsmith named Leon Miller. One week we traveled to the famous flea market at Canton, Texas, to sell some guns, and met a dealer from Illinois he knew. The dealer allowed me to handle and examine an original Shroyer rifle that he said was over 200 years old That was about 1980. The rifle was a hunter's gun, no carving, with brass furniture and patchbox, with intense curly maple which was crumbling along the upper edge of the forestock, and had taken on the translucent quality of tortoise shell. The flintlock was barely held on by the one remaining bolt, and the long iron barrel, maybe 44 inches long, was thick, maybe one inch across the flats, and seemed to be about .50 caliber. Mr. Miller said this was a rifle typical of the over mountain hunters of the day. I held this rifle when I was about 24 years old, and now at the age of 66 I still remember feeling the spirit of the hunter who packed that heavy but very honest and beautiful rifle in the woods, and the care of the gunsmith who built it.