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was there a "transitional Rifle"

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I would think over the guard, but that's just how I shoot. Many earlier German pieces utilized guards which stood well off the stock with finger grooves indicating fingers over the guard so apparently that was the common style. But regardless, I suspect everyone just shoots the way it feels most comfortable to them.
 
Ok here is another early gun, perhaps 1760s plus or minus. It has stunning architecture and masterful, distinctive carving. Shumway wrote a MB article on it that included later Lehigh/Bucks County rifles he felt were by the same hand. It is a smoothbore with an octagon to round barrel. Eric Martin made a very fine rifle based on this one. Auction pictures below. The tang carving is of a style I call sheaf of wheat. View attachment 88599View attachment 88600View attachment 88601View attachment 88602View attachment 88603View attachment 88604View attachment 88605View attachment 88606View attachment 88607View attachment 88608
Hi Rich,
That is a fabulous gun. I am going to have to build it instead of another EM rifle for myself. That said, I have some doubts that the lock is original to the gun. I think it is a replacement because it looks small for the mortice. Yes, wood shrinkage is a factor but this looks like a lot. Of course photos can be deceiving. The other thing is I am pretty confident that the butt plate tang was shortened when the gun was made. I think it had a longer return originally. The current shape suggests that based on the engraving and the 2 screws. It seems to me, the engraving was transitioning to something forward like a narrower and more attractive tang extension. The forward screw interfering with the engraving is another clue. On a longer tang, there may have been a lug for a cross pin to anchor it. That got sawed off and the screw added.

Gus, the high trigger guard bow might mean you put fingers under it if you have small hands or over it if large. Eric was referring to the many Germanic trigger guards on wheellocks usually with cheek stocks. As someone familiar with shooting those guns, the Hand does not encompass the wrist of the stock. Rather your hand is more open on the right side pressing the cheek stock against the face. It is a different system but it works.

dave
 
Hi Rich,
That is a fabulous gun. I am going to have to build it instead of another EM rifle for myself. That said, I have some doubts that the lock is original to the gun. I think it is a replacement because it looks small for the mortice. Yes, wood shrinkage is a factor but this looks like a lot. Of course photos can be deceiving. The other thing is I am pretty confident that the butt plate tang was shortened when the gun was made. I think it had a longer return originally. The current shape suggests that based on the engraving and the 2 screws. It seems to me, the engraving was transitioning to something forward like a narrower and more attractive tang extension. The forward screw interfering with the engraving is another clue. On a longer tang, there may have been a lug for a cross pin to anchor it. That got sawed off and the screw added.

Gus, the high trigger guard bow might mean you put fingers under it if you have small hands or over it if large. Eric was referring to the many Germanic trigger guards on wheellocks usually with cheek stocks. As someone familiar with shooting those guns, the Hand does not encompass the wrist of the stock. Rather your hand is more open on the right side pressing the cheek stock against the face. It is a different system but it works.

dave

Thanks for the explanation, Dave.

Gus
 
Dave, I had the same impression on the buttplate, and wondered if it originally had a return like often seen on some French guns and in RCA 19. Regardless, if the buttplate was modified it could be secondary use of the buttplate.
 
Surplus parts?
Waste nought want nought. Maybe when the gun was made the parts were not all made to go together, so we get a blend.
Asimov wrote a short story about Aliens visiting a post apocalyptic earth and trying to explain what a pool table was.
 
One interesting characteristic of quite a few assumed early rifles is that the buttplates tend to be exceedingly thin. Of course most antique castings are thinner than we tend to use today (just sent morning filling off probably 8 oz of brass off an old K2 lehigh guard...) in part because of better sand casting practice historically (generally finer facing sand used than by foundries now) and in part - most likely - because of conservation of both material and work. After all, it's actually pretty stupid to cast a guard like the old K2 as ridiculously oversized as the casting actually is, and then have to spend hours filing the darned thing down to where it should be. But I digress - looking at say the Fenimore rifle, or Ed Marshall's rifle, and other pieces mentioned or discussed here, those buttplates are super thin and quite a number display wear right thoguht the heel despite being generally inlet and fully supported by wood. Why is this? Couple of ways to look at it. Early on, I do not believe it was likely that many of the early gunsmiths were casting their own furnishings. Hardware was fairly easily obtainable via imports (ample evidence of this via sale ads in PA Gazette) as well as larger founders in cities i.e. Philly. Bob L has already provided evidence of the Moravians running wagons back and forth between Bethlehem and Philly for materials. Also, hardware was obtainable via secondary usage - most of the early gunsmith work seems to have been more oriented toward repair of existing pieces than of stocking new guns, at least up until the 1770s and War era. It's long been believed than some of these early buttplates may have been formed and hammered out of sheet brass; brass sheet was probably easier to obtain than a new-cast buttplate, especially if a smith was not set up with patterns and materials to run castings. Swaging out a plate from thin brass, even up to @ 1/8" thick, is fairly easy with nothing more than primitive smith tools and a heat source. Of course many early buttplates display ample evidence of hammering on the inside surfaces, although this can't really be viewed as conclusive given than even obvious castings often show evidence of much hammering, whether for finer shaping or for work hardening soft castings etc. Anyway just some thoughts.
 
One interesting characteristic of quite a few assumed early rifles is that the buttplates tend to be exceedingly thin. Of course most antique castings are thinner than we tend to use today (just sent morning filling off probably 8 oz of brass off an old K2 lehigh guard...) in part because of better sand casting practice historically (generally finer facing sand used than by foundries now) and in part - most likely - because of conservation of both material and work. After all, it's actually pretty stupid to cast a guard like the old K2 as ridiculously oversized as the casting actually is, and then have to spend hours filing the darned thing down to where it should be. But I digress - looking at say the Fenimore rifle, or Ed Marshall's rifle, and other pieces mentioned or discussed here, those buttplates are super thin and quite a number display wear right thoguht the heel despite being generally inlet and fully supported by wood. Why is this? Couple of ways to look at it. Early on, I do not believe it was likely that many of the early gunsmiths were casting their own furnishings. Hardware was fairly easily obtainable via imports (ample evidence of this via sale ads in PA Gazette) as well as larger founders in cities i.e. Philly. Bob L has already provided evidence of the Moravians running wagons back and forth between Bethlehem and Philly for materials. Also, hardware was obtainable via secondary usage - most of the early gunsmith work seems to have been more oriented toward repair of existing pieces than of stocking new guns, at least up until the 1770s and War era. It's long been believed than some of these early buttplates may have been formed and hammered out of sheet brass; brass sheet was probably easier to obtain than a new-cast buttplate, especially if a smith was not set up with patterns and materials to run castings. Swaging out a plate from thin brass, even up to @ 1/8" thick, is fairly easy with nothing more than primitive smith tools and a heat source. Of course many early buttplates display ample evidence of hammering on the inside surfaces, although this can't really be viewed as conclusive given than even obvious castings often show evidence of much hammering, whether for finer shaping or for work hardening soft castings etc. Anyway just some thoughts.

I love this post on so many levels, it is difficult to say how much.

I've long known the old Blacksmith saying that, "10 minutes properly spent at a forge will save you an hour of hand filing." As one who had to sweat blood learning precision hand filing of steel and other metals and later teaching it to apprentices who were often as ignorant of it as I had been (or more), I SHOULD have thought it also applied to casting and finishing brass, but I personally never made that connection before. DUH!

Brass was also a LOT more expensive and far less commonly available as a material for founding in the Colonies than we think about today. Though brass making was begun in Connecticut in the mid 18th century, the earliest commercial source I have found so far, it wasn't a huge industry until later in the 19th century. Heck, Brass making wasn't begun in Birmingham (England), a MUCH more industrialized city, until the 1740's.

Though I lost the original quote one or two old computers ago, during the AWI when our sources from England for brass were cut off, the Geddy Brothers advertised in the Virginia gazette for broken horse tack, buckles, etc. just to have the brass to cast for gun parts and other things.

Speaking of the Geddy Brothers and in support of the post above....

"THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE
August 8, 1751
DAVID and William Geddy Smith at Williamsburg , near the Church, having all Manner of Utensils requisite, carry on the Gun-smith's, Cutler's, and Founder's Trade, at whose Shop may be had the following Work, viz. Gun Work, such as Guns and Pistols Stocks, plain, or neatly varnished, Locks and Mountings, Barrels blued, bored, and rifled;"

Further period documentation shows the Geddy brothers were offering rifling as a service in the ad above, as they never made complete rifles. Though they as founders could have made "mountings" or what we call "furniture," they darn sure weren't making gun locks in this period, though they did all manner of repairs to gun locks. So this means they were importing locks and possibly if not probably mountings and barrels as well.

Oh, the ad is also proof that types of VARNISH were also used this early on gun stocks in the colonies, though this more of a subject for a different thread.

I have to admit many decades ago, I bought into the myth that colonial gunsmiths made every part of every gun they ever built. However, the one complete gun that gunsmith apprentices had to make to learn their trade could well have been the LAST gun they ever made where they made everything to include the barrel and lock - unless they were making guns during or shortly post AWI. It was usually cheaper to buy an imported lock from factories that made them in England/Europe and often they made more money by buying rough forged to completely finished barrels and brass mountings/furniture as well.

Gus
 
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While there are ample advertisements for gun mounts or gun furniture, locks, barrels etc to be found in the archives of the PA Gazette, the earliest I was able to find any mention of domestic founders advertising gun furniture or gun mounting was 1752-1753. I believe there were at least three different founders in Philadelphia advertising gun mounts at that point, and one or two others into the 1760s.
 
While there are ample advertisements for gun mounts or gun furniture, locks, barrels etc to be found in the archives of the PA Gazette, the earliest I was able to find any mention of domestic founders advertising gun furniture or gun mounting was 1752-1753. I believe there were at least three different founders in Philadelphia advertising gun mounts at that point, and one or two others into the 1760s.

OK, I realize I'm about to ask for the period equivalent of the Rosetta Stone for this discussion and the probable impossibility of it being available, but are there any specific period descriptions as to what styles of gun mountings were available?

I imagine the styles were in agreement with the more popular rifle, smoothbore/fowling pieces, and pistols of the times as that is what their customers would have preferred, but can they be documented? OR perhaps are there any references to known gunsmiths buying from a particular foundry?

Gus

Edited to add: Yep, I'm the nerd who has a thousand questions I fully realize may not be able to be answered. :)
 
Gus, when we see near-identical mounts on rifles of differing styles, we assume those mounts were widely available. However, as early as the 1770s we see mounts reflecting regional differences. Lancaster mounts different from Reading mounts different from Christians Spring mounts, for example. So it seems they were either casting mounts in those locales or sending master templates out to be used for castings. Reeves Goehring had over 40 variations in buttplates and guards based on originals.
 
Gus, when we see near-identical mounts on rifles of differing styles, we assume those mounts were widely available. However, as early as the 1770s we see mounts reflecting regional differences. Lancaster mounts different from Reading mounts different from Christians Spring mounts, for example. So it seems they were either casting mounts in those locales or sending master templates out to be used for castings. Reeves Goehring had over 40 variations in buttplates and guards based on originals.

Great info, thank you! Do I remember Reeves setting up at Friendship in 1974, the first year I made it there?

Gus
 
Hi Gus,
If you are a nerd, I must be one too!! These are the important process and trade questions that are so hard to answer yet you know they were central to each local trade. I think it isn't too hard to list some of the local variants in hardware that were quite different. For example, Lehigh Valley, Christian's Spring, Reading, and Bucks County. I think the Lancaster region is a bit more amorphous but think of Beck's distinctive trigger guard. I suspect these guys cast their own designs. Perhaps later after the Rev War there were more foundries that might cast generic parts but in colonial America, I suspect gun makers bought imported castings or cast their own in their shops.

dave
 
I don't think there is really any way to determine what was going on with gun mounting prior to the War, other than some speculation linked by very sparse facts. For example, looking at PA south and east of the blue mtn, yes it can be said that (as I noted above) imported gun furnishings were available in Philly. Lots of them. Also brass founders in Philly were advertising gun mountings by the 1750s; were they importing and reselling them, or were they home-cast? One would *assume* home cast, but no way to prove it.

Stylistically, we can see differences in mountings developing in varied regions prior to the War, or assumed prior to the War, but where were they coming from? Oerter at CS was using very distinct mountings by 1774-1776 - were they being cast at CS or Bethlehem? Were they purchased from a founder in Philly, and if so, who made the patterns? Likewise guns that appear to be pre-War or War-era rifles made in the Reading area (let's say RCA 20-22 or 23) seem to have been coming from a single source, but where was that source? It was clearly regional and different from Oerter's source. Then we have all of the post-War Lehigh guns, Moll's appearing to be the earliest of that style and he coincidentally (based upon his estate in 1793) clearly listing much foundry supplies. So was he casting them, and everyone else nearby (Rupps, Kuntz, Neihart etc) buying from him? Or were they trained by him, and copying what he was making? Rupp's castings are smaller than Moll's, so were they secondary castings made from original castings? Very, vey many questions to which we do not currently have answers. I will interject some personal opinion and come down on the side of, I do not believe all of these guys were running their own castings. If they could be purchased from someone nearby, I strongly suspect they were purchased. This I guess is an alternative view to the commonly-held 'apprentice-master' relationship, which also surely has some merit, but either hypothesis explains the reason why regional forms developed primarily after the War at least insofar as gun mounts.
 
Here is an example of one sort of mounts found on several 1770s (+/-) rifles of different styles.
963DE4EA-A5C2-45EC-9D00-B010DD2953CA.jpeg
CB22AE6F-AEE7-4034-B579-2A68B4CD1048.jpeg
25F505AB-2741-466F-ADB2-F807872FC3D5.jpeg
 
I don't think there is really any way to determine what was going on with gun mounting prior to the War, other than some speculation linked by very sparse facts. For example, looking at PA south and east of the blue mtn, yes it can be said that (as I noted above) imported gun furnishings were available in Philly. Lots of them. Also brass founders in Philly were advertising gun mountings by the 1750s; were they importing and reselling them, or were they home-cast? One would *assume* home cast, but no way to prove it.

Stylistically, we can see differences in mountings developing in varied regions prior to the War, or assumed prior to the War, but where were they coming from? Oerter at CS was using very distinct mountings by 1774-1776 - were they being cast at CS or Bethlehem? Were they purchased from a founder in Philly, and if so, who made the patterns? Likewise guns that appear to be pre-War or War-era rifles made in the Reading area (let's say RCA 20-22 or 23) seem to have been coming from a single source, but where was that source? It was clearly regional and different from Oerter's source. Then we have all of the post-War Lehigh guns, Moll's appearing to be the earliest of that style and he coincidentally (based upon his estate in 1793) clearly listing much foundry supplies. So was he casting them, and everyone else nearby (Rupps, Kuntz, Neihart etc) buying from him? Or were they trained by him, and copying what he was making? Rupp's castings are smaller than Moll's, so were they secondary castings made from original castings? Very, vey many questions to which we do not currently have answers. I will interject some personal opinion and come down on the side of, I do not believe all of these guys were running their own castings. If they could be purchased from someone nearby, I strongly suspect they were purchased. This I guess is an alternative view to the commonly-held 'apprentice-master' relationship, which also surely has some merit, but either hypothesis explains the reason why regional forms developed primarily after the War at least insofar as gun mounts.

Something else to consider along these lines of individuals casting their own furniture, particularly in the AWI period and at least for some time afterward, where would they have gotten enough brass to make small lots of furniture they might sell to others on a continuing basis - after the source of British brass dried up? Did the Connecticut mines and brass making sites produce enough raw brass for this?

Would/did the larger foundries sell to the gunsmiths smaller quantities of brass or would/did the larger foundries instead keep it to make their items for sale?

Also, how much could they have counted on local sources for scrap brass to continually make brass mountings themselves, even if on a fairly small scale?

I guess what I'm getting at is even if one had the tools/equipment to make small castings runs, how did they get the brass initially and how certain was the supply?

Gus
 
Gus, I recall going to a museum in the late 70s or 80s that IIRC was at Washington’s Crossing. There were muskets and rifles attributed to the Revolutionary War effort. On one the brass mounts were reddish in color. The curator commented that this was likely from recycled brass that needed zinc added. Something like that. It might be a real example of wartime brass shortage. He opined they were melting down candlesticks and such. He had an interesting name too. I’m sure Eric knows who I mean.
 
Gus, I recall going to a museum in the late 70s or 80s that IIRC was at Washington’s Crossing. There were muskets and rifles attributed to the Revolutionary War effort. On one the brass mounts were reddish in color. The curator commented that this was likely from recycled brass that needed zinc added. Something like that. It might be a real example of wartime brass shortage. He opined they were melting down candlesticks and such. He had an interesting name too. I’m sure Eric knows who I mean.
Yep! Bingo!
 
Brass is copper and zinc, and there are both copper and zinc near Allentown.

"minerals of copper and iron" were discovered in Pennsylvania and production started in 1683 at the Jones mine. This is outside Morgantown, between Lancaster and Reading.

"In America, one of the first recorded brass founders and fabricators is Joseph Jenks in Lynn, Mass from 1647 to 1679"

Surely, someone was making brass in Pennylvania prior to the Revolution.
 
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