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  1. J

    my little squirrel rifle

    Is it possible it was Lester Smith? He was a friend and colleague of Hacker Martin's. A friend of mine, now dead, had one of his rifles with nearly the identical inlay work on the underside of the fore end and very similar engraving.
  2. J

    a long gun

    An interesting and worthwhile observation... I had not thought of that. The only smoothbores I've shot were muskets or later percussion doubles so I appreciate your view on the value of having the muzzle opened up a bit.
  3. J

    a long gun

    I hate to admit it, but I don't pay much attention to bores, aside from noting whether rifling is intact. (I have three or four original rifles I shoot occasionally but have never felt the need to shoot all of them.) But... I suspect that in the case of your gun its worn from thousands of...
  4. J

    I want to build a percussion pistol from scratch

    Around the end of September or the beginning of October a book is coming out on the first American made percussion arms - the Ruggles patent underhammers. They were very simple - so much so that I'm tempted to make one from scratch, barrel included, myself. They worked so well that the term...
  5. J

    a long gun

    I doubt it was rifled. It is unusually long for a rifle, although having said that, I just got a NE rifle, with the rifling intact, and a barrel is only two or three inches shorter than that one. Its the longest rifle barrel I've seen on a signed NE gun - and its a similar octagon to round...
  6. J

    a long gun

    I missed the barrel note. Barrels up to 60" were reasonably common in New England well into the 19th century. In 1812 at least one major exporter offered "4' barrels" i.e. 48" - and these on fowlers that could be ordered in quantity by item number.
  7. J

    a long gun

    Zonie is absolutely correct regarding anti-British sentiment. There was very little, if any, especially in the commercial cities along the eastern seaboard. Even the cry of "Free Trade and Sailor's Rights" that went with the War of 1812 didn't resonate with the seamen and merchants of the east...
  8. J

    a long gun

    The rounded tail & the fully developed waterproof pan are important features. Both existed earlier but were features of high end guns. By the time these features were available on export grade locks it was probably well after 1800. The touch hole is bushed... a common repair at the time and one...
  9. J

    a long gun

    I also see nothing 18th century there... the fact that break-off breeches had been invented doesn't make them common or even likely in America until at least 1800 and the lock is almost certainly post-War of 1812. The brass bits could be earlier but my own feeling is that far too much is read...
  10. J

    Belgian touchmark

    A very common pistol... they were never used by the Belgian military but they were made in Belgium. There are so many of them, almost always in reasonably good condition, that the generally accepted theory is that they were made very late... well into the percussion era. There is a very similar...
  11. J

    unusual pistol

    I believe its Spanish, middle 19th century. Notice the unusual and very late use of a horizontal sear and the head of the cock sculpted to be an animal head.
  12. J

    Center Hammer "Muff" Flintlocks

    There are no books about them because they are not Colts, Winchesters or Derringers, nor are they military or particularly romantic. They weren't used for dueling (at least not in "regulation" duels) and have generally never captured the imagination of collectors. There are lots of subjects that...
  13. J

    Center Hammer "Muff" Flintlocks

    More properly called "screw barrel pocket pistol" ("muff pistols are the very small ones") - they are probably the most common surviving flintlock guns. There must have been tens of thousands of them. As to your question, no book has ever been written about them and only a few magazine articles...
  14. J

    Proof of Proofing?

    Swampy, You're quite right about that. Probably in all cases, the CW rifle muskets and the Peabodys and Peabody-Martinis. The only difference is that it was either done by the Federal government on contract arms and by the company for their customer... not as not aspect of civil law.
  15. J

    Proof of Proofing?

    Glad to help. If you keep looking you'll start finding them all over the place. They aren't rare and are usually about the most inexpensive original muskets you can buy... There is one on gunboards right now which, last time I looked, was under $300 and had its original bayonet. There was an...
  16. J

    Proof of Proofing?

    To the best of my knowledge, the only US proof law is the Massachusetts law of 1805. It was in effect from 1805 to about 1841. I don't know that it was repealed - more likely it simply fell out of use with the Dearborn Militia Reorganization of 1842 and the assumption of the state to arm the...
  17. J

    What gun is this?

    If you read the thread titled "What is this" ”“ in this same section of the forum, you'll see a long discussion of virtually the identical gun.
  18. J

    What is this?

    Nah... I didn't take the picture, but I have handled the gun more than once. GP Foster rifles turn up once in a while - that one is in very nearly new condition if I remember correctly. Wesson used that style action but he probably didn't originate it and he wasn't the only one to use it. It is...
  19. J

    Octagon, to 16 Flats, to Wedding Band, then Round....

    Very conventional. Lane & Read were the big Boston hardware and sporting goods dealer. They also supplied locks with their names on them to gunmakers. They weren't gunmakers and never claimed to be. I'd guess its around 1850, a time at which about 99% of the smoothbore guns in America came from...
  20. J

    What is this?

    The rifle illustrated above is not a Wesson - its a George Pratt Foster rifle made by the Bristol Firearms Company in Bristol, Rhode Island. Which illustrates a good point... several makers used this sort of one-piece iron action. That a Belgian example exists shouldn't surprise anyone.
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