Hello Everyone! My name is Bob Law and I posted the following topic to the Smoke Pole - Blackpowder Forum on Gunboards concerning a muzzleloading rifle that has been in my families possession forever it seems. A few of the forum members highly recommended I post the same article here because a lot of the muzzleloading heavy hitters resided here. The big discussion was how old the barrel is on this rifle as it is stamped J. HINDS which according to my research was a gunmaker in Boston Mass in the 1745 timeframe. Please read the thread text and look at the photos and weigh in on my rifle that I fondly call Bessy.
It is amazing how something that you took for granted for all of your adult life can well be that hidden family heirloom and treasure. When I was a very young boy, I am 65 now, my family would visit my Great Uncle Bob at his farm in Wilmington Ohio. His house was over a hundred years old, even back then and many of the family antiques and valuables had ended up there as family Patriarchs and Matriarchs in other locations had died and estates had been divided up. Even as a young boy, I was already fascinated by firearms and always admired an old muzzleloading rifle that Uncle Bob had above his fireplace mantle. Occasionally he would take the rifle down and let me handle it and admire it, while telling me stories about its use before it was delegated to the mantel. The rifle had been heavily used and showed signs of various repairs and part replacements that had been done over the many generations. An interesting addition was to the stock where on one side were 23 small notches and on the other edge were three large notches. His explanation was that the 23 notches were for the deer taken with the rifle and when I first asked about the 3 large notches, he slyly joked that they were for Indians. He left me flabbergasted for a few minutes, laughed and told me they were actually for bears taken with the rifle. My Grandfather also told me how he used this rifle to “bark” squirrels with, which entailed aiming at a branch right below where a squirrel was. When the bullet hit the tree branch it would blast bark and wood into the underside of the squirrel killing it without destroying the meat. I never fired the rifle, but when Great Uncle Bob died it was common knowledge that when “Bobby” was an adult, the rifle would be mine. After I bought my first house, which has a western style room in the basement, with a rustic fireplace, I gave the gun it’s place of honor over the fireplace, for the last 40 years.
Now fast forward to about three months ago when I stumbled onto this forum and realized that I really never took a good look at this rifle physically or mechanically. After all, I am a retired Engineer who has been collecting/tinkering with WWII weapons for almost 50 years and is very mechanically inclined with a buttload of tools at his disposal. I have a replica 1851 Navy .44 revolver I occasionally fire so I am not a novice to muzzleloading fundamentals. The lock work needed some fine tuning on the rifle and the sear notch was rounded and needed to be filed square. Also, the percussion nipple was trashed so I removed it and refitted the rifle with a brand new, stainless steel, nipple. I then gave it a thorough cleaning, especially in the barrel with a brass brush, along with the powder chamber and all internal chamber areas I could reach. Yesterday, I test fired old Bessy in my back yard into a target posted in front of a dead tree trunk and it fired beautifully. It buried the 80 grain, .375 round ball with .010 lubricated patch, about 2 inches into the tree trunk. I went easy on the old gal with 40 grains of Pyrodex, FFFg powder charge to start with.
So here is what I think are the interesting facts concerning this rifle and its history. First of all, it is a long rifle with a 36 inch rifled barrel and is in .38 caliber. There is a pair of triggers where the rear trigger sets the front trigger and the front trigger fires the gun with an amazingly small amount of finger pressure. The barrel has J. HINDS engraved on the top of it halfway between the breech and rear sight. I looked John Hinds up on the web and he was a gun maker out of Boston and a date of 1745 was associated with him. I believe that Bessy started life as a flint lock, due to when it was made by John Hinds and the fact that the side of the barrel has pits and corrosion on it around where the powder chamber is currently mounted and a frizzen would have been originally placed. I wonder if she could have been used in the Revolutionary War by one of my ancestors. The current percussion lock plate is engraved with the name Josh Golcher and his specialty was making gun locks in the mid 1800’s, so that may have been when Bessy was converted. Bessy was a work horse and even though she still has a nice wood stock, she has been lovingly used and repaired over the many years as the tool she was made to be. I am not sure when Bessy became a member of the Law family, but I am convinced she has been owned by my ancestors over many generations. Enjoy the photos and any comments, corrections or other opinions are always welcome.
BTW. Here are the original accessories that I inherited along with Bessy. Two beautiful powder horns and two bullet molds. FYI. I added all of the leather carry straps and stopper straps using leather shoe laces. I also added nice ebony stoppers from Track of the Wolf to them. Don't panic in that all of the additions did NOT in any way damage or modify the original powder horns and are completely removable!!
Regards,
Bob
It is amazing how something that you took for granted for all of your adult life can well be that hidden family heirloom and treasure. When I was a very young boy, I am 65 now, my family would visit my Great Uncle Bob at his farm in Wilmington Ohio. His house was over a hundred years old, even back then and many of the family antiques and valuables had ended up there as family Patriarchs and Matriarchs in other locations had died and estates had been divided up. Even as a young boy, I was already fascinated by firearms and always admired an old muzzleloading rifle that Uncle Bob had above his fireplace mantle. Occasionally he would take the rifle down and let me handle it and admire it, while telling me stories about its use before it was delegated to the mantel. The rifle had been heavily used and showed signs of various repairs and part replacements that had been done over the many generations. An interesting addition was to the stock where on one side were 23 small notches and on the other edge were three large notches. His explanation was that the 23 notches were for the deer taken with the rifle and when I first asked about the 3 large notches, he slyly joked that they were for Indians. He left me flabbergasted for a few minutes, laughed and told me they were actually for bears taken with the rifle. My Grandfather also told me how he used this rifle to “bark” squirrels with, which entailed aiming at a branch right below where a squirrel was. When the bullet hit the tree branch it would blast bark and wood into the underside of the squirrel killing it without destroying the meat. I never fired the rifle, but when Great Uncle Bob died it was common knowledge that when “Bobby” was an adult, the rifle would be mine. After I bought my first house, which has a western style room in the basement, with a rustic fireplace, I gave the gun it’s place of honor over the fireplace, for the last 40 years.
Now fast forward to about three months ago when I stumbled onto this forum and realized that I really never took a good look at this rifle physically or mechanically. After all, I am a retired Engineer who has been collecting/tinkering with WWII weapons for almost 50 years and is very mechanically inclined with a buttload of tools at his disposal. I have a replica 1851 Navy .44 revolver I occasionally fire so I am not a novice to muzzleloading fundamentals. The lock work needed some fine tuning on the rifle and the sear notch was rounded and needed to be filed square. Also, the percussion nipple was trashed so I removed it and refitted the rifle with a brand new, stainless steel, nipple. I then gave it a thorough cleaning, especially in the barrel with a brass brush, along with the powder chamber and all internal chamber areas I could reach. Yesterday, I test fired old Bessy in my back yard into a target posted in front of a dead tree trunk and it fired beautifully. It buried the 80 grain, .375 round ball with .010 lubricated patch, about 2 inches into the tree trunk. I went easy on the old gal with 40 grains of Pyrodex, FFFg powder charge to start with.
So here is what I think are the interesting facts concerning this rifle and its history. First of all, it is a long rifle with a 36 inch rifled barrel and is in .38 caliber. There is a pair of triggers where the rear trigger sets the front trigger and the front trigger fires the gun with an amazingly small amount of finger pressure. The barrel has J. HINDS engraved on the top of it halfway between the breech and rear sight. I looked John Hinds up on the web and he was a gun maker out of Boston and a date of 1745 was associated with him. I believe that Bessy started life as a flint lock, due to when it was made by John Hinds and the fact that the side of the barrel has pits and corrosion on it around where the powder chamber is currently mounted and a frizzen would have been originally placed. I wonder if she could have been used in the Revolutionary War by one of my ancestors. The current percussion lock plate is engraved with the name Josh Golcher and his specialty was making gun locks in the mid 1800’s, so that may have been when Bessy was converted. Bessy was a work horse and even though she still has a nice wood stock, she has been lovingly used and repaired over the many years as the tool she was made to be. I am not sure when Bessy became a member of the Law family, but I am convinced she has been owned by my ancestors over many generations. Enjoy the photos and any comments, corrections or other opinions are always welcome.
BTW. Here are the original accessories that I inherited along with Bessy. Two beautiful powder horns and two bullet molds. FYI. I added all of the leather carry straps and stopper straps using leather shoe laces. I also added nice ebony stoppers from Track of the Wolf to them. Don't panic in that all of the additions did NOT in any way damage or modify the original powder horns and are completely removable!!
Regards,
Bob
