Barrel length for halfstock?

[Josephg]

Every time I dig that long halfstock out of the pile and handle it, it always seems sorta cockeyed. Once in a while I get tempted to cut the barrel down. Never will.

 

[Davey Boy]

This seems to be an appropriate time to ask a couple of questions I have been wondering about.
Why were long rifles fully stocked, when it seems to be so much simpler to have a half stock?
In some of the half stock pictures above, what is the function of the rib other than to hold the ramrod thimbles? The rifle immediately above doesn’t have one and the thimbles are attached direct to the barrel.

I would like to know that too, and if there were dates associated with those.

For fully stocked, I would think it had to do with carrying it and not holding the metal it being cold or hot.

As far as the rib under the barrel, again you can tell the orientation of the stock by holding the the barrel and feeling the rib. Then you would know where you are gripping the rifle as well in the dark as in the light. Gives an easy spot for soldering without heating the entire barrel up.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Full stock reasoning; It may be as simple a reason as that was the style of the times. Or, a half-stock requires a rib attached to a barrel, and that was just as much work to install as a full stock, and requires different skills. A half-stock certainly requires less wood than the full stock though. Between the two (above) plausibilities I would lean to the simplest though. Just a matter of the styles of the times.