Brass and Iron mounts on early guns

[C_Laubach]

Dave,
When the Jon Schreit rifle came back to America from England it had a hawken looking guard on it. Obviously not the original guard.
Someone planed some off of the toe just behind the wrist and put the current guard on it.

 

[dlemaster]

Thanks C. Laubach I remembered that there was something funky going on with the guard and I remembered being told it was horn.
Did you ever hear of the engraved date 1761 being questioned? I remember there was some discussion about whether the date was valid or not, but this was 30 years ago.

Regards, Dave

 

[Stophel]

The Schreidt gun has been pretty heavily reworked. The barrel is quite bright, but pitted, meaning that probably it was completely rusted brown, as so many now are. The stock was of step-wrist design, but much of the step has been removed with the installation of the new triggerguard. (SOME remnants of the step can still be seen if you sight down the bottom of the butt in the photos). I don't know about the horn guard....The gun was once in England, and before it came back to America, it was supposed to have had a very large, ornate, very Victorian triggerguard, so no one knows what the original guard actually was. There is a photo of the gun in this state in some English auction catalog, but I have never seen the photo.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Concerning the John Shrite rifle dated 1761, when it came to light it supposedly had a trigger guard made of horn (very Germanic) but the new owner felt it didn't look right and replaced it with the guard that is currently on it.

I'm reading Burt Loescher's "History of Rogers' Rangers" vol. 1 again. I noticed that he states that the rangers muskets were "browned" (on Rogers' orders) to prevent the glint from polished arms giving them away in the woods. This was in 1758, he (Loescher) uses Rogers' Journals as the reference. I haven't had time to dig out my copy of Rogers' Journals to verify this as yet. If this pans out this will be the earliest reference to browned guns in America that I'm aware of.

Regards, Dave

Yup, you're right, I've seen that reference myself, but you have to remember that Roger's Rangers operated in a vastly different manner than the rest of the Brits. Basically he used his rangers to fight very much like the Indians and the last thing they wanted was to be seen. I have a copy of Roger's rules of Ranging, but since I'm in the midst of moving from Vermont to Virginia, I don't have it to hand right now (I'm in Virginia, my wife and all our stuff is in Vermont). Included in their rules was to never stand up in front of somebody who was going to shoot at you. Get behind a tree a rock or lay down on the ground. This was very much an exception to the norm of the period. The rest of the British army was superb at standing up in front of people shooting at them. The trick was they could usually fire back faster than they were being fired upon, and when they got close enough to use bayonets, the other side's position was lost!

Regards,
Dan

 

[dlemaster]

twisted
Sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear in my statement on Rogers' Rangers.
It has been mentioned in this thread as well as others, and even discussed on other forums about when exactly did the browning of firearms come into use here in America. It is felt by some very knowledgeable people that browning is pretty much a late 18th to 19th century treatment.
There are newspaper ads offering browning of guns in the 1780s and 1790s.
If the reference to Rogers' ordering the browning of gun is in his journals then that puts documentation back to the mid-18th century.
I hope this clears up what I was trying to say.

Regards, Dave

 

[tg]

I seem to recall something about that reference, if it is bonafide, the method would be of interest, and I doubt that it would give validity to browning as a type of "finish" on F&I period barrels, more info would be interesting.

 

[Flint1]

This was actually one of my considerations when I opted to have the barrel and furniture on my Early Virginia browned. My reasoning was a longhunter would prefer a browned barrel so sunlight would not reflect from his gun and give him away to any unfriendly Indians in the area. What do ya'll think--could that have been a viable concern of early woodsmen, and might they have sought to have their barrels and furniture browned?

 

[tg]

We can speculate on many possibilities, but there is just no evidence or reference that browning was done during that early period, ( with the possible exception of the Rogers journal and it may not be a real "source" for evidence of browning as a finish)the NA hunters prefered their guns with very highly polished barrels, they obviously had no concern about spooking game, or glare, I think we often tend to take our modern mindset back with us when we drift into the past, without regular poslishing a barrel will dull up fairly quick in the bush, and there are several mentions of a "new" method of finishing barrels (browning) and all are of a later period. One can do whatever one wishes but I have seen nothing to support the browning of barrels in that time period, Rogers may have just had his men rub them down with mud or muck from a leafy bog to cut the glare and his "browning" may not have been at all what qwe consider it to be today?

 

[Mike Brooks]

I'm a little late getting into this , but here we go.... I look at this from the builders point of view, I'm sure it was the same 250 years ago. If I'm going to build dozens of rifles per year I'd much sooner cast dozens of buttplates and trigger guards as opposed to forging each one out individually. I've forged out many buttplates and trigger guards and find they are far more work ( read more expensive). Brass on the other hand is far easier and quicker to work with. Labor was expensive in colonial America compared to Euorope. The fellows who forged gun parts in England and france were specialists and probably did nothing else to make a living. Also remember, Iron mounted guns in Europe were far more expensive than the brass mounted guns.
, I'm sure it was the same in the colonies.
Of course, you all may think I'm goofy too..... :yakyak:

 

[tg]

Good points Mike...glad you found your way to this forum.

 

[Okwaho]

Mike, I seem to remember that you and I offered the same opinion some time back on another board as to the iron/steel mounts on early English,French and to some degree Germanic guns being found on the better grades of guns.Your point was well taken then as now.I have some early French fusils with brass and while at first and in photos they seem like fine work, in reality the cast brass is somewhat crude compared to the extremely well forged iron mounts of 17th and early 18th century French guns. Wallace Gusler described one of mine as being "trade level" and I agree.I have yet to see{with a few notable exceptions}very many cast brass mounts on Kentucky rifles which would equal the superb iron mounts on 17th century French fusils.
Tom Patton

 

[Mike Brooks]

Well, we can compare todays gunbuilding to the 18th century easy enough. You can get the very best top quality casting today for $25 or less, but try and get somebody to hand forge the same piece it will probably cost you 3 or four times that much for a rough forging, especially from a guy that knows how to do it right. The same held true in the 18th century.
I study english 18th century fowlers, all steel mounted guns were more expensive. In fact, I doubt but few fowlers that were export to the colonies were iron mounted if any. Heck, there were even different grades/quality of brass mounted english fowlers. Some were intended for the Indian trade and some were intended for the colonists. Labor was so expensive in the colonies that fowlers could be made cheaper in england and sold here than a colonial gunsmith could make and sell them here.....did that make sense? :yakyak:
When I look at iron mounts out of england, france, and germany I'm completly amazed at the skill that it took to make such fine mounts. I'm not sure but I doubt there are more than 3 or 4 fellows that could do the same work today.....if there are that many. :master:

 

[LSU TIGER]

Let's take a look at just the lock. As part of his training, an apprentice gunsmith was taught to make a lock. However, locks were imported from England and the German states by the barrel. It made sense to use an import lock to save time and money.

 

[Okwaho]

The same was true of French Fusils fin de chasse.The Montreal Merchants records show an entry in 1702 for 18 fne fusils no.3; 6 very fine fusils No. 5; 2 very fine fusils; 3 fine fusils No.3; 6 very fine fusils No.4. The barrel lengths ranged from 3 ft.8 in to 4 /2 ft.Interestingly, there were 18 brass mounted rifles but I think that this was either a transcription or a translation error.It should be noted that these were not identified as being made by Tulle.
Tom Patton

 

[Mike Brooks]

I'm a little foggy on the term "fusiL'. It's not one I use to describe smooth bore fowling guns today. I guess I'm looking for exactly what the French thought a "fusil" was back in those days.
Did the english use the same term when describing smooth bored fowling pieces intended for export? It seems to me the english were more likely to use the term "gun" from what I've read. The french were different? (really no surprise I guess..... :youcrazy