English vs American stock styles.

[granth]

I was wondering, why does the American longrifles have curved buttstocks, but the English guns have flat ones? Most of the Eastern coast was settled by the British, so wouldn't it make sense that American gun design would replicate the flat buttstock of the English guns?

 

[Semisane]

Well, in 1716 a little known Pennsylvania gunsmith by the name or Richard Barker was building a rifle of the British design. As he was taking the final step of installing the traditional flat butt plate he discovered a section of rotted wood. Not wanting the work already completed to go to waste, he reshaped the butt so as to remove the rotted section, resulting in a curved butt.

Barker offered that rifle at a reduced price because of its odd construction. Attracted by the lower price, Matthew Higgins, the most skilled and respected shot and hunter in the local community purchased the rifle because of its bargain price.

When other hunters in the area observed Higgins carrying that rifle they assumed the new butt plate design was a special order by him. Stories began to circulate on Colonial Intergab that the curved butt plate was of a secret design that contributed to Higgin's skill. As a result, hunters began to specify curved butt plates when ordering new rifles. Both Barker and Higgins did their best to dispel the stories about the "magical" new design. But alas, once on the Intergab....... well, you know how that goes.

 

[plmeek]

Great story, Semisane. I wonder how many will appreciate your sense of humor.

granth, I assume you are asking about the very end of the butt or the shape of the buttplate and not the whole buttstock.

Unfortunately, your comparison is a bit of apples and oranges. The English gun you are comparing is a fowling piece or a period shotgun. The English did not have much of a rifle culture in the 18th and early 19th century. Rifles were almost the exclusive use of wealthy English land owners that had enough land to support deer and stag. Smoothbore fowling pieces were far more common in England than rifles.

In America, the fowling piece or shotgun had a flat buttplate pretty much like the English counterpart. There are some exceptions, but in general, American shotguns tended to have flat buttplates all the way up to modern times.

So maybe the better way to ask the question is why do fowlers have flat buttplates when American longrifles have curved or crescent shaped buttplates?

I'm not sure anyone knows. History certainly doesn't give us the answer.

The few examples we have of early American longrifles do have wide and flat buttplates. These generally follow the pattern of early Germanic rifles that were brought to the American colonies as well as rifles made in America by German emigrants that were trained in the Old Country.

Somewhere around the time of the American Revolution, the shape of the buttplate started a gradual change. They started to become a little more narrower in width and have a little more curve from the heel to the toe. This change wasn't universal with some gunmakers adopting the new trend while other gunmaker continued to maker rifles in the "old style". But by and large the trend took hold and is more noticeable in rifles made in the last decade of the 18th century and the first decade of the 18th century.

By the 1830s, the buttplate on most American longrifles have even more curvature and are more narrow. The trend continues pretty much through the rest of the muzzleloader period well past mid-century. The most extreme case is often seen on Southern Mountain Rifles, particularly in Tennessee, but many gunmakers from Pennsylvania to St. Louis to California built rifles with substantial curve in the butt plate. Henry Leman and the Hawken brothers come to mind.

Many people have speculated that the deep crescent shape was developed for practical reasons. Maybe, but it is easy to poke holes in these hypotheses. One of the common ones I hear or read is that the deep crescent made the rifle easier to shoot from horse back on the plains of the West. The problem I have is that people back east rode horses all the way back to the colonial period so what does riding a horse have to do with it. They might counter that shooting from the back of a horse would have been more common while hunting buffalo on the plains than riding a horse through the woods back east and trying to shoot a deer. But then how does this explain the deep crescent on Tennessee mountain rifles?

Also, people were riding horses on the plains of Missouri and Kansas prior to the 1830s. After all, William Ashley made his first expedition in 1822 and held the first mountain man rendezvous in 1825. There were earlier expeditions to the Southern Rocky Mountains and even to Santa Fe and the Santa Fe trade went into high gear after Mexico won is independence in 1821. The Lancaster pattern longrifle with a moderate crescent was probably the most common rifle on the plains and in the mountains from the time of the Lewis & Clark expedition until well into the 1830s. If the deep crescent was so much easier to shoot from horse back, it sure seemed to take the people crossing the plains a long time to learn that.

I think it is more plausible that the change from the wide and flat butt plate of the Colonial Period to the narrow and deep crescent of the mid-19th century was driven more by fashion and desire for something new and different than by any practical purpose. People back then weren't all that much different from people today and in each generation there were those that wanted something different than what grandpa or even dad used. We see it in the style and method of decorating rifles. We see it in barrel lengths and in the trend from fullstocks to halfstocks.

 

[Brokennock]

The 2 above replies (including some well written humor) focus on the butt plate, but your o.p. says butt stock.

Clarification please.



I originally interpreted your question to be regarding the curvature of the underside of the butt stock such as on a Fusil des Chase or a Lehigh rifle as opposed to a straight stock English fowling piece or a rifle like those built around Lancaster, PA.

I'm not sure the reason for the different curvature to the underside. The curved buttplate seems to be more likely found on rifles, and those of later style at that. Some speculate that this goes along with the average reduction in caliber over time and a change in shooting style that went with it.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Not all butt plates on British guns were completely flat and not all butt plates on Pennsylvania rifles were curved.

dave

 

[PathfinderNC]

Now you know someone will read Semisane’s funny ‘explanation’ and take it for gospel. He will swear it’s fact in some armchair argument, claiming he uncovered this fact through research on the web.
Oh dear.

 

[rchas]

Some folks may say us practical and pragmatic shooters are not subject to the whims of fashion and fancy, but oh, we are... the architecture of rifles changed as fashion changed. I also believe the increasing popularity of schuetzen style target shooting through the late 18th through the 19th century had a lot to do with the popularity of deeply curved buttplates.

 

[granth]

The 2 above replies (including some well written humor) focus on the butt plate, but your o.p. says butt stock.

Clarification please.

View attachment 136679

I originally interpreted your question to be regarding the curvature of the underside of the butt stock such as on a Fusil des Chase or a Lehigh rifle as opposed to a straight stock English fowling piece or a rifle like those built around Lancaster, PA.

I'm not sure the reason for the different curvature to the underside. The curved buttplate seems to be more likely found on rifles, and those of later style at that. Some speculate that this goes along with the average reduction in caliber over time and a change in shooting style that went with it.

Sorry about that, I meant to say buttplate. It seems to be inconclusive why the American and English guns have different style butt plates. Seems to be one of those things lost to history.

 

[granth]

Great story, Semisane. I wonder how many will appreciate your sense of humor.

granth, I assume you are asking about the very end of the butt or the shape of the buttplate and not the whole buttstock.

Unfortunately, your comparison is a bit of apples and oranges. The English gun you are comparing is a fowling piece or a period shotgun. The English did not have much of a rifle culture in the 18th and early 19th century. Rifles were almost the exclusive use of wealthy English land owners that had enough land to support deer and stag. Smoothbore fowling pieces were far more common in England than rifles.

In America, the fowling piece or shotgun had a flat buttplate pretty much like the English counterpart. There are some exceptions, but in general, American shotguns tended to have flat buttplates all the way up to modern times.

So maybe the better way to ask the question is why do fowlers have flat buttplates when American longrifles have curved or crescent shaped buttplates?

I'm not sure anyone knows. History certainly doesn't give us the answer.

The few examples we have of early American longrifles do have wide and flat buttplates. These generally follow the pattern of early Germanic rifles that were brought to the American colonies as well as rifles made in America by German emigrants that were trained in the Old Country.

Somewhere around the time of the American Revolution, the shape of the buttplate started a gradual change. They started to become a little more narrower in width and have a little more curve from the heel to the toe. This change wasn't universal with some gunmakers adopting the new trend while other gunmaker continued to maker rifles in the "old style". But by and large the trend took hold and is more noticeable in rifles made in the last decade of the 18th century and the first decade of the 18th century.

By the 1830s, the buttplate on most American longrifles have even more curvature and are more narrow. The trend continues pretty much through the rest of the muzzleloader period well past mid-century. The most extreme case is often seen on Southern Mountain Rifles, particularly in Tennessee, but many gunmakers from Pennsylvania to St. Louis to California built rifles with substantial curve in the butt plate. Henry Leman and the Hawken brothers come to mind.

Many people have speculated that the deep crescent shape was developed for practical reasons. Maybe, but it is easy to poke holes in these hypotheses. One of the common ones I hear or read is that the deep crescent made the rifle easier to shoot from horse back on the plains of the West. The problem I have is that people back east rode horses all the way back to the colonial period so what does riding a horse have to do with it. They might counter that shooting from the back of a horse would have been more common while hunting buffalo on the plains than riding a horse through the woods back east and trying to shoot a deer. But then how does this explain the deep crescent on Tennessee mountain rifles?

Also, people were riding horses on the plains of Missouri and Kansas prior to the 1830s. After all, William Ashley made his first expedition in 1822 and held the first mountain man rendezvous in 1825. There were earlier expeditions to the Southern Rocky Mountains and even to Santa Fe and the Santa Fe trade went into high gear after Mexico won is independence in 1821. The Lancaster pattern longrifle with a moderate crescent was probably the most common rifle on the plains and in the mountains from the time of the Lewis & Clark expedition until well into the 1830s. If the deep crescent was so much easier to shoot from horse back, it sure seemed to take the people crossing the plains a long time to learn that.

I think it is more plausible that the change from the wide and flat butt plate of the Colonial Period to the narrow and deep crescent of the mid-19th century was driven more by fashion and desire for something new and different than by any practical purpose. People back then weren't all that much different from people today and in each generation there were those that wanted something different than what grandpa or even dad used. We see it in the style and method of decorating rifles. We see it in barrel lengths and in the trend from fullstocks to halfstocks.

Thanks for the reply, this really cleared things up for me.

 

[Erwan]

Was it not the Germans who, in addition to the French and English rifles of more or less the same type (more or less derived from trade or military rifles), brought the massive jäger (and others) before evolution gave birth to the elegant American rifles from Pennsylvania?
If this is true, it would have been normal that these different types of rifles existed side by side and that the old French and then English rifles were so different and unsuited to the conditions of the time....
This is only my own reflection on this subject : I am not a historian, but I think that this can explain the fact that the Englishes or French rifles are so different of the nice long rifles...

 

[Erwan]

Don't take care of what I did say : I was writing when came the answer from plmeek...

 

[SirFrancis]

I assume or speculate (but don’t know for sure) that the evolution of the deeply curved buttplate on American civilian rifles of the late 18th-late 19th century was a result of the fact that it locks a little more securely to the shoulder/upper arm, and this might be perceived to help with accurate target shooting. Calibers had also shrunk during this era when men back east were shooting more often at small game or targets than at deer, larger animals, or men, which allowed the curved, thin buttplate to be comfortable.

The big Hawkens and similar rifles were just that: big and heavy. So they could presumably retain that curved buttplate that was now the accepted style, and in a bigger caliber didn’t recoil too badly. But as the muzzle loading era ended the various manufacturers (many of whom had been making military muskets under contract, which had adopted rifling later and retained a shotgun layout) probably recognized the practicality of the flatter buttplate for the heavier conical bullets coming into use.

 

[Loja man]

My dad thinks the rifle butt was designed that way by the hill folks so that it made a better Walkingstick while out hunting it sure takes a better bit into the hill side with the deep crescent!

 

[DixieTexian]

Could be that as American rifles grew longer, the stance required for shooting them off hand changed to a more and more sideways stance in order to support the longer gun. The crescent butt plate helps to achieve a better lock up in such a stance, while a flat butt plate is more suited to a more straight on stance like is typically used with modern guns.

 

[ShootistJack]

This is all very enjoyable reading!

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
As SirFrancis wrote, the deep crescent butt plates are better for shooting with the gun tucked into the upper arm rather than the shoulder. Certainly a long extended toe can slip under the arm pit helping hold a muzzle heavy rifle steady. However, those were the extreme crescent plates from the 19th century. The OP's example shows a common shape that evolved after the Rev War but is not the deep crescent of the mid 19th century rifles. I believe it is a design that just became fashionable in America without any real functional reason. It likely evolved from the earlier Germanic styles, which had a bulbous heel but were fairly straight below the heel. At first glance they look like a crescent until you notice that impression is created by the heel. You also find those plates on most colonial or Rev War period American rifles. I've made rifles with butt plates of all those styles and in truth notice no difference in handling other than a wide plate absorbs recoil better.

dave

 

[pmccoywss]

I assume or speculate (but don’t know for sure) that the evolution of the deeply curved buttplate on American civilian rifles of the late 18th-late 19th century was a result of the fact that it locks a little more securely to the shoulder/upper arm, and this might be perceived to help with accurate target shooting.

No perceiving about it, just look to current Olympic rifles to see the benefit they gain from hooks and (limited by rule) long projections on the bottom of the buttplate.