Ferguson Rifle

[Sir Boniface Harrison]

I first became aware of these breech - loading flintlocks after reading the excellent Dewey Lambdin books on the British fictional naval officer Alan Lewrey. An American writer whose knowledge of the British 'Nelson's Navy' was encyclopedic! Firstly: does anyone here have one of these and how effective are they? Secondly... is this off topic on a muzzleloading forum?! I would like to know if anyone today makes a replica, but I haent seen any on web searches.

 

[AZ Muzzleloaders]

The Rifle Shoppe has a parts set.

 

[Sir Boniface Harrison]

The Rifle Shoppe has a parts set.

Thank you - just checking them out now. Their catalogue seems pretty huge! Parts set about 1800 dollars with assembled lock... that seems a very reasonable price.

 

[cynthialee]

I became aware of this rifle from Louis L'Amours' novel "The Ferguson Rifle".
Short read. The increased ROF of the Ferguson rifle as compared to regular rifles and the breach loading design are key to the dudes survival in a couple of hairy situations.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Forum member @dave_person is currently building one and has an excellent thread on his build now. You may be interested in what these guns were all about!

 

[Loja man]

I became aware of this rifle from Louis L'Amours' novel "The Ferguson Rifle".
Short read. The increased ROF of the Ferguson rifle as compared to regular rifles and the breach loading design are key to the dudes survival in a couple of hairy situations.

Prior to this forum that was my piont of reference as well!

 

[dave951]

One of my friends, who isn't a member of this board, yet, has built one from the Rifle Shoppe parts. It looks fantastic and will soon get a work out at the range. PathfinderNC knows this guy as well.

 

[FlinterNick]

The rifle shoppe no longer assembles locks.

 

[Leonard Thome]

I first became aware of these breech - loading flintlocks after reading the excellent Dewey Lambdin books on the British fictional naval officer Alan Lewrey. An American writer whose knowledge of the British 'Nelson's Navy' was encyclopedic! Firstly: does anyone here have one of these and how effective are they? Secondly... is this off topic on a muzzleloading forum?! I would like to know if anyone today makes a replica, but I haent seen any on web searches.View attachment 221274

I have a Ferguson that I bought from Narragansett Arms around 23 years ago. It has never been fired. I am not aware of anyone producing finished rifles anymore.

 

[MAPMFF]

Kashtuk built a kit recently, he had posts on his social media as well.

I have a Ferguson that I bought from Narragansett Arms around 23 years ago. It has never been fired. I am not aware of anyone producing finished rifles anymore.

Out of interest for this thread, any chance we could see some images of it?

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

I used to own a 1670 era English breechloader
They were used pretty early on.

 

[stephenprops1]

Ferguson was a British Officer. He designed and built (or had built) about 100 of these guns. In a few battles they did whip the Americans badly. When British high command found out about these guns they were ordered to be confiscated and destroyed because Ferguson had not gone thru proper channels. Ferguson was killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain and his rifle essentially died with him. A handful of his original guns did survive.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

There were many breech loading rifles made for the British civilian trade as well. Probably more than muzzleloading rifles in the 18th century.

 

[Rebel bull]

I first became aware of these breech - loading flintlocks after reading the excellent Dewey Lambdin books on the British fictional naval officer Alan Lewrey. An American writer whose knowledge of the British 'Nelson's Navy' was encyclopedic! Firstly: does anyone here have one of these and how effective are they? Secondly... is this off topic on a muzzleloading forum?! I would like to know if anyone today makes a replica, but I haent seen any on web searches.View attachment 221274

Louis L'Amour wrote one of the best fictional books on the ferguson I've ever read

 

[Sir Boniface Harrison]

Louis L'Amour wrote one of the best fictional books on the ferguson I've ever read

I cannt thank you enough for thhis information! I have long ago exhausted the novels of CS Forester, Alexander Kent, Patrick O'Brien, Bernard Cornwell, Dewey Lambdin and Simon Scarrow and was despairing of anything new coming along. As viewed from the website SCRIBD (an online library I subscribe to), I can see that there is a LOT of material there, and look forward to starting these novels today. Which one in particular features the Ferguso EDIT- Just seen, its 'The Ferguson Rifle'. Silly me!

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

A Narragansett-build Ferguson just sold in a day for $5,500 on one of the more popular arms auction sites. When one would see them for $2K ... I didn't have the funds ... now that I have those funds for such a toy ... the prices are through the roof! Life is all about timing, no?

 

[RAEDWALD]

Ferguson was a British Officer. He designed and built (or had built) about 100 of these guns. In a few battles they did whip the Americans badly. When British high command found out about these guns they were ordered to be confiscated and destroyed because Ferguson had not gone thru proper channels. Ferguson was killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain and his rifle essentially died with him. A handful of his original guns did survive.

Major Ferguson did go through the proper channels (with a bit of the normal patronage of the time) and the rifles were withdrawn to stores due to weakness in the stock and lack of spares. Not to mention their expensive price. The design concept had been around in limited production for a generation before him and it made a fast firing sporting gun but ate out too much wood to locate in the stock to be a robust military rifle. Nevertheless the British and their allies did use an increasing proportion of rifle armed troops as the American Rebellion progressed. So there was no anti rifle attitude, but rather a sensible appreciation of the necessity for robustness in any military small arm. The experiment with the Ferguson Rifle had been tried and found wanting.

 

[rafterob]

A NC shooter used to join our club for event shoots and demonstrated his a number of times. He would let you shoot it too. Plenty effective, no major complications. I wish I could remember the name, he used to post here.

 

[ljspoon]

Since this thread was already started, I figured I would make my contribution, Narragansett Number 201. Also, I just received this today from the big white truck of happiness. A few things I took note of were that the single lock screw was not drilled into the chamber, it was blind threaded . The bottom of the barrel was coated, in what looks like red petroleum grease. Additionally, there was period correct stamp on the bottom of the barrel along with , what I suspect to be contemporary makers marks. It appears to be unfired but only came with the sling and some paperwork from its previous sale in 2015.

 

[MAPMFF]

@ljspoon Very cool! Thanks for sharing! I'll have to keep my eyes out for one of these, definitely want to add one to the collection! Thanks!