Historical Smooth Rifles

[Brokennock]

Not harder, but it is boring. One pass each of 2-3 drills of increasing size till the rifling is gone. Then an hour of reaming. All done in a morning, I’d think.

Sounds boring...

 

[Raindog1799]

Sounds boring...

It was just laying there and you had to pick it up…. Puns are for scoundrels and neer-do-wells!

 

[ronaldrothb49]

Odd that boring out cost less. I would imagine it to be more work. Less precise work, but more work nonetheless.

It surprised me how little he charged to freshen a barrel, that is a lot of work. First you have to make a casting of the bore. Then you have to make a cutter and install it into the casting for one groove. You would then run that through the barrel several times then shim the cutter to go slightly deeper and repeat that till you got the depth you wanted. Thats just one groove it all had to be repeated for each groove.

 

[Johnny Too-Tall]

One of the thoughts in the back of my head is to buy a spare Kibler SMR .36 barrel and have Mr. Hoyt bore it to .40 smooth.

However, before I do that I would get a new Woodsrunner kit in .45 and turn it into a smooth .50.

So many ideas!

@wayne estes has a woodsrunner brand new never shot in 50 smoothie ready to sell. PS it came from Kibler that way too.

 

[RiverRat]

Jim Chambers has a smooth rifle kit

My Chambers 54cal/28g smooth rifle kit.

 

[Sam squanch]

50 cents was a bit of money for a cash poor society. I’m happy if I find a dime…..

 

[Clark Badgett]

50 cents was a bit of money for a cash poor society. I’m happy if I find a dime…..

Yep. For much of American history, 50 cents was between 1/3 to 1/4 of an average day’s wage. And that would be 10hr days.

 

[ronaldrothb49]

Yep. For much of American history, 50 cents was between 1/3 to 1/4 of an average day’s wage. And that would be 10hr days.

In Leonard Reedy's journals he also lists the payments he received. Much of it was in barter, everything had a value and labor which is usually listed as $0.50 a day. The one value I would like to find that the journals don't list would be what a jug of liquid corn would be worth?

 

[Clark Badgett]

In Leonard Reedy's journals he also lists the payments he received. Much of it was in barter, everything had a value and labor which is usually listed as $0.50 a day. The one value I would like to find that the journals don't list would be what a jug of liquid corn would be worth?

Liquid corn must had some decent value. It’s one of the first things Congress wanted to tax.

 

[waksupi]

I think the old gun builders may have been making or buying smooth barrels. I also think some of them weren't set up to rifle the barrel, so smoothbores are what they made. That would cut a lot of expense in the building hours, and produce a gun that would do what was needed in eastern woodlands. Small gauge smoothbores have very limited usefulness in the woods. I had a 28 bore, and range limitation with shot was unacceptable.

 

[Raindog1799]

It was just laying there and you had to pick it up…. Puns are for scoundrels and neer-do-wells!

I wish I could. My blackpowder budget is a bit light at present.

 

[rich pierce]

I’ve shown this before. Original smooth rifle. York or Lancaster, post Revolutionary War.

 

[tenngun]

Liquid corn must had some decent value. It’s one of the first things Congress wanted to tax.

Yes but we need recall that much of life went by barter. A man could be wealthy, owning a large home, and good farm wear nice clothes and have a ‘fat wife’ and strapping children and not see ten dollars in cash per year.
At rendezvous a man got a chit of his wages that might be over a grand and he bought his needs at high mountain prices. And if he had money left over it was just company credit

 

[oreclan]

One of the thoughts in the back of my head is to buy a spare Kibler SMR .36 barrel and have Mr. Hoyt bore it to .40 smooth.

However, before I do that I would get a new Woodsrunner kit in .45 and turn it into a smooth .50.

So many ideas!

Kibler offers a Colonial in .58 cal. smoothbore .

 

[tenngun]

Mine

 

[Clark Badgett]

Yes but we need recall that much of life went by barter. A man could be wealthy, owning a large home, and good farm wear nice clothes and have a ‘fat wife’ and strapping children and not see ten dollars in cash per year.
At rendezvous a man got a chit of his wages that might be over a grand and he bought his needs at high mountain prices. And if he had money left over it was just company credit

Oh I do agree about the barter and trade side, but I don’t thing the Federales would be happy if you paid your liquor tax with eggs and chickens.

 

[Clark Badgett]

Duped for some dumb reason

 

[Raindog1799]

So…. We’re 38 comments in and no one has mentioned a documented southern mountain smooth rifle. I know this doesn’t necessarily mean there were none but they clearly weren’t plentiful.

 

[flintsteel]

A B Longstreet wrote a delightful book published in 1835 titled "Georgia Scenes", containing a number of short stories that he claimed in the preface to be absolutely true scenes from Georgia. One of the stories is titled " The Shooting Match" and it is probably the best detailed account of the old time matches ever written. In it he describes the use of rifles and shotguns (smoothbores) in the same match. The match he was attending was shot entirely with rifles but he went on to add the following:

"In olden times the contest was carried on chiefly with shot-guns, a generic term which, in those days, embraced three descriptions of firearms; Indian-traders (a long, cheap, but sometimes excellent kind of gun, that mother Britain used to send hither for traffic with the Indians), the large musket, and the shot-gun, properly so-called. Rifles were, however, always permitted to compete with them, under equitable restrictions. These were, that they should be fired off-hand, while the shot-guns were allowed a rest, the distance being equal; or that the distance should be one hundred yards for a rifle, to sixty for the shot-gun, the mode of firing being equal."

He seems to indicate that in the South smoothbores were predominate in his youth, which would be the late 1700's.

Search for the book on Google Play and read the whole story free. It's a great and fun read..

 

[oreclan]

In Leonard Reedy's journals he also lists the payments he received. Much of it was in barter, everything had a value and labor which is usually listed as $0.50 a day. The one value I would like to find that the journals don't list would be what a jug of liquid corn would be worth?

Whiskey was bartered and used in addition to pay for farm hands in SW Pennsylvania in the 18th Century.
The Whiskey Rebellion was fought over what was seen as an unfair tax by the federal government in part on income.
The tax was based upon the gallon amount of each still producing spirits all year long. Big distillers, like George Washington (He was the largest distiller in America!) could afford the tax because he produced whiskey all year. His tax rate was about 6¢ per gallon.
Smaller frontier farmers only distilled their excess grain at about 18¢ per gallon.
On average a gallon of whiskey if sold brought about 25¢ per gallon in 1791.
For the cash strapped frontier farmers this was unaffordable and led to Rebellion!