Iron vs Brass Furniture on Period Correct Rifles

[Walkingeagle]

Killing the day watching YouTube videos and I hear a lot of “internet experts” saying iron is more correct than brass, especially on later period (late fur trade to plains) guns. I always was under the impression that iron, or steel, was way more expensive than brass. Can someone set me straight please.
Walk

 

[Pete G]

Most “iron” mounts today are steel casting copies of brass castings. SMR furniture is an exception.

 

[Rancocas]

I'm certainly no expert, but I think the brass was more expensive than iron. Especially in the southern states brass was more difficult to come by than was iron. Therefore, you see more iron on southern rifles than on those that were made in the north.

 

[rich pierce]

Where and when? As you stated iron was sometimes used late on higher end rifles going West. Iron was always more expensive because casting brass is so easy compared with forging iron mounts. Iron was used on Southern Mountain Rifles to show off the blacksmithing skills of those artisans.

 

[nchawkeye]

Yep, state what time period and location are you talking about? There were very, very few rifles in the Colonial period with iron mounts...Are you talking about 1820-1850 ??? If so, totally different...

 

[hanshi]

Some rifles mixed both iron and brass. Iron is correct for SMR but both brass and iron had their "period" so either one would be fine on a fair list of guns.

 

[oldwood]

In the early 1970's, a long time KRA member , was one of the key producers of castings for M/L rifle builders. I used to run across him at gun shows , but can't remember his name. I considered him as a reliable authority on the reproduction iron and brass parts he supplied , because his trigger guards and butt plates were copied from actual original m/l guns in his collection. I was a newbee in the early 1970's,and specifically asked him the question about why he sold iron parts along w/brass. He told me perhaps 10% or less American Long rifles were made w/ iron parts , especially during the Rev.War days , due to a shortage of European imported brass , and alloys. Iron forges were all over the Appalachian Mtn. regions making pig iron for gun parts and whatever casting needs locally. So , I can't say iron gun parts weren't used on American guns. ........oldwood

 

[tenngun]

Brass was pretty. And by 1500 guns were being made with just decorative features.
I doubt, and that’s an opinion, that brass was used to look pretty. Even military muskets were made to look pretty.
Styles have changed, but there is no other explanation for Fish tail, oar butt, club butts, calfs foot style just don’t make sense from just a practical.
Silver and gold wire accents serve no purpose what so ever. The dragon-sea serpent motif on trade guns started on Dutch sea service muskets. These were added on when a plain washer would do
Iron was seen on many guns dating back to the seventeenth century, popular on some southern guns as brass and silver was also seen on these guns too.
Iron was popular on some plains guns, but brass remained popular on many plains guns, and even well on to breechloaders like the yellow boy.
Barrels where in the white, when blueing would be easier to care for. And browning would become popular in the nineteenth century.
A man who just paid to have an engraved barrel on his rifle gun, the real life Deerslayer, wouldn’t be off put by the cost of iron, and the classic SMR often was needlessly fancy in stock profile.
I do think we try to make an explanation for style.
Colored shirts and ‘fufaraw’ was important sold to tough old mountain men. The bright red shirt was a mark of mule skinners.
I THINK the old frontiersman and the trans frontier folks wanted the same thing that we do today, a gun that’s easy on the eyes

 

[Walkingeagle]

Time period was all over the map. Just blanket statements made that removing the brass and replacing with steel makes them more period correct. One feller stated that his Hawken (TC) became period correct by getting rid of the brass. I chuckled. I believe the Hawken brothers did make iron mounted guns, but they were also quite expensive.
Walk

 

[Dave Fox]

A bit of 19th Century thinking on one aspect of the subject of iron vs. brass on firearms. From the beginning of U.S. musket production in the 1790s, iron furniture was utilized. Use of brass was confined to some models of rifles. In the 1850s Master Armorer James Burton sojourned in England to aid in their setting-up of interchangeable parts musket production, the "American system". He came home with the idea that iron furniture, especially iron buttplates, had tendency to corrode in contact with wood and, in turn, had a deleterious effect upon wood musket stocks as the iron corroded. Also, cast brass buttplates were cheaper to produce. As chief of the newly established Confederate armory in Richmond, Virginia, after March, 1862 he ceased the forging of iron buttplates on the armory's rifle-musket and substituted brass for these reasons. Davies, "C.S. Armory Richmond", pp 14, 36)

 

[babstooge]

I own an original rifle built by James D. Winchell in the 1850s in Michigan . As shown in the picture he used both brass and pewter.

 

[sturmkatze]

Is say use what makes YOU happy and what YOU find beautimus. If you like brass, have at it

I like to polish my brass because it irritates the crotchety and snarky muzzleloaderus know-it-allus. I don't have to hide from injuns or bandits.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I like to polish my brass because it irritates the crotchety and snarky muzzleloaderus know-it-allus.

That's funny. Different strokes. When I first got my TC not-really-a-hawken-hawken, the first thing I did was to remove all the furniture and sand off the shiny factory plastic finish. Then, as I used the rifle I would wipe the brass with my dirty swab patches to grunge them up. My tastes. Now I have a grungy looking factory made TC rifle but I like it better than the shiny new ones. On custom builts, that's a different story, I keep them nice.

 

[sturmkatze]

That's funny. Different strokes. When I first got my TC not-really-a-hawken-hawken, the first thing I did was to remove all the furniture and sand off the shiny factory plastic finish. Then, as I used the rifle I would wipe the brass with my dirty swab patches to grunge them up. My tastes. Now I have a grungy looking factory made TC rifle but I like it better than the shiny new ones. On custom builts, that's a different story, I keep them nice.

That's what makes 'Murica grand.

Yeah, I like polished brass, not plasticy... Guns should make you gasp at their beauty... My 2 shillings

 

[Grenadier1758]

Time period was all over the map. Just blanket statements made that removing the brass and replacing with steel makes them more period correct. One feller stated that his Hawken (TC) became period correct by getting rid of the brass. I chuckled. I believe the Hawken brothers did make iron mounted guns, but they were also quite expensive.
Walk

The Hawken Brothers also made brass mounted guns. Their small caliber squirrel and small game (deer) rifles made for the local trade were often brass mounted. Many of the iron mounted SMRs used iron because iron was far more plentiful than brass. Of course, there are some of us that are of the opinion that there is nothing that can make a T/C Hawken period or historically correct. Call it a Dimmick, maybe.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Can't beat old patina'd brass...mine gets polished with time & weather.

Iron would look nice too.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Killing the day watching YouTube videos and I hear a lot of “internet experts” saying iron is more correct than brass, especially on later period (late fur trade to plains) guns. I always was under the impression that iron, or steel, was way more expensive than brass. Can someone set me straight please.
Walk

Prior to the Revolutionary War, iron and wrought iron were tightly controlled with most manufacturing of items in iron were prohibited by law. Britain wanted the iron to be shipped to them, they would make items like gun locks out of it, and then ship it back to sell in the colonies. It's not that iron dressed guns weren't found anywhere then, but brass was the norm. It was cheaper and more easily worked and shaped that iron was, plus it was legal. About the only places you'd find iron dressed guns and rifles would be frontier areas where enforcement of the laws prohibiting it's use were lax. It's actually kind of funny they made such a big deal out of making locks as well as gun and rifle hardware out of iron when they never interfered with hammer-forge welding the actual barrels, which used a LOT of iron. After the Revolutionary war it became far more common especially in Virginia, and the Carolinas to have iron-dressed guns and rifles.

During the war of course all bets were off, so gun and rifle makers could use whatever they wanted. However there were still lots of English, French, and Dutch locks being used that had come in by the barrelful. So making the locks was not as common as using those that had been, and in the case of the French, were still being imported.

 

[Cruzatte]

The discussion seems to be of British, and American uses of brass vs. iron in arms making. The French used both in about equal proportions in their export guns.