For those of you who haven't read the entire series, Killdeer belonged originally to Thomas Hutter. How Hutter acquired it is not known, but in his possession it was recognized as an exceptional piece. After Hutter's death, it was given to Nathaniel Bumppo by Hutter's daughter Judith, in or around the year 1745. Whereupon it remained in Bumppo's possession until his death around 1810. I suspect it was buried with him by the Pawnee, though I do not recall exactly - it was worn out by that time, as earlier by Bumppo himself. Through various, partial descriptions a composite picture can be formed - it was approximately 70 long (it reached to Natty's cap. Natty was 6' tall.), with a bore of thirty to the pound, with a brass patchbox. It is also described as having a few silver ornaments but otherwise being a fairly plain piece, but of exceptional workmanship.
Cooper was obviously thinking of the guns of his own day, 1820 and later, and some of his descriptions seem a little odd even then. However, if you wanted a compromise between the gun described in Cooper and what we know really existed, a long barreled German rifle - which did exist at the time - with a .54 caliber barrel would work very nicely, I think. You would have to make it a bit shorter than Cooper describes, probably with a sliding wooden box (since the brass box is only described in The Pioneers, after the rifle was 50 years old, one could plausibly argue that it was a replacement), and either ignore the "silver ornaments" bit, or assume that it was in fact a better quality rifle and ornamented accordingly. Personally, I like the idea that it was a good quality "stalking rifle", made in Germany c. 1740 and brought over here by a well-off immigrant before falling into the hands of Hutter soon after.
Guess how I got interested in muzzleloaders, back in middle school! :shake:
edited to add: Incidently, Killdeer, like Natty himself, was never meant to be typical. Both are paragons. A lot of people criticize Cooper for drawing an idealized portrait of a frontiersmen - while a lot of it is justified, it is worth noting that Cooper makes it quite clear that Natty is not typical of his type. There are other frontiersmen in the books (Hutter, "Hurry Harry", Billy Kirby, among others), the only one of which is portrayed sympathetically is the bee-hunter in The Prairie, and he is a fairly rough character.
