No particular "school" builds

[chawbeef]

I have nothing against those people that want only to see HC/PC longrifles and I am sure there were plenty of pioneers and settlers that had to build there own rifles from parts they had to manufacture themselves. I would love to see some of these guns that were not built by the "masters" if anyone here has one...........Daniel

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Actually, I suspect pioneers and settlers building their own rifles did not happen very often. Most would not have had the tools, knowledge, or time to do that.

dave

 

[rich pierce]

Gunsmithing is a trade that took years to learn. Yes somebody could assemble some parts into a working gun in an emergency but even growing up on a farm in the 20th century we did not have the necessary tools. No forge. Not everybody has a complete set of blacksmith tools, or inletting chisels, or saws, planes, spokeshaves, and rasps needed. Making and threading a barrel and breechplug? Takes enormous skill and tools.

Problem #2 with this idea is, why wouldn't farmer Fred or blacksmith Bill try to make one just like what was popular in his area?

So I don't think the premise is very sound, but there's no reason that one can't build whatever they want, now that it's easy and finely finished, readily available parts and precarves are here for the taking.

 

[Artificer]

Glad Dave and Rich chimed in.

Daniel,

I think the closest thing originally done in the period may have been done by gunsmiths assembling "composite" rifles during the AWI out of "whatever parts they hand on hand." (For some reason I can't remember the term often used for rifles and other guns made up this way during the AWI when the importation of locks and other parts were cut off or severely reduced.) This even though I at least strongly suspect the general stock styling was what the Gunsmith usually did at the time.

Gus

 

[mooman76]

I have an old original piece that me be somewhat of what your were speaking of. Not made at home I am sure but it is of very plain variety. Sometimes referred to these days as a hardware store gun. It was made very plain, simple and frugal.

 

[Black Hand]

I have nothing against those people that want only to see HC/PC longrifles and I am sure there were plenty of pioneers and settlers that had to build there own rifles from parts they had to manufacture themselves. I would love to see some of these guns that were not built by the "masters" if anyone here has one...........Daniel

The evidence does not support your view.
Even considering the import of gun parts, a few parts may have been made (repairs?) in certain circumstances. However, Farmer Fred as a gunsmith/gunstocker - no. This was a specialized profession that was done by few...

 

[Tom Compton]

IMO many a gun was built of existing or salvaged parts that would not have passed muster by the HC/PC police. Poor folks may have just had a half assed smith make something functional out of the cheapest components found. These are the guns that have such a low survival rate that they are seldom seen. As cartridge guns became more available and used (cheaper) ones too, the "made up guns" were put aside and forgotten as a pos. Eventually Kids used em for toys and clubs, barrels for fence posts, etc.

Sooo w damned few survivors of the type the OP is asking about I hope to see some examples.

I have an old pos that was given to me 30-40 years ago. Someone tried to restock it, I don't know when, apparently w a dull pocket knife. Don't think all the parts came from the same donor.

 

[Black Hand]

IMO many a gun was built of existing or salvaged parts that would not have passed muster by the HC/PC police. Poor folks may have just had a half assed smith make something functional out of the cheapest components found. These are the guns that have such a low survival rate that they are seldom seen.

Sooo w damned few survivors of the type the OP is asking about I hope to see some examples.

Upon what evidence do you make these assertions? Fervent belief does not make it so and one should base their views upon available facts/evidence rather than just speculation. What you describe was the period equivalent of having a functional car made by someone who didn't have the tools, equipment or knowledge to build a car. In many cases, "poor folks" just could not afford a gun much less having anyone half@$$ anything. Guns were expensive and not every person had one or needed one....

Additionally, "Parts" guns are neither uncommon nor unknown and are accepted as such by the HC/PC Police (a term often used by those who haven't bothered to do the research). These are scholars who have actually done the work/study rather than pulling a random (and incorrect) opinion out of thin air and loudly exclaiming "THIS MUST BE TRUE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT."

 

[BrownBear]

I suspect there's an exception mixed into the lot: Specifically a broken stock that had to be replaced using the metal that came on the original gun. I don't know of any muzzleloader examples. But when I was a kid on the border before there were fences, we hunted and worked with one Mexican family with a prime example.

Somewhere along the lines the buttstock on their Winchester 94 had been broken, and granddad whittled a replacement from a hunk of pine 2x4. It worked fine but it was the only gun in the family, and they all used it, depending on who had the time (and a round or two) to go hunting.

And yup. Pretty much looked like a 2x4 whittled with a pocket knife, right down to the wide comb with the original 90 degree edges intact. Went bang and killed when asked, so no one cared.

 

[Black Hand]

There are a few field-expedient restock/rebuild muzzleloaders in the Smithsonian and at least one in literature where a damaged/broken gunstock was improvised (I don't recall the specific source). The ones in the Smithsonian have very little resemblance to an actual gunstock with the parts held in place with fasteners of all types and rawhide. They look like a barrel tied to a branch...

 

[54ball]

I have nothing against those people that want only to see HC/PC longrifles and I am sure there were plenty of pioneers and settlers that had to build there own rifles from parts they had to manufacture themselves. I would love to see some of these guns that were not built by the "masters" if anyone here has one...........Daniel

Well if it's built in the period by pioneers, would it not still be period and historically correct?
These two terms are modern. We don't look at originals that way.

Concerning originals, I have been told that I love the ugly ones. If there is a primitive,odd, blacksmith built, or just unusual rifle......I'm there. I'll study it and keep coming back to it.
Let me tell you about one......
I was at a show in Front Royal Virginia there was this rifle that I thought was very special. It was a three footer.
From a distance it looked like a fine early rifle. 18th Century 1790s maybe earlier.
Plain with no decoration.....
Southern.....Valley of Virginian? SW Virginia? NC?Kentucky??
It had that look.
It was stocked with a nice piece of maple.
It had a pretty good sized flat faced English lock with a tail in what looked like original flint.
Single triggers on a heavy trigger plate.
A brass rifle guard with a wide bow but the front finial of the guard was gone. It was never inlet, rather it looks like the front of the bow was pinned into the heavy trigger plate.
There was no shaped lock panels other than a atempt to kinda-sorta shape the wood around the nose of the lock.
It had a wide brass butplate with a slight curve.
The buttstock had a cheek piece.
Three pipes were octagonal with rings and showed heavy ramrod wear. One almost rubbed through.
The entry pipe was sheet iron rudimentary shaped. (If you have ever shaped one from sheet stock it was about 1/3 formed.) this was all the skill the stocker had...to simply beat out a primitive entry pipe....It was nailed to the fore stock.
Swamped barrel.44-46" in what looked like .50-.54 ish.
It had the profile of a fine old longrifle....but it was not.
The owner said this....

That old rifle want's to be great, but it's not.

Mr. Chambers was there with one of his latest personal builds at the next table. I asked him what he thought it was.

I don't know what that thing is but I'll tell you this. That old boy nearly pulled it off but not quite, he just did not have the skill.

The old restock clearly showed the hand of someone who was very careful and did his absolute best as far as his skill would allow. It clearly shows a loving but unskilled hand.
The question that it brings is this....
What was it patterned from? The original must have been really special.....enough for a unskilled man to try and rebuild and restock it.
There was a lot of stuff there. Gulsler was there with the Brass Barreled Rifle but I kept coming back to this old restock. It was by far my favorite of the show.

Don't get me wrong. That piece just oozed frontier history....like I said, I was really more impressed with it rather that some of the more famous "Published" Rifles there.

 

[chawbeef]

I want to thank everyone for their well thought out input. I guess my query stemmed from the fact that I finished my first build with absolutely no knowledge of what a long rifle looked like up close. Pictures and this forum have been my only sources of info. I am planning another build but this time in a kit form that "should" resemble a Dickert Lancaster if I am lucky..........Daniel

 

[Nativearizonan]

I think the key word is "build" rather than "repaired. There were a lot of frontier repair jobs that included rawhide, sheet metal, and later bailing wire, and no reason in the world a person with woodworking skills can't restock a rifle if he has the broken original to work from. It takes skill, sure, but that skill can be acquired from other places besides learning the gunsmithing trade. A lot of people fashioned pieces of hardwood to replace wagon axles, tongues, or whatever was broken. Native Americans made beautiful bows, pipes, and clubs. Repairing an existing, but broken gun was obviously done from time to time, mainly in areas where there were no gunsmiths to do the work.

As far as making one from scratch, that would be tougher, but was probably attempted. There are plenty of examples of guns made in prison from some of the strangest of ingredients. If they can be made in secret, by someone incarcerated for years, I think they can be occasionally made by a private party with enough ambition to take on the job.

Look up Sylvan Ambrose "Buckskin Bill" Hart, as an example. As far as I know he was not known to be a gunsmith, or trained by a gunsmith before he took on the task of building rifles from scrap metal left around old mines.

 

[tenngun]

The five civilized tribes had gunsmiths that could restock guns. Not the same as Joe Pioneer half way too Oregan, however I have seen a lot of guns that were not of a particular style. Unrelated parts and barn guns were known.
In all honesty I don't think any HC PC police would ever comment on a random parts gun at an event unless you asked thier opinion. Then I suspect any criticism would be geocentric kindly and not ugly or talking down to one in any way.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Daniel,
Your question is a good one but keep in mind to most early settlers and pioneers, daily survival was a full time job. Most likely did not have time to try and make a gun, even one from parts. Rustically restocking a Sharps rifle or Winchester is not nearly as time consuming and difficult as making a flintlock or percussion muzzleloader. I have no doubts that local blacksmiths probably repaired guns and perhaps even made some complicated parts but trained gunsmiths very quickly followed the pioneers into newly settled land. Indeed, there is the wonderful story of the blacksmith accompanying Lewis and Clark repairing the famous air gun. Nonetheless, I doubt there were a large number of settler-made guns meeting your criteria. If they depended so much on guns then they certainly didn’t want something made “half-assed”, and those folks did not have much time for hobbies.
I do a lot of work for F&I war and Rev War reenactors. In doing that work, I take special pains to create guns that are historically correct both technologically and aesthetically. I really work at that, which includes an immense amount of research for every single project. In my dealings with reenactors, I encountered the same notion that you proposed - there must be many simple and rustically made guns out there owned, made, or used by their rustic frontier and rural owners. I have to say, honestly, that the idea was largely promoted by those who could not build a proper 18th century firearm or afford to own a good reproduction of one. Regardless, guns and rifles with refined lines, construction, and simple embellishment were not a rarity in rural America. Many early long rifles of Rev War vintage show great wear and use but also at least some simple embellishment and their makers clearly knew what they were doing. RCA volumes 1 and 2 are full of them. In the 18th and early 19th centuries even simple things for rural owners were embellished at least a little. Everything, coffee grinders, chests, chairs, bureaus, side tables, etc”¦. Why do you think “Shaker” furniture was such an identifiable and unique style? It had no decoration. Guns were the same way. If a client could afford it his gun had some carving or inlay. Look at Davy Crockett’s first gun. Was it crude and simple? Hell no!
You are going to be working on a Lancaster rifle using a Chamber’s kit. Great Daniel that is a good choice. You live in Ontario. I am in central Vermont not that far away. If you want, come visit for a weekend, and I can get you started on that kit and work with you on the proper details.

dave

 

[Cruzatte]

Reading the foregoing discussion, I'm reminded of all the various restocked, repaired, and generally refurbished guns photographed in T. M. Hamilton's Colonial Frontier Guns. I specifically draw your attention to fig. 62 on pp.104-05. It appears to be made up of French parts, restocked by a New England gunsmith in cherry. Sometime in its history, the gun was converted to the percussion system. An interesting piece, if you have the book.

 

[ChrisPer]

I have pics of a long rifle built by a teenager in Australia who had seen books and thats ALL. It must be more than forty years old now. Such a lot of effort but he had never seen a real one, just a pic in a book.
The barrel, I was told, was originally a T-Model steering column.

 

[Artificer]

As Dave mentioned, gunsmiths quickly followed the frontier throughout our period. Much of the work of many gunsmiths was repairing/restocking guns and not building many new guns (if any) at all. For example, before the AWI, most guns were either made entirely in the "factory shops" of England or Europe and even American Long Rifle makers BOUGHT most, if not all of their locks from overseas and some bought most of their barrels there or from some American makers as well.

Since there is no way to track the work of these gunsmiths, I think too often people assume some long forgotten settler did the work rather than someone who at least had some gunsmith training, if not a real gunsmith.

Further, ML guns were repaired and repaired again and used long after cartridge guns came out. As late as the early 20th century Depression, there were still "new made" percussion guns being made and used in Appalachia and by some poor folks in other parts of the country and the older guns were repaired and used again and again, as well. So it is entirely possible, if not probable, that some of the "parts guns" were built after the era of this forum.

Even before Henry and Leman began making large numbers of rifles in this country for the Fur Companies and "to the trade," there were American Smiths making (actually advanced assembling may be the better descriptive term) very inexpensive smoothbores and rifles that were sold to trading posts and general stores on the frontier and even farmers in the more settled areas - who did not need or want to pay for a more expensive gun. These guns may or may not have been marked by the gunsmith or gunsmith shops who made them. It is not uncommon to run across some to many of these guns where the only "name" on the gun is the maker of the lock and not the person who made/assembled the rest of the gun.

Gus

 

[rijerolmon]

Dave; You have boosted my faith in humanity and further convinced me of the generosity of folks on this site and in this hobby. I hope Daniel has the opportunity to take your offer. My thanks and admiration to you for passing your knowledge to others, this is what will keep this hobby alive. :bow:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Another factor to consider to Dave Person's points, are that we really do have so few examples of the rifles actually made and used in the period from say the first year of the F&I to the last year of the AWI, that we cannot know what was "out there".

Remember folks, the "schools" are based on the surviving examples...,

NOW WAIT..., we could have a very good sample in the surviving rifles of the types and styles that were the most common. A person choosing to obtain or build a copy of one of the schools is making a safe purchase.

BUT ALSO...that doesn't rule out by any means, there may have been schools or styles that are now extinct because no examples have survived. Just remember the fact that we may have less than 1% of the rifles that existed in the time period that I mentioned that survive today, doesn't give a person carte blanche to build anything in the area of a full stocked flintlock that they wish, and then apply the label of historically correct.

But what about..., historically inspired...,??? Yes, yes, I know the scholars react to such an idea with :barf: So a builder uses a lock from one school, and a barrel in a (historically) wrong caliber, on a stock from another school, and the stock style is one where no examples exist of such with a wooden patch box, but the builder puts a sliding wooden patch box on the rifle anyway :shocked2: ...., is it such a sin? As long as the builder/user doesn't try to pass it off as anything other than a "long rifle" I don't think folks need to get their balls twisted in their breeches over it.

So Boogaloo, if you got a good price or two on parts that really go to two or three different "schools"..., OR you have the common situation these days where you can get most of what you want for one school but are looking at a nine month wait to get the rest, BUT you could substitute other parts and be done with a functioning and good shooting rifle in less time than the wait..., i'd say GO FOR IT.

Just understand, you'll end up with a "not quite right" rifle, and if you ever want a rifle that is without a doubt from a particular school, you'll simply have to come out of your pocket for another rifle. NOT necessarily that bad a situation.

You're not going to be turned away from an event because your rifle "blends" schools or because "It's X year and they didn't have Y type parts back then." At least it shouldn't (imho)

LD