platypus gun? I show, you tell...

[hanshi]

That rifle not only looks good but shoots good as well. I don't think a gun has to necessarily be HC in order to be PC, etc. If a school or builder is claimed it certainly can be vetted. But if a gun can't be placed in any particular school, etc, it can still be PC. If it has the properties from a certain period of history (lock, materials, barrel, etc) then is is PC, correct for the period it represents. Just IMHO.

 

[Mike Brooks]

It,s a very well made gun, incredible actually when you consider it was built in 1973!. I can't identify a school, but there are many originals that can't be identified either. The only thing that could improve it would be a swamped barrel, but they were incredibly rare in '73.

Mike, I have to reply critically to your comments. I cannot understand why you would think there were no top level gun builders in the 1970’s. I moved near Friendship in 1970. We first attended a big shoot there a year earlier. At that time I had never even heard of the muzzle loading shooting sport. But my first visit strongly impressed me with the way the participants were preserving and remembering history through this avocation. Even more so, seeing the works of many highly skilled craftsmen with the rifles they had built put me in absolute awe of what they had done. And, I certainly welled up with pride of being an American seeing these Americans preserving and recreating American history.
I came to know many top level gun builders. John Braxton built (and maybe still does) Jaegers for museums to fill in collections where originals could not be obtained. Hawkens (not the TC versions) were the craze of the time. One was simply not ”˜primitive’ if one did not have a Hawken. Many were excellently built and very exacting replicas of what came out of the shop in St. Louis originally. One was later reviewed in The American Rifleman by John Baird as a “previously undiscovered original”. It was a recent build by a man who later became one of my closest friends. That is craftsmanship at it’s finest. My Rev. period style transitional long rifle was built by Ray Miller and is a virtual twin to a Rev. period original.
Not meaning to take shots at ye my friend, but I’m bumfuzzled by yer comment. Highly skilled rifle builders have been with us for a long time. I doubt we have been without them ever in America. Certainly there was a resurgence from the time of the first inception shoot put on by Red Farris in 1930. Some of the great builders from the 1970s are still with us. My friend, the Hawken builder is one. Ray Miller is another. And there are many-many more.
Sadly, if I may digress, a Hawken I had built at that time was a really butchered job. Not good at all. Can’t say who but the butcher job was, well”¦really brutal butchery for what I hoped would be a fine rifle.
Anyhow, the good builders were not born in 1970. Their daddy’s and granddaddy’s were doing just fine before the current crop were even born.
Excuse the sermon. Ye hit a hot button.

Friend of Blue Jacket Sanders Eh? :wink: I started going to F-ship in 1980.
The 70's were a transitional age for the rebirth of the KY rifle. Some quality parts were starting to come available. Still, through the early seventies slab sided KY's were the norm. The 60's were even worse. I can spot a pre early 70's gun from across the room. Some very good builders were coming into there own at that time and producing good stuff, but they were a rarity.
There is no way to compare the guns of the 60's and 70's to what is being produced by the top makers of today.

 

[hanshi]

IMHO we came close to losing these guns. Thank goodness some gifted builders had learned from the few old-timers that were left.

 

[Bruce Bogart]

For example check out McCrory's book on how to build a rifle. Probably a good build along at the time, but the pictures in it (low quality) show some of the slab sidedness and huge lock molding.Good rifles at the time I bet and helped keep the building going, but...... :hmm:

Am I turning into one of those smilee guys??????

 

[George]

For example check out McCrory's book on how to build a rifle.

A name which was very common when I got into the game in the early 1970s was William Buchele. His book seemed to me at the time, and still today, to be a really good basic guide to the building of the rifles and pistols. I didn't read that book, I absorbed it word by word in my early attempts to learn about the guns. I've handled a few of his guns over the years and mostly loved what I saw. There are touches about the gun I posted here which make me strongly suspect the builder was influenced by Buchele. I don't see his name these days, don't believe it has been mentioned in the

 

[Jim Blair]

Friend of Blue Jacket Sanders Eh? :wink:

LOL Sometime back I saw what was reputed to be the first rifle he built. :shocked2: It was not a thing of beauty. :grin:

 

[dave_person]

Hi Spence,
I really don't know what you mean by analyze the gun. Do you want to know where it differs from historical schools or the quality of the construction? No one can answer the first question because you didn't state what the gun is supposed to represent. With respect to the second question, in my opinion the gun is competently made but only that (is that fill around the barrel tang?). However, many original long rifles were only competently made compared with European and urban American makers. In that respect the gun is very HC. From an architectural perspective regardless of historical school, I would give the gun a "B-" grade. There are a few good points but many bad ones. The lock moldings are too wide and do not compliment the lock at all. In fact, the entire lock area is not very attractive or well designed. The cheek piece is poorly shaped and lacks a nice transition into the wrist area. The wire inlay is tolerably done but not very inspiring artistically. In fact, it adds little to the decorative appeal of the gun. The engraving is very crude. The maker is a pretty good craftsman but no artist. However, most of the old-time longrifles makers were not artists either so again, in that respect, it is pretty HC. I don't know if this is what you wanted with respect to "analysis".

Thanks for sharing the photos,

dave

 

[Capt. Fred]

Thanks Dave. :hatsoff: I was thinking I must be in a really bad mood today because I thought the wrist to buttstock transistion was real clumsy too. Clunky cheek piece and it looks like the lock is too deep. Overall nice architecture from a distance, but missing some of the finer points up close. This is all just my humble opinion of course and overall I like the gun, but I do see some issues.

As somebody else said, these issues alone certainly don't make it non-HC. There were some WAAAY ugly originals produced.

 

[Rifleman1776]

There is no way to compare the guns of the 60's and 70's to what is being produced by the top makers of today.

Did I say I'm "bumfuzzled"? Yes, I said that. Now, I'm double bumfuzzled.
We obviously have vastly different perspectives.
I see a resurgance of historical preservation. Your artists eye sees something quite different.
As for perzactly sticking to certain "schools" I accept that gun design evolves. That is part of our history. Certain 'schools' of ideas came to our shores from Europe then builders started making changes to suit needs and/or customers wants. In many cases the 'school' styles morphed and were not precise copies of anything. As I see it, :2 that is all good, not non-pc/hc.
Peace. :v Carry on.

 

[jdkerstetter]

As somebody else said, these issues alone certainly don't make it non-HC. There were some WAAAY ugly originals produced.

Now, this is has nothing to do with this gun, but thanks for addressing that and perhaps Dan Pharis will chime in as he is a big proponent of this.

It seems of late that people are using that excuse to justify their guns as being HC or PC or whatever....or just something that excuses their flaws.

People try to give them an honest critque and it's "well there were gun builders that did that" or "I've seen a gun like that" so it's OK....excuses.

Why would any body want to spend their time or money copying clumsy or ugly guns of the past when there are so many fine examples? Not saying everybody needs a "copy" but if I can have a piece that represents the best of early gun building practices why would I build a clumsy, cumbersome, ugly gun? Why would you want to own copies of the guns that look as if they were built by a one armed blind man with a tomahawk?

(I would however own the original!!! :wink: )

I'm not talking embelishments like carving and engraving and inlays here....but pure architecture.

The "K" Cars by definition are classics now but who wants 'em?

Opions?

J.D.

 

[jdkerstetter]

As somebody else said, these issues alone certainly don't make it non-HC. There were some WAAAY ugly originals produced.

Now, this is has nothing to do with this gun, but it seems to fit the conversation.

I'd like to address the statement above (and perhaps Dan Pharis will chime in as he is pretty outspoken on this).

It seems of late that people are using the fact that there "were way more ugly guns" as an excuse to justify their guns as being HC or PC or just as an excuse to overlook flaws in the craftsmanship.

People try to give them an honest critque and it's "well there were gun builders that did that" or "I've seen a gun like that" so it's OK....excuses.

Why would any body want to spend their time or money copying clumsy or ugly guns of the past when there are so many fine examples? Not saying everybody needs a "copy" but if I can have a piece that represents the best of early gun building practices why would I build a clumsy, cumbersome, ugly gun? Why would you want to own copies of the guns that look as if they were built by a one armed blind man with a tomahawk?

(I would however own the original!!! And no offense meant if any of you builds with one hand and your eyes closed...your choice. :wink: )

I'm not talking embelishments like carving and engraving and inlays here, or whether you choose to scrape or sand...but pure architecture.

The "K" Cars by definition are classics now but who wants 'em?

Opions?

J.D.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Certain 'schools' of ideas came to our shores from Europe then builders started making changes to suit needs and/or customers wants.

I'm not so sure about this, I could be wrong as it has happened before but, it was the German immigrant gunsmiths that brought the Jaeger design from Europe, the "schools" were strictly an American development as was the brass patchbox..

:idunno:

 

[jdkerstetter]

Did I say I'm "bumfuzzled"? Yes, I said that. Now, I'm double bumfuzzled.
We obviously have vastly different perspectives.
I see a resurgance of historical preservation. Your artists eye sees something quite different.
As for perzactly sticking to certain "schools" I accept that gun design evolves. That is part of our history. Certain 'schools' of ideas came to our shores from Europe then builders started making changes to suit needs and/or customers wants. In many cases the 'school' styles morphed and were not precise copies of anything. As I see it, :2 that is all good, not non-pc/hc.
Peace. :v Carry on.

Yes, please do explain this post as I am "bumfuzzled" also. It appears your definition of the "school" as the pertain to the history of American guns is not the commonly excepted definition. J.D.

 

[Bruce Bogart]

why would I build a clumsy, cumbersome, ugly gun? Why would you want to own copies of the guns that look as if they were built by a one armed blind man with a tomahawk?
J.D.

Because thats my skill set??? :shocked2: I don't know that you would JD :hatsoff:

 

[George]

I really don't know what you mean by analyze the gun. Do you want to know where it differs from historical schools or the quality of the construction?

It's as difficult a question to ask as it is to answer. I was interested in an appraisal of the historical aspects of the gun, whether it represented any particular 'school' of originals, or whether the design incorporated elements from different schools that wouldn't have been used together in an original.

I wasn't asking about the quality of craftsmanship, I know that it is not of the best. I can see the shaky engraving and other such marks of something less than a sure hand better than photos can show.

I also was not asking about the aesthetics of the gun. That is something which no one is qualified to tell me, something only I can decide on. The gun only has to please my eye, none other, and that's not something which can be decided by someone else. I see guns all the time which are made by heroes of the gun building world which, to my eye, are as ugly as a mud fence, as the saying goes.

What I was trying to get at was what is considered acceptable to those on the forum and in the hobby in general as far as the historical aspects of the guns. I see flame wars here almost daily about guns failing to measure up, and I can't always understand what it is about them which raises the red flag. As far as I understand it, every gun built today, by whomever, is an interpretation, someone's personal idea as to what a longrifle is supposed to look like. That's true of even the very best of today's builders. It was also true in the day, 100%. Yet some feel free to tell others that their interpretation is flawed and unacceptable. Why do they feel they have that right? What is is about the particular gun which flunks it?

As I said, hard question to ask. Take away everything from your analysis which relates to craftsmanship and aesthetics. All the individual elements of this and other such guns seem HC, they have all been used in that form or a very similar one many thousands of times on originals, but somehow, for some reason, the package of them together fails to measure up. Why?

Take a look at another gun from the early 1970s, strip out your personal ideas of aesthetics, if you can, ignore the craftsmanship and tell me if this gun is an acceptable interpretation, if it fits into the elusive HC mold. Or rather, why it doesn't.
http://s881.photobucket.com/albums/ac20/Spence_2010/Smith/?albumview=slideshow

Spence

 

[George]

Why would any body want to spend their time or money copying clumsy or ugly guns of the past when there are so many fine examples?

Which of course brings up another couple of questions:

Why would someone presume to tell me that what is an ugly gun to him has to be an ugly gun to me?

Why would I choose my guns to satisfy someone else's idea of what I need?

I think we may be getting to the root of the cause of those perpetual flame wars.

Spence

 

[Elnathan]

As I said, hard question to ask. Take away everything from your analysis which relates to craftsmanship and aesthetics.

I think one thing that makes separating the two aspects - aesthetics and historicity - difficult is that we learn architecture from the originals. Architecture is itself part of what makes a gun historically correct or not. Wide, flat lock panels all around on an 18th century gun are wrong from a historical perspective - as far as I can tell, you just don't find them on originals. Some are larger than others, some are so thin as to be merely a bulge in the stock, some are thin above and below but wider at the ends, some and beautiful and some are a bit clumsy, but wide (over approximately 1/8") all around the lock is strictly 20th and 21st century, and is wrong both aesthetically and historically. The same goes for the shaping of cheekpieces and the thickness of buttplates, and doubtless many other things.

There are plenty of ugly, clumsy originals, but, as I said earlier this thread, they are ugly and clumsy in different ways than modern guns. That is why one cannot just explain away aesthetic problems by pointing out that there are ugly originals.

(BTW, my first, and so far only completed, rifle has lock panels are downright awful)

As for the second rifle you posted, I can't recall seeing engraving on a muzzlecap before. Other than that, I'll let those more familiar with Federal period rifles comment.

 

[Robby]

"Why would any body want to spend their time or money copying clumsy or ugly guns of the past when there are so many fine examples?"
Probably the same reason there are guys that make hot rods and park them an a mirror so you can see that every detail has been attended to, and conversely, 'rat rods' that look like they were thrown together with spare parts, yet perform flawlessly. Its all in the eye of the beholder.
There is ample room for the fellows that enjoy T/C's and TVM's as well as the knowledgeable folks that continue to point out historical and period correct aspects of some discussions when they start to go astray.
Robby

 

[Okwaho]

It,s a very well made gun, incredible actually when you consider it was built in 1973!. I can't identify a school, but there are many originals that can't be identified either. The only thing that could improve it would be a swamped barrel, but they were incredibly rare in '73.

Friend of Blue Jacket Sanders Eh? :wink: I started going to F-ship in 1980.
The 70's were a transitional age for the rebirth of the KY rifle. Some quality parts were starting to come available. Still, through the early seventies slab sided KY's were the norm. The 60's were even worse. I can spot a pre early 70's gun from across the room. Some very good builders were coming into there own at that time and producing good stuff, but they were a rarity.
There is no way to compare the guns of the 60's and 70's to what is being produced by the top makers of today.

I agree with Mike here,I became interested in Kentucky rifles in the early 1960's and started collecting Tennessee rifles. Then I got THE PENNSYLVANIA KENTUCKY RIFLE by Henry J KAUFMAN followed by Joe Kindig Jr.with his monumental THOUGHTS ON THE KENTUCKY RIFLE IN ITS GOLDEN AGE and I was sold on these guns.
KINDIG initiated the schools concept,a revolutionary concept in long rifle study and collecting.We then began to see a better basis for study and builders began working on guns with Kindig's work as a basis.Unfortunately only the inboard ond outboard full length illustrations were shown by Kindig and builders who had no access to the early guns for hands on study were limited in their ability to produce correct reproductions resulting in slab sided guns and other incorrect guns. This problem was later corrected when George Shumway came out with his equally monumental RIFLES OF COLONIAL AMERICA VOLS.I and II.I remember those rifles of the 1960's and 1070's and Mike is correct in his statement concerning them. The rifle shown here is a much better than average representation of those guns. I cannot,however,tell whether the rear forestock is slab sided but suspect that it is not so made.

We have come a long way from those guns judging from the examples I have seen over the past 50 years.I don't know where the extremely weird term."platypus" came from and prefer to use the term "transitional composit" gun.All in all the gun illustrated by Spence appears to be a very nice gun.
BTW the Johnson City,TN gun mentioned was probably
made by either Louis Smith {decd.} or Leroy Fleenor who still lives in East Tennessee and whom I saw a year ago at the Norris show.
Tom Patton

 

[Okwaho]

It,s a very well made gun, incredible actually when you consider it was built in 1973!. I can't identify a school, but there are many originals that can't be identified either. The only thing that could improve it would be a swamped barrel, but they were incredibly rare in '73.

Mike, I have to reply critically to your comments. I cannot understand why you would think there were no top level gun builders in the 1970’s. I moved near Friendship in 1970. We first attended a big shoot there a year earlier. At that time I had never even heard of the muzzle loading shooting sport. But my first visit strongly impressed me with the way the participants were preserving and remembering history through this avocation. Even more so, seeing the works of many highly skilled craftsmen with the rifles they had built put me in absolute awe of what they had done. And, I certainly welled up with pride of being an American seeing these Americans preserving and recreating American history.
I came to know many top level gun builders. John Braxton built (and maybe still does) Jaegers for museums to fill in collections where originals could not be obtained. Hawkens (not the TC versions) were the craze of the time. One was simply not ”˜primitive’ if one did not have a Hawken. Many were excellently built and very exacting replicas of what came out of the shop in St. Louis originally. One was later reviewed in The American Rifleman by John Baird as a “previously undiscovered original”. It was a recent build by a man who later became one of my closest friends. That is craftsmanship at it’s finest. My Rev. period style transitional long rifle was built by Ray Miller and is a virtual twin to a Rev. period original.
Not meaning to take shots at ye my friend, but I’m bumfuzzled by yer comment. Highly skilled rifle builders have been with us for a long time. I doubt we have been without them ever in America. Certainly there was a resurgence from the time of the first inception shoot put on by Red Farris in 1930. Some of the great builders from the 1970s are still with us. My friend, the Hawken builder is one. Ray Miller is another. And there are many-many more.
Sadly, if I may digress, a Hawken I had built at that time was a really butchered job. Not good at all. Can’t say who but the butcher job was, well”¦really brutal butchery for what I hoped would be a fine rifle.
Anyhow, the good builders were not born in 1970. Their daddy’s and granddaddy’s were doing just fine before the current crop were even born.
Excuse the sermon. Ye hit a hot button.

Friend of Blue Jacket Sanders Eh? :wink: I started going to F-ship in 1980.
The 70's were a transitional age for the rebirth of the KY rifle. Some quality parts were starting to come available. Still, through the early seventies slab sided KY's were the norm. The 60's were even worse. I can spot a pre early 70's gun from across the room. Some very good builders were coming into there own at that time and producing good stuff, but they were a rarity.
There is no way to compare the guns of the 60's and 70's to what is being produced by the top makers of today.