I own a Traditions Pennsylvania Longrifle and it is NOT based on any Rev War rifles. I specifically bought that production gun because
Traditions claims some reenactment group said it was correct for the period. It is not correct for the period. The reenactment group I joined had a gunmaker who was a member. He educated me about longrifles during the period and gave me some references I could look up. When I bought mine it came with a 40¼" barrel, which was a little short for a longrifle but well within the range of the period. Now it looks like it comes with a 33½" barrel which is so short as to cause me to wonder if it could be called a longrifle. Isaac Haines made a number of longrifles with 38" long barrels but that was about as short as they got. Traditions now seems to call this their .50-cal Pennsylvania Carbine longrifle. Carbine is used to refer to a shorter weapon and to my knowledge the only carbines in the Rev War were the muskets that the cavalry and officers often had. Those were not rifles.
The Traditions PA Longrifle is much too ornate for the Rev War period. During the war there was a huge demand for rifles and when the war ended, all of a sudden a great chunk of that demand died. You ended up with a lot of rifle makers who were all competing for the same buyers. This resulted in much more ornamentation than was found on longrifles before or during the Rev War to help elevate the gunmaker's rifles above those of his competition. This ushered in the "Golden Age" of the longrifle when some of the best looking and most artfully done longrifles appeared. Another thing that a LOT of production long rifles have wrong is the shape of the wrist. On the Traditions the wrist is tall and narrow. On the real thing and on my Early Lancaster rifle the wrist is wider than it is tall. That's because it is much stronger and less likely to crack or breack than the tall, thin ones.
Prior to the end of the Rev War ornamentation along the forearm of the stock as you see in the Traditions rifle was almost entirely non-existent. So the brass hunter's star plates you see on the sides are not something you'd see until after the war. The circle of weeping hearts at the wrist of the rifle is also something you wouldn't see. The Hunter's star on the cheekpiece is actually something you would see on some rifles. Mostly the decor on the rifles was a combination of incise carving and Rococo-style relief carving. If you were having a gun made for someone, a thumbpiece might be inlaid behind the tang of the barrel commemerating the gift or event. The early patch boxes were sliding wood. Then came the brass ones that were a solid piece but had a signature decoration like a daisy or some other figure on the front of it. Pierced patchboxes (brass with pieces cut out to show the wood through) didn't become common until the Golden Age either.
And of course the Traditions longrifle is made out of Walnut whereas the overwhelming majority of American Longrifles were made from rock maple. You'd find some made out of cherry or other woods from time to time, but almost none made from Walnut. The English rifles were made from walnut but they weren't really longrifles but closer to the Jaeger rifles (short, stocky with about a 62 caliber barrel). The bluing on the barrel is actually period correct although the charcoal bluing that they used resulted in a brighter blue than normally seen on firearms. And of course, there were no adjustable sights such as you find on the Traditions PA longrifle. They used primitive sights. I also has a much thinner rifle butt and a deeper crescent shape to it than you'd see during the Rev War.
Also, since it is a tapered straight barrel, it is a very nose heavy rifle to hold and to shoot. Speaking of shooting, mine shoots very well, but requires a heavy charge of 95gr. of 3Fg powder to do so. And then there's that Roman Nose shape of the stock. There were rifles that used that but they were much better suited to shooting than that rifle's stock. The stock is absolutely straight and there is no cast off to it. Because of that I had to angle my head over the stock to line up the sights. And then I got a bruised cheek from doing that as the recoil drove it back and UP into my cheek. To avoid that, you can put your cheek farther back on the stock than normal to get behind that Roman Nose a bit, but don't forget to do so or you will end up with a bruised cheek or black eye. I've found it is easier to use an old shotgunner's trick of turning my nose into the stock a bit and sighting out the corner of my eye. When fired using this method, your head is not bent over the stock and recoil is not a problem. You don't get a bruised cheek. That's the method I settled on.
I see the price is almost $1,000 now. I paid $420 back in 2004 for mine. I might suggest you check into getting a rifle built for you or get what they call a "semi-custom" long rifle. These are not cut out by a CNC machine but rather hand shaped by the builder using modern tools. In 2006 I bought an Early Lancaster Rifle from a member of this forum for $1100. It has a .50-cal swamped barrel (like an hour glass turned on its side but not so radical in shape). That was how the rifles were made at the time and because of their shape they balance nicely right about where you put your hand to hold the stock. The make them easy to mount, swing, and hold on target. Mine could pass for a F&I War era rifle because it has a wide butt (just under 2" wide) uses incise carving only and doesn't have patchbox. It's also pretty long with its 44½" swamped barrel. It stands a hair over 5-feet long from butt to muzzle. Even though it's longer than the Traditions, it's a full 2-lbs lighter because of the way it was made with a very slender forearm. I'd really suggest you save your money for a bit and target perhaps a longrifle from a semi-custom builder costing around $1500. Also, don't hesitate to check the classifieds here. That's where I found mine.
I've attached a picture of my Early Lancaster longrifle. It uses a L&R "Queen Anne" Lock, which was an English lock made from about 1620 to 1740 and imported to the colonies by the barrelful.
