RIFLED FUSIL

[Gemoke]

Has anyone ever heard of a french fusil with a rifled barrel. I like the style of the fusil and would like to get one that looks like a smooth bore but with a 58 cal.rifled barrel. what do you guys think. I`m almost sure it`s not PC so be nice.
Cut Finger

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I also like the Frenchie looking guns and could be tempted to build one with two interchangeable barrels, say a .54 rifle and .62 smooth. No, I'd not expect it is at all PC but still would be fun. :grin:

 

[Gemoke]

me thinks so too
cut finger

 

Check out Hamilton's Colonial Frontier Guns. There are rifles in there with French furniture. And yes sir, they are pretty rifles. I would say go for it.

 

[tg]

As mentioned there are rifles with smoothbore/fowler furniture so a "parts" gun rifle so to speak would be PC but I would not think a Fusil replica with original architecture and the whole works with a rifled barrel would fit the PC bill, these oddities that are made up from old parts are interesting pieces however, and probably more rare today than in the past.

 

Howdy Trapper ! Well, it's been a while since tg gave his official okey-dokey to my "put-together" rifle, but he did figure it my have been a possiblity. I got a Bess repro which had been cut, stock and all, to 18" bbl length. I finished the wood to a decent half stock. Oregon Barrel Co. made a "drop-in" .54/35" barrel. The one thing I probably did wrong was to brown the barrel. It's a bit heavy and the trigger pull is terrible, but it's different and a decent hunter. -- Bill

 

[BCarp]

Larry at "Early Rustic Arms" will machine a full-octagon .62 cal rifled bbl into an oct.-to-rnd. bbl. Check out the "rifled barrel options" on this page:[url] http://www.earlyrusticarms.com/availableordering.htm[/url]

Since he builds French fusils, you could get one made up with such a rifled bbl....

 

[tom hargrove]

you could check with caywood,i have a wilson model with a 62smoothbore and a 62 rifle bbl ,they make the same combo or what ever for there french guns also ,ask danny about the historical accuracy :thumbsup:

 

Yes such a gun would be authentic, they come from New England.The book Early American Flintlocks, by Hartzler and Whisker, show several rifles with the curved, balestered stock of the French fusils. I like the look of the French guns also.

 

[Okwaho]

Has anyone ever heard of a french fusil with a rifled barrel. I like the style of the fusil and would like to get one that looks like a smooth bore but with a 58 cal.rifled barrel. what do you guys think. I`m almost sure it`s not PC so be nice.
Cut Finger

It should be noted that in the 17th and 18th centuries the French used the term Fusil{pronounced fu zee}to denote primarily flintlock arms as opposed to Mousquet which denoted matchlock arms,Bouchard 1980 P.8,n..The rifling of arms is virtually unknown in French guns although there were some late 17th century carbines described as rifled used in France particulary among the King's Guards, Gendarmie,and perhaps some cavalry.They are illustrated by St.Remy in 1697.I checked Lenk and found no references to rifled guns There were 18 rifles mentioned in an entry from the Montreal Merchants records in 1702.They were sent by P.Laurent, a Larochelle merchant to merchant Martel in Quebec City June 30,1702.They are described as "brass 'carabines en cuivre' ". While cuivre means copper or copper colored today and probably refers to brass it is unclear as to the word,"carabines".Carabine may or may not mean carbine. Without the original 18th century records in the French of that period the meaning is unclear.I have not been able to find any references to French fusils whether military or hunting guns with rifling.According to Jess Melot of The Rifle Shoppe{P.104} the 1733 French cavalry carbines included some rifled guns with the first 4-6" of the barrel being smooth to allow faster loading on horseback.There is no mention of rifled guns manufactured by Tulle which until 1741 supplied all military guns for New France.Nor can I find any references for any rifled trade guns by St. Etienne and others.

As to the rifle illustrated in Hamilton {1980,"Colonial Frontier guns"}, it is clearly a composite gun likely made after 1763.The othe complete guns shown by Hamilton are smoothbore fowling type guns.The New England guns mentioned by Trigger present another problem. many of these guns do in fact show French influence but one should be extremely careful in using rifled guns of this type as documentation.It has long been known that a man named Teff working for a Nea England arms dealer named Kimball in the 40's and perhaps 50's was taking these fowlers and filing rifling in them for about 8-10" at the muzzle.Guns so mutilated were then sold as authentic and "rare" New England rifled guns.Merrill Lindsay refers to this practice as does Tom Grinslade in his fine new book on American flintlock fowlers. Tom illustrates one such gun which he states may be Teff'swork CAVEAT EMPTOR.

If you want a rifled French Fusil then by all means go for it but it is really in my opinion a fantasy gun. On the other hand who will suspect that an otherwise smoothbored French gun complete with wedding rings and octagonal to round barrel isn't a closet rifle?
Tom Patton

 

[tg]

"also ,ask danny about the historical accuracy'

Not picking on Caywood in particular but with a few rare exceptions, (Brooks, EK, Immel) and some others, commercial builders are the last place to look to for authenticity info.

 

[wulf]

Gemoke,,,I think I remember seeing a Chase de
Tulle kit that was offered with a 44" barrel
that was rifled and in a 58 cal...Ck out Track
of the Wolf...That ought to be awesome....

 

[Henry]

I wish nobody had opened this can of worms ... :nono:

Yes , there were a few rifled guns in France , Some were imports from Liège ( or French
made on those years when Liège was invaded )
imported guns or barrels from what is now Germany
( wich did not existed as such in those days )
Those are high priced items found in rich people collections .

On his very interesting W-site ,
Kevin Gladysz mentions a 1684 St Étienne price list
with some " carabines rayées " valued at 21 " livres " ( french pounds ) . [url] http://www.lanouvelle-france.com/fusils/history.htm[/url]

( St Étienne guns , part 3 )

It is the most expensive gun on the list ,
Grenadier officers guns a valued at 11 livres

What do these guns look like ? I wish someone could tell me

The 1733 " mousquetons de cavalrie " ( cavalry musquetoons ) mentioned by Okwayo was never used
in North América since there never was any cavalry other than the small group improvised in 1759
and wich lasted less than a year , and they were more like dragoons than cavalry .

A 1716 Tulle price list show a " carabine "
valued at 12 livre , when the " fusil de chasse " is worth 17 livres ans a grenadier gun 20 livres
so it is quite improbable that that " carabine "
would be rifled .

Remember that in early days , a " carabine " was
any short gun used by mounted troops , other words
like " mousqueton " " espinguard " " espinghar"
" escopette "
are sometime used indiscrimately ( sp?) to mean
any short gun , from musquetoons to blunderbusses . much the same way as those modern writers who equipped
the US army with 45mm pistols and the Brits with 303 mm rifles !
In a Nouvelle France context these are navy guns
found only in very small numbers and only in
sea port cities .

The French civilian rifled gun in F&I war
America is indeed a fantasy gun , but since
it does not show at 10 pace , it should be quite acceptable at re-enactment events , as long as
no weird stories are invented to justify its presence .

 

[Gemoke]

HENRY, I do`nt re-enact. The gun I was talking about would only be used for hunting, no weird stoires. I really like the look and style of the french fusil. and thought I might like one that was rifled.
Cut Finger

 

[tg]

I think such a gun would make a good rifle gun as the style comes to shoulder and eye so well and does not recoil severely in large cals.I don't think anyone was pooh-poohing your idea but the authenticity factor is always a point that comes up if this is not an issue then so be it...for those who look for authenticity then that side of the coin has been covered as well.

 

Thanks for the additional info Henry. What is your take on the rifled french guns in Hamilton's Colonial Frontier Guns? Are these rich folks rifles that somehow made it to the americas? Evidently they are an anomaly but they evidently do exist. What do you think?

 

[Mike Brooks]

I believe They're colonial restocks.

 

From what time period and what area would you suppose these were restocked?

 

[Okwaho]

I believe They're colonial restocks.

Mike is correct here as to many of the complete gins illustrated by Hamilton in "Colonial Frontier Guns"{1980}. There are,I believe, 16 complete guns illustrated by Hamilton. They are:
Three Tulle hunting guns which may or may not be restocked during their period of use;Two Dutch guns which are modern restocks;Two Buccaneers which probably have original wood;One Brown Bess;One Fusil Fin with probably original wood;Seven composite guns stocked sometime in the 18th or 19th centuries using a mixture of parts.The only one referred to as a rifle is Fig.64,P.107. This gun is described as a rifle but it was mounted with parts from older French fusils.There is no description of the barrel except to say that it is approximately .60 caliber.This the only one of the sixteen in which there is even a hint of rifling and that is done by two brief uses Of the term "rifle"There is no way to tell when these composite guns were made and whether they are colonial restocks of existing guns or, as I rather believe, guns made in the 18th and 19th centuries utilizing a mixture of parts thereby creating composite guns much in the same fashion as the large numbers of composite muskets used in the early days of the rRevolutionary War.These composite guns still turn up and I almost bought one this spring but I was a little afraid that some of the mounts weren't old.
Tom Patton

 

Thanks Tom, I have a liking for some of the composite rifles and guns that I have seen. It's kind of an american frontier enginuity thing I guess. Some of them are clunky looking but still are pretty cool things.