round barrel kentuckies?

[mattybock]

every blackpowder rifle I have ever seen has had a octagon barrel, but every musket I have every seen has had a round barrel.

Have there never been any round barrel kentucky rifles?

 

[BigSkyRambler]

Sure. The one Fess Parker used on "Daniel Boone." :wink:

 

[Stophel]

Finding American smoothbore guns with round and octagon-to-round barrels is easy. A rifle, on the other hand....

You will find the occasional RARE example of a rifle with an octagon to round barrel, but I doubt one will ever find a round barreled American long rifle. They might, but odds are pretty slim! :grin:

 

[asbrown]

:surrender: I've said this before but it bears saying again here. The historical record is comprised of those few guns that have survived the ravages of time. Usually they are of the nicer variety because the wealthy wanted the best and they also had the means to keep things beyond their useful life. We have the records of prolific gunsmiths in major gun building areas but not those of the small town smiths who only made a couple guns a year as needed or requested by other locals. The reason muskets are round is because the shape is cheaper to manufacture due to time saved not filing all the flats by hand. To suggest that round rifle barrels were never made is ludicrous. Somewhere someone made cheap serviceable rifles with no frills and a round barrel. Problem is, when their usefulness as a hunting tool ended, they became a prybar, or some other useful tool, so we have no physical record of them. And since the builder was likely a smith but not a gunsmith he probably kept few if any records of his endeavors. I always say anything is possible, you prove to me it wasn't done and I won't do it. :blah: :stir:

 

[rich pierce]

There is at least one original Bucks county "smooth rifles" with a round barrel. There are a few others as well in Kindig's book.

 

[Ranger1759]

I shoot an oct to round .50 cal built by Larry Williams...I'll try and get some pics of it on later...I just like the looks of the oct to smooth barrels...

Ranger

 

[jethro224]

Roy Stroh built my J.P. Beck influenced .54 rifle with an octagon to round tapered and flared barrel. I love it!

 

[Stophel]

Smoothbored guns with octagon to round barrels are not hard to find. I have photos of a Peter Berry rifle that has an octagon to round barrel... about the only one I can think of. As I recall, one of the Beck guns is octagon to round and straight rifled.... I may be "misremembering" that entirely. :hmm:

 

[Dphar]

every blackpowder rifle I have ever seen has had a octagon barrel, but every musket I have every seen has had a round barrel.

Have there never been any round barrel kentucky rifles?

There are some round barrel rifles. I can across one it a book not to long ago I think.
Many years ago I found a light fowler on a table of original MLs on a table at the Palmer AK gunshow.
Labeled as a "Milita Rifle" I asked about this the the guy said look in the muzzle.
It was bored smooth for maybe 4" at the muzzle and was rifled from there to the breech. Had a low front sight and a rear sight upset into the barrel. A sharp chisel was was used the raise a flap of iron and then this was notched. Common on 19th Century trade guns.
The rifle was in all respects stocked as a fowler.

Darn! If I had to say if it was round or 1/2 Octagonal I could not say.... Now thinking I think it was 1/2 oct. But this was back about 1976 and I did not have a camera with me.

We also have to remember that a great many original rifles were bored for shot late in their service life or when an owners eyesight failed with age.
Since we find fowler stocked rifles on occasion its possible some "fowlers" of today may have been rifled especially if they have a hind sight of some sort....
There is a rifle stocked gun in "Rifles of Colonial America" II, #115 has a round barrel and a rear sight but it may not be original to the gun. Was it originally rifled? Is it rifled now but so worn at the muzzle its thought to be smooth?
Don't know.
Dan

 

[Marc Adamchek]

Jethro, that gun just keeps on getting prettier and prettier as time goes by. A masterpiece!

 

Roy Stroh built my J.P. Beck influenced .54 rifle with an octagon to round tapered and flared barrel. I love it!

Which is indicative of what? :wink:

 

[silverfox]

I don't know what time period you are looking at but I have a 1842 to 1848 Pennsylvania stocked smooth rifle from Harrisburg Pa. It is half oct. and half round. Has very low rifle sights(not noticed by most people as they are so small) It is about what we call 20ga. The lock is marked Kelker bros, Harrisburg Pa. and has engraving of birds and a hunting dog. Makes me think it was to be used with shot as much as ball.
Fox :thumbsup:

 

[Charlie_X]

That certainly explains a lot. I always wondered the same thing about why round barreled rifles only seemed to come about around the time of the Civil War.

 

[George]

Have there never been any round barrel kentucky rifles?

In his book Kindig pictures and describes 261 rifles. Two of them are described as having completely round barrels, and 36 of them as having octagon to round barrels. Both those described with round barrels are said to be smooth rifles. Of those with octagon to round barrels, 28 are smooth and 8 are rifled.

Spence

 

[mattybock]

actually i wasn't looking at any time period in particular, just in general.

 

[jethro224]

Roy Stroh built my J.P. Beck influenced .54 rifle with an octagon to round tapered and flared barrel. I love it!

Which is indicative of what? :wink:

Have there never been any round barrel kentucky rifles?

That "never" covers a lot of ground. :wink:

 

[hoochiepapa]

I'm with smoothbore on this one. Just because none have been found......

 

[tg]

There is little to suggest that the more common guns of the past were all "used up" thus the lacking of many types we would like to have evidence that they were made. This claim is just substituted for the lacking historical record of many styles/types and details of guns in the 18th and early 19th century.All the good gun books showing a variety of guns from the past shor what would have been fine guns and very simple guns which would lik.ley still have the basic incise moulding on the forestock and buttstock and maybe teardrops abd a bit of carving, it is just how guns were made at the time, and the decor just increased with the value/grade of the gun.Making musket barrels round and rifle barrel oct or oct to round probably had little to do with speed of completion and more to do with the function of the gun such as for breech pressure of the rifleand, sight alignment, bayonet placement and a host of other reasons. There has been nothing to suggest that a round barrel rifle making industry was in place in the 18th century and we just missed any record of it. This is total speculation, and let's keep out the "proove to me it was not done" that completley reduces any credibility to dust drifting in the breeze, we have pretty much advanced past the 5th grade level of gun history study on this forum by now. This is not aimed at you Mike Brines it just ended up here.

 

[George]

Two of them are described as having completely round barrels,

How about a picture of those round-barreled rifles, Spence?

OK, can do.

Kindig gun #2, pg. 56, round, smooth-bore 46 inch barrel, 50 caliber, categorized by him as 'pre-revolutionary with wooden patchbox lid'.

Kindig gun #14, pg. 76, round, smooth-bore 56 inch barrel, .62 caliber, categorized by him as 'early daisy patch boxes'.

Spence

 

[Coot]

I think that there may be a reason for octagonal rifle barrels and that it is one of available technology. Musket barrels were largely the product of large state supported (supported by large quantity purchases if not outright ownership or subsidy) concerns that represented state of the art barrel manufacturing. Diderot and P.N. Springle's Handwerke und kunste in Tabellen (The Gunfactory) translated in the Jan 1991 Journal of Historical Armsmaking Technology refer to (musket) barrels being formed/forged in a series of grooved mandrels of various sizes using water powered trip hammers and then ground to final exterior countours using large (eight foot diameter) water powered wheels similar to those grinding wheels used in the manufacture of swords. Clearly, this level of large, specialized water powered machinery was only going to be found in major industrial areas and used to produce large numbers of very similar barrels. On the other hand, hand forging flats/octagons over an anvil and draw filing the resulting barrel by hand was within the equipment capabilities of small shops such as are credited with being the innovators and suppliers of the 'kentucky' rifle. A website (http:blossomsbackcountry.freeservers.com/custom2.html) gives a brief bit of history of the barrel factory at Old Hill (near Birmingham, England) that helps to grasp the extent of equipment & techniques employed in the making of musket (& sporting smoothbore) barrels.