Southern Mountain Rifle timeframe

[eli crowe]

I am looking for input on what timeframe the Flintlock Southern Mountain Rifle would fit into.

What is the earliest this type of rifle would have been made? Even though it is very similar to the Tennessee rifle what other areas would it likely have been produced in outside of Tennessee.

 

[smallmouth]

I see your location is W. Virginia. You may be pleasently surprised that some early guns of the sort you are describing were made in your own backyard. Sirjohn

 

[Ian Pratt]

The answer to that depends on what your idea of a Southern Mountain rifle is - now I am not trying to be a smart ass about this, so bear with me - to say Southern Mountain rifle is really a very generic term, kind of like saying "Kentucky Rifle". I think we get the idea of there having been a gun called the "Southern Mountain Rifle" from what we see available for sale as gun kits and semi custom rifles. The truth is that the guns built in the South were as varied as those built anywhere else
The gunsmithing families who made what we sometimes think of as the classic Tennessee rifles came to Tennessee from all over the place. The Beans were originally from Scotland and came to tennessee by way of Virginia. John Bull's family was from England, he was born in Maryland and had his apprenticeship there before moving to Tennessee. Many of them came from the Carolinas and Virginia. All brought with them what they had learned back home.
The type of gun I think you are talking about probably started to develop in the 1780's, and could have been built in parts of North and South Carolina, the south western part of Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Later as the families moved on this type of gun was being made in Kentucky, parts of Ohio - you get the idea
As far as the end of the time frame, it never really completely died out. Guns like these were still being used well after the percussion era, some even after cartridge guns came in, and people are still building and using them right now.
There were a bunch of great guns made in your home state, if you can find a copy of it check out James Whisker's "Gunsmiths of West Virginia". also Jerry Noble has four volumes of "Notes on Southern Long Rifles", lots of pictures of Southern guns and gunsmith listings

 

[MSW]

Ian-

thanks! i've wondered about that myself, inasmuch as i am fond of the Southern Mountain Rifle style (even if i am from here in the GFN ((Great Frozen North)) ).

 

Ian,

Well said and you weren't even a smart ass about it. One of the interesting things to me about these guns is that you can find a period example that violates every single common generalization or stereotype about them... Except maybe for finding an original one with a Germanic styled flint lock. Funny that that's one of the things that's included on most modern versions.

Sean

 

[eli crowe]

Thanks Ian,

This is the type of information I was looking for.

I would agree that the generic Southern Mountain Rifle tended to vary quite a bit and did not fit any particular school like a Lehigh Valley or a Berks County would for example, even though these two schools were not all "cookie cutter" either.

I will try to look for the books you referenced,thanks for the tip and the info.

 

[Ian Pratt]

Glad I could help. Another real good book is "Guns and Gunmaking Tools of Southern Appalachia" by John Rice Irwin, he is the founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris Tennessee. Some great stuff in that one.
Sean, you are right. That Germanic lock in a mountain rifle thing again shows the influence of the modern kits and semi custom guns, it goes back to when the Bud Siler's lock was pretty much the only game in town so that's what everybody had.

 

[tg]

Good posts, if you build one, your choice of parts may date the particular gun to some extent.type of lock, barrel,bore size can be factors suggesting rough time frames.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

Newman has a big southern rifle in his book of Rev War gear. It's like 60 caliber with a big grease hole instead of a patch box. It looks like it was made of spare musket and fowler parts.
There is no guide lines for "Southern Rifles"
The average Carolina backwoods settler did not have a pot to "P" in. No doubt these very plane
and simple rifles were cobbled up by backwoods
craftsmen to fill the need for rifles on the frontier. These were tools of survival like an Axe or shovel. Not the fancy wall hangers that survive today. I would bet that most of the backwoods riflemen that showed up at King's Mountain carried something like these rifles. No doubt the better off Officers could afford fancy rifles.
:v

 

[tg]

My point was that if you used a late period flintlock and straight barrel in .32 cal with very narrow buttplate it would not likely be a gun from the 1780's

 

[flintriflesmith]

Another source for information you may already own is the series of articles done by Wallace Gusler for Muzzle Blasts magazine. He has shown and discussed several of the earliest known.

The articles come out evey two or three months and date back to 2003.

Gary

 

[flintlockmdj]

Another excelent book on the subject is "Longrifles of North Carolina" by John Bivins Jr.

 

[Stophel]

If the familiar "iron mounted" style is the one referred to, then these types of guns seem to mostly be 1820-1860's.

The fashion of iron mounting ("black rifles") does seem to go back in Virginia to the 1760's. Mr. Gusler has illustrated several iron mounted rifles like this that are probably 1790's or maybe even 1780's, but to my knowledge, none like this as early as the 1760's has yet come to light (though there is documentation for them...we just don't know exactly what they might have looked like).

 

[Stophel]

Newman has a big southern rifle in his book of Rev War gear. It's like 60 caliber with a big grease hole instead of a patch box. It looks like it was made of spare musket and fowler parts.

:v

I think that many are coming to idea that the grease hole gun in the Neumann collection is not an 18th century gun, but something stocked well into the 19th century. Old parts, to be sure, but that scooped out comb nose sure looks like something you'd see on a Marlin lever action rifle...

 

[eli crowe]

The Southern Mountain Rifle I am referring to is one I just bought.It is a Jack Garner which is very close in appearance to the the Matt Avance TVM Southern Mountain.

.50 Caliber 36" Barrel,small Siler Lock,Iron Mounted, Long Nosepiece, 3 Entry Thimbles, Cheekpiece, no Patchbox or Grease Hole.

Toni or Matt, Can you put an approximate timeframe on the style that you build?

I understand the the style may be generic rather than based on any specific example but the general characteristics should fit some time frame even if the timeframe is rather wide.

Thank Y'all for the input so far.

 

[shootemup]

It doesn't surprise me that the Jack Garner rifle you just bought resembles one of Matt Avance's rifles. You probably know this (if so I'm biting I guess :grin: ) but Matt bought TVM from Jack, and if I'm not mistaken Jack still provides some of the stocks for TVM.

Congratulations on the new rifle by the way, I own a couple of (Matt-built) TVM's and have been very satisfied with them.

Note to Stophel: I like the new avatar - has anybody told you that you're looking more and more like Huey Lewis as you age? :wink:

Spot

 

[Swampman]

I would put that rifle between 1820-1850. The Siler style lock isn't something you'd normally see on these rifles. A late Ketland would be more common.

Another good book is "The Gillespie Gun Makers of East Fork, NC" by T. Dennis Glazener. It has a lot of nice pictures and information on these late flint & early percussion guns.
http://home.att.net/~t.glazener/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

 

[tg]

I'm not Mat or Toni but most consider those guns post 1800 at the earliest, some use 1820 on as a date

 

[SimonKenton]

TG,

I have always speculated that if we had a TARDIS at our disposal we would see at least a few southern rifles (including some Beans and "po' boys" among the guns carried by the TN volunteers at the Alamo and by the Kentucky hunters who aided Old Hickory at Nawlins. Just my unsubstantiated opinion for what it's worth. :hmm:
-Ray

 

[SimonKenton]

Anybody want to bet that in the early days of the Fur Trade anybody with a southern mountain rifle of .50 caliber or more probably kept it with him when he "went West"? :hmm:

-Ray