Swamped or straight barrel? I need advice

[colonialgirl]

I've been told 2 different things. (1) I was told that NOTHING but swamped barrels (in the long rifles) existed before the Industrial Revolution and that if I want a PC long rifle it has to have a swamped barrel. (2) I was told that straight barrels DID exist before the Industrial Revolution. What say you experts? I don't want to blow my hard-earned money on the wrong thing. (My persona is Rev War era.)

 

[DGeraths]

I don't want to seem off the mark here, but with a handle like ColonialGirl, why exactly do you need a rifle?

Please don't take this as anything but a question, but, I am just wondering what kind of persona you are doing that would require a firearm?

Dana

 

[Stumpkiller]

Words like "always" and "never" used to be the answers to avoid in multiple choice questions.

In describing firelocks you usually see "usually, "seldom" or "rarely" used much more regularly.

It would be impossible to say there never was a parallel sided barrel in use until we have cataloged every rifle then in use, and that can never happen. Some barrels were imported from England/Europe and one could "specuate" on the profile of these.

The cost of a swamped barrel adds about $200 to the cost of a rifle now. Not being a blacksmith or gunsmith, I can't say whether it was easier to build some slope in as it was fashioned (and I may be that it was harder to hammer and file a barrel with consistantly parallel flats).

What longhunter, living on the frontier, would leave his wife and family home unarmed while he went off for two months? Someone had to protect the hogs and chickens.

 

[rich pierce]

I'm not sure when you're dating the Industrial Revolution.
Before the Revolutionary War, it seems that all octagonal rifle barrels had some taper and flare. The degree varied. Seems like in the 1780's and 1790s, this became less pronounced and sometimes tapered barrels were used, with less flare at the muzzle. I've seldom seen plain straight barrels on originals that can be reliably dated before 1790. Swamped barrels are seldom seen on guns apparently built with new barrels after 1820.

As important or more important than "swamped" is mass, and the two are related functionally. It is very hard to get the right architecture on a pre-Revolutionary rifle with a barrel much under 1" thick at the breech. A 7/8" straight octagon on a Revolutionary War era gun does not look as right as a straight 1" barrel. But few want to heft a straight octagon, 1" barrel, .50 caliber, 44" long. The weight is considerable and the balance point is way out front. A swamped barrel of the same breech diameter is lighter and the balance point is closer to the breech. That mass at the breech and the balance point, not the curves, are the best reasons to use a swamped barrel when it fits the style.

Folks who grew up carrying muzzle-light centerfire rifles and shotguns weighing under 8 pounds have a hard time transitioning to 9 and a half pound rifles- and that's what you'd have with a 1", straight octagon, .50 caliber longrifle.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Further considerations. The swamped barrel makes the gun "feel" lighter, more so than the actual weight savings. If you hunt, or target shoot from a standing, offhand position much it can be well worth the added investment (beyond correctness).

There are varying degrees of "swamp", also. Some are not near so obvious as others. It can come down to a "don't ask, don't tell" when looking at the longer barrels and smaller calibers. On a short-barreled J

 

[Okwaho]

Lisa,I have a daughter in law who loves my 1740's English fowler to the extent that I give thought to hiding it when she and my son{who liberated a 1950's shotgun that I had engraved in the 50's in Japan}come to visit. They are both Native like me.It has a 41" barrel and weighs about 7 1/2 lbs.She is about 5' 5" and has no problem handling it.As to the barrel question I have seen a lot of discussion on this subject.The Kentucky rifle barrel was generally made with an octagonal barrel although a few were made with octagon to round barrels There are several reasons for the octagonal barrels being swamped,First is the reduction of weight,second is the fact that the sighting is improved by the reduction of barrel between the sights with a corresponding reduction of sight distortion, third the moving of the center of gravity of the rifle further back giving better balance to the gun and finally the general improvement of the aesthetics of the gun.The general consensus is that with improved machine production of barrels,the changeover from swamped to straight barrels began to occur about the first quarter of the 19th century.The use of swamped barrels tended to hang on longer in some of the more remote areas of gun production and I have seen some Southern guns with tapered barrels and the swamp being just back of the front sight.This made a very barrel heavy gun.

I suggest you might consider a fowling piece like a Carolina gun which weighs in at about 6 lbs.Correct contemporary rifles from the 1770-1789 period can be rather expensive although there are a few makers out there with reasonably priced guns.
Tom Patton

 

To answer your question: for a Rev War personna you will need a 'swamped' barrel on your rifle (also referred to as 'tapered and flared'). Okwaho's suggestion as to a fowler is a good one, but if you want a rifle, you want swamped barrel....that said, I have been told by an expert that many of the old barrels were very subtly tapered and flared and not very different from a straight octagon--many of the 'swamped' barrels offered today are exaggerated....the builders have pointed out that the swamped barrel looks better architecturally, but a slim .45 barrel does not look bad in straight octagon IMHO. To be perfectly correct, however, swamped is best. I can vouch for a straight .50 barrel being heavy, I have one on an early style rifle made by a noted maker, who inexplicably used the straight octagon for this rifle--it looks OK, but is barrel heavy and unbalanced.

 

[Claude Mathis]

I don't want to seem off the mark here, but with a handle like ColonialGirl, why exactly do you need a rifle?

Please don't take this as anything but a question, but, I am just wondering what kind of persona you are doing that would require a firearm?

Dana

When my persona is away from the cabin/camp, my wife knows how to handle a rifle.

Never get between an armed Mother and her children! ::

 

[Richard Allen]

colonialgirl,

My wife has a .45 cal Jukar percussion rifle and can hold her own with it against most men in matches. She loads, shoots, and cleans it on her own. Occasionally she "lets" me clean it after I clean mine.

Unless you already know what style you want, shop around, handle a lot of rifles, and find one that fits you and that you can handle comfortably. There is a company (Cabin Creek, maybe?) that advertizes a ladies' or boys' kit rifle that is a down sized version of a full size rifle. I don't know is they sell finished rifles or not. I have been intending to order one of their catalogs to see if it would fit my wife, she is ready to move up to a good flinter.

Don't get discouraged if you can't find what you want quickly. The best advice I can offer is to continue your research and then get the best you can afford. Take your time and good luck,

Richard/Ga.

 

[Bob J]

Colonialgirl- A lot of good reasons to go with a swamped barrel have been posted. I've handled a lot more straight- barreled longrifles and they have usually felt a bit awkward and muzzle-heavy.

One day I was visiting my friend Richard Sullivan, a longriflemaker who trained under W.Gusler and works in Colonial Williamsburg. Richard had a beautiful .54 flinter with 42" swamped barrel hanging on the wall he had just completed. He let me pick it up and shoulder it. It just seemed to float . I was amazed at how "right" it felt.

Now I'm having my first custom flinter built, an early Tennessee-style rifle in .54 by Roger Sells. The barrel,of course, will be swamped. Even with a swamped barrel, Jim Chambers lock and extra-nice curly maple the cost is under $1,500.00.

I'd recommend finding and shouldering a couple of straight- barreled rifles and some with swamped barrels. In a slimtrim .36 -.40 it might not make much difference. But in a .50 or .54......

:m2c:

 

[Stumpkiller]

It just seemed to float . . .

No, that was your euphoria. After slogging that gun up hill and yon it would at some point cease to float at all, as would any 8-1/2 lb gun. ::

But, with the center of gravity somewhere behind your forward hand they are easier to carry and definately feel better when mounted to the shoulder. With the weight towards the barrel end your forward hand is supporting more weight beyond the forward wrist, where it has more leverage, and the gun feels "klunkier".

With good double-barreled shotgun, even with that extra barrel, the weight is balanced between the hands and it is snappier to aiming adjustments. That's what you want for wing shooting. With a rifle, you want the front sight/muzzle to be a little less responsive, so it needs a bit of a nose heavyness to "hang" steadier.

 

[rabjr]

I wonder why no one mentions Oct/round...surely there was rifles made during this period using Oct/round. Maybe the majority were smoothys that used Oct/round but would that be so bad? Wouldn't a woman living at this time have access to a smoothy, more so than a rifle? Easy to load, used for all game and defence and not as heavy as a rifle. eace:

Just a thought.

 

[Stophel]

Octagon to round rifle barrels DID exist, but were relatively rare. Personally, as a gunsmith, I hate them. Round barrels are MUCH harder for me to inlet and fit sights and tenons to. Octagons are MUCH easier...

 

[Okwaho]

As the Dutchman has said and as I posted earlier on this thread,there were octagon to round barrels and as he said they were relatively rare.
Tom Patton

 

[AZ-Robert]

Rare only as rifles? Or rare even as smoothies?

 

[Okwaho]

I think rare as to rifled gun and smooth rifles .There were some rifles both rifled and smooth rifles with barrels thick enough to support rifling as opposed to fowling pieces.
Tom Patton

 

[colonialgirl]

Dgeraths, sorry my handle is so wimpy. And I guess at age 44 I'm not really a "girl" but it sounds better than "colonial oldie goldie" <wink>. To answer your question, since my husband is not into reenacting it's just me and my 9 year-old daughter, so we go to reenactments alone. It seems to me that a woman out alone with a child would need protection in the backcountry. And as some of the good gentlemen have pointed out, women out in the backcountry would do well to know how to shoot (and I can, been shooting all kinds of guns since I was 13 *and* can throw a tomahawk as well as most men). I also wrote a short article for my museum's newsletter on women during the Revolutionary War and there were several references to women using weaponry.

*Many Thanks* for all the great suggestions, guys, and for allowing me to participate on this forum. When my rifle is finished I'll post a picture of it.

 

[Stumpkiller]

My wife's maiden name is "Shurtleff", and one Deborah Sampson faught under the alias "Robert Shurtleff" (which was the name of her mother's first child, who died at age eight). She was shot twice, wounded once with a sword, but it wasn't until being treated for "malignant fever" and was transferred to a hospital in Philadelphia that her gender was discovered.

Her children were awarded a special pension by act of Congress when she passed away in 1827, and she was officially listed on the Act as: "Deborah Gannett, a soldier of the Revolution."

There were other women who took up arms in the Revolution or served as spies.

Selma R. Williams in Demeter's Daughters, The Women Who Founded America 1587-1787, pages 241-243 writes:

"Eliabeth Ellet, who compiled the first list of heroines and spies in 1848, found 160 women who qualified."

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Being that a woman's center of gravity is lower than a mans, leaning forward with a swamped barreled rifle will be a lot nose lighter than a straight barrel.

My bud's wife is a champion shooter. Once she had a go with my swamped barrel, she told her hubby to build her one.

 

[loophole]

You can have a rifle built with a 15/16th straight barrel about 38" long, small siler lock, and 45 cal. which will look good and fit a smaller shooter. A good gunsmith can make some adjustments to simulate the lines of the swamped barrel, and the whole thing will be scaled down just enough so the proportions are correct. I have no idea whether any colonial smith ever built a 7/8th scale rifle, which is what I am suggesting, but I have built this gun and it is a wondrful shooter for a woman. It works even better with an A profile swamped barrel, however. As others have suggested, it is nearly impossible to build a full size early rifle with proper lines with a straight barrel, and the straight barrel never will have the right balance and feel and it will be too heavy to point naturally.
However, unless you are going to shoot the thing seriously and often, these subtilties may not matter.