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Rod L said:Various artist of the early to mid 19th century (Miller, Ranney, Kurz, etc.) showed a fair amount of slung rifles, but I've never seen a civilian rifle of that period with sling attachments. Evidently there must have been some sort of extemporized sling strapped onto the rifle. I would think that might leave some fairly distictive wear patterns. Anybody seen evidence of this? I don't have them on my guns (ML's anyway), but I can see where they would be handy.
By the way, I'm in awe of the one handed deer drag--the muleys up here can hit 250+ lbs. dressed out. A far stronger man than I :bow:
Amen. Cooner if you're that strong from slinging paint and making rifles, you need to come out here so you can pack my elk.
Seriously though, Miller painted a lot of guys with guns slung over their backs like they were bow quivers. Given the weight of the average rifle of the day, I suspect these were mostly NW guns, some of which were carried in 'snow cases'. Of the rifles, I've seen in person, most seem to have forearm wear suggesting they were carried on the lap in the saddle. However, given the survival rate of western fur trade era guns and the number I've seen, that may not say a whole lot.
The only reference to sling swivels I've seen for non-military guns in the 19th century is one Deringer smoothbore contract for guns that went to the tribes on the frontier in 1839, ie Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee, etc. Half of the roughly 1000 guns for this order were made with 46" barrels and the other half specified 34" barrels with sling swivels. The one known short gun from this contract has swivel holes in the stock and wear from the swivels, but they are missing from the gun.
Sean