was there a "transitional Rifle"

[ekettenburg]

All of the above but there are other reasons also (at times) that tend to be a bit more complex, and not necessarily so straight-up.

Also consider that some pieces are destined to be professionally photographed for publication whether book or CD. Publishing costs money. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

 

[Artificer]

All of the above but there are other reasons also (at times) that tend to be a bit more complex, and not necessarily so straight-up.

Also consider that some pieces are destined to be professionally photographed for publication whether book or CD. Publishing costs money. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Good point.

Gus

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Some of the owners choose to remain anonymous. Many guns pictured in books have been photographed in confidence, and reference is often made to "private collection". Collectors usually don't mind having other collectors with similar interest knowing what they have, but don't want it broadcast so as to make them a target of theft.

And in some situations to prevent having photo documentation of alterations, additions, reconversions between times of photographing?

 

[ekettenburg]

You said it, not me!

 

[Cvkotvkse]

I think there’s an interest in pinning down what is and is not a rifle stocked here in the 1750s and 1760s. I’m sure fascinated by it. But over time my conclusion is that all good candidates are quite different from each other. In this period styles were not yet codified. Guns were most often not signed. So current builders can choose to build based on an original most agreee is from this period, or do it themselves more creatively. If all the parts of a build date from the mid 1700s and it’s stocked in American wood with an architecture and decoration related to early to mid 1700s European guns, it can be believable.

 

[rich pierce]

Ok here is another early gun, perhaps 1760s plus or minus. It has stunning architecture and masterful, distinctive carving. Shumway wrote a MB article on it that included later Lehigh/Bucks County rifles he felt were by the same hand. It is a smoothbore with an octagon to round barrel. Eric Martin made a very fine rifle based on this one. Auction pictures below. The tang carving is of a style I call sheaf of wheat.

 

[excess650]

THAT is a beauty, and the new owner paid HANDSOMELY for it!

 

[ekettenburg]

I believe George, as much as I loved the guy, got it completely wrong in the MB article dealing with this piece. There are at least two other guns very clearly made by this same guy, of the same period, and probably another 1 or 2 that are most likely the same guy but not as 100% clear. Unfortunately they've all been heavily restored, including this one. The others I don't think have been published. The later pieces that George tried to tie to this are not *imho* the same maker. George did not know, at the time, of the others however. There are a couple of schools of thought on where and by whom these were made, but nothing based upon fact or anything more than gut speculation. I personally believe this guy was the progenitor of the Bucks "school."

So where would this be dated? I'd speculate mid 1760s through mid 1770s.

 

[ekettenburg]

That sheaf of wheat may have had some symbolic meaning, and it seems to have spread throughout upper Bucks up through the western Northampton (now Lehigh) area and into eastern Berks. But similarly to the liberty head, where did it originate?

 

[rich pierce]

Eric, I’ve often thought Wm. Antes was instrumental in the development of the Bucks County style. But I don’t recall him using that carving style at the tang. Do you see a relationship between the cheekpiece carving on this early Bucks/Lehigh smooth rifle and that on the big smooth rifle with the side-opening box, step-wrist, and brass barrel?

 

[Cvkotvkse]

There is another way of defining "transitional," besides rifles built from scratch that incorporate new designs, architecture, etc.
From the viewpoint of the CONSUMER, the transition isn't about styles or appearances; it historically has been upgrading to the new TECHNOLOGY, generally at the least expense, and while maintaining the already-established comfort relationship with what is familiar to them. There are two great examples of this in 19th century firearms history: the conversion of flintlock guns to percussion locks by the tens of thousands, once the technology proved itself, and the Richards-Mason process that allowed Colt revolvers to become cartridge guns, several years before the 1873 SAA was introduced. I suspect that the majority of "transitional" American longrifle were not guns that were restocked here; they were, IMHO, guns that were REBARRELED here, whether they started out as "smooth rifles," fowlers, fusils, or military muskets.

 

[Brokennock]

Ok here is another early gun, perhaps 1760s plus or minus.

where would this be dated? I'd speculate mid 1760s through mid 1770s

For those of us a little slower on the uptake, what can you point out on this rifle that indicates it possibly being dated as early as the 1760's?

 

[rich pierce]

For those of us a little slower on the uptake, what can you point out on this rifle that indicates it possibly being dated as early as the 1760's?

Here are some features compatible with it being in that range:
It’s a big gun. Wide buttplates and robust buttstocks are an early feature. The lock, although perhaps reconverted from percussion, has a lockplate which looks right for that timeframe. The guard has wide rail, wide bow, and the rail stands well off the wrist. The front and rear extensions are not squared up but have decorative finials. It’s an early guard of the sort common on mid 1700s Germanic guns. The buttplate is wide and has engraving that also fits motifs found on mid 1700s guns. I’m guessing the guard and buttplate were imported pieces, already engraved.

 

[excess650]

The pictured early Bucks (auction photos) has a trigger guard similar to RCA #19 and its short "sister rifle". The tang on the early Bucks buttplate is shorter, but could have been shortened with a file.

 

[ekettenburg]

The lock, although perhaps reconverted from percussion, has a lockplate which looks right for that timeframe.

It's a good lock for the gun, but it's not the lock that was on the gun when it was originally found sans-box lid. In fact I've never gotten a straight answer as to whether it even had a lock in it at all when it originally was found, but this lockplate was definitely not the first.

The first time I ever was permitted to pick this rifle up, I was convinced it had to be European. There's really no way to explain it - it's admittedly a gut thing - but holding it "felt" like holding a great old German smoothrifle. It just didn't "feel" American, and the owner at the time got a big kick out of that because he said he had thought the same thing when he first bought it!

 

[Brokennock]

Here are some features compatible with it being in that range:
It’s a big gun. Wide buttplates and robust buttstocks are an early feature. The lock, although perhaps reconverted from percussion, has a lockplate which looks right for that timeframe. The guard has wide rail, wide bow, and the rail stands well off the wrist. The front and rear extensions are not squared up but have decorative finials. It’s an early guard of the sort common on mid 1700s Germanic guns. The buttplate is wide and has engraving that also fits motifs found on mid 1700s guns. I’m guessing the guard and buttplate were imported pieces, already engraved.

Thanks. The wide buttplate part I figured on. The part about the trigger guard is interesting.
Thank you.

 

[Brokennock]

It's a good lock for the gun, but it's not the lock that was on the gun when it was originally found sans-box lid. In fact I've never gotten a straight answer as to whether it even had a lock in it at all when it originally was found, but this lockplate was definitely not the first.

The first time I ever was permitted to pick this rifle up, I was convinced it had to be European. There's really no way to explain it - it's admittedly a gut thing - but holding it "felt" like holding a great old German smoothrifle. It just didn't "feel" American, and the owner at the time got a big kick out of that because he said he had thought the same thing when he first bought it!

We're there big differences in the carving and engraving seen on German guns between the 1760s and then the 1780s and later? Or between American stocked guns and German stocked guns in the 1760 to 1775 time?
The reason I ask is that when I think of German carving and engraving on guns, knives, etc. I think of heavy/robust hunting scenes, stags, scenes with dogs, stuff like that.

 

[rich pierce]

Brokennock, it’s kind of like art or cars or airplanes or phones. After a while studying them you can say, “that one is from such and such period.” To dissect it is harder. It’s easier to tell a car from the 1940s from one from the 1970s than say the 1970s from the 1980s. Yet the VW bug didn’t change that much. So, there are always exceptions. JP Beck’s style did not change as much as many Lehigh guns did during the same period.

 

[ekettenburg]

Eric, I’ve often thought Wm. Antes was instrumental in the development of the Bucks County style. But I don’t recall him using that carving style at the tang. Do you see a relationship between the cheekpiece carving on this early Bucks/Lehigh smooth rifle and that on the big smooth rifle with the side-opening box, step-wrist, and brass barrel?

The problem to my mind when looking at Antes is that he apparently was quite willing to grab design elements from pretty much anywhere. Just look at the daisy box rifle and the swivel breech gun - it's like he was trying to consolidate decorative ideas from all over SEPA! I'll have to go check the books but there's another gun in RCA that I'm convinced is Antes and it too doesn't really match up with anything specific in terms of 'school' characteristics.

If you're talking about the gun I call the Deschler rifle, I don't really think there's a connection although the carving on that has been heavily worn and the gun has been refinished multiple times, not to mention some (imho) bad restoration. I offered to redo some work on it for free but they never took me up on it and now I have no idea where it went as it got caught in a family squabble. I keep anxiously checking every auction l can find as I'm sure it's going to turn up in one sooner or later. I have a gut feel that gun originated somewhere further north and east in NH county, maybe even over toward Easton.

 

[Artificer]

Ok here is another early gun, perhaps 1760s plus or minus. It has stunning architecture and masterful, distinctive carving. Shumway wrote a MB article on it that included later Lehigh/Bucks County rifles he felt were by the same hand. It is a smoothbore with an octagon to round barrel. Eric Martin made a very fine rifle based on this one. Auction pictures below. The tang carving is of a style I call sheaf of wheat. View attachment 88599View attachment 88600View attachment 88601View attachment 88602View attachment 88603View attachment 88604View attachment 88605View attachment 88606View attachment 88607View attachment 88608

Dumb question for you or anyone who has handled that rifle.

Was one supposed to curl the last three fingers of their shooting hand on the trigger guard or under it?

Gus