George Shumway's, "Rifles of Colonial America", Volume 2 contains 86 pages showing 38 rifles which he believe were made in the Southern States.
Some of them were signed and many of them were unsigned but their major shapes and features led George to believe they were of Southern origin.
I looked thru these guns photos (several photos of each gun) and from what I see, the most common inlay was a metal "thumb" inlay located on the wrist, behind the end of the barrel tang. Three or four of the rifles also had a larger (maybe 1 1/4" X 2") oval or star or combination of the two inlays on the cheekpiece.
None of them seemed to have inlays on the forestock.
Several of them had carving on the cheek piece side of the stock, usually a incised type that was cut into the wood although there was some guns with raised carving. The carving ranged from rather crude to very fancy and well done.
These Southern rifles were not inexpensive "barn guns" and all of them have metal butt plates, side plates and nose pieces.
They all seemed to have or once had patchboxes. The sliding wood patchbox cover was popular with many simple metal, 2 piece patch boxes coming in second.
None of them had a "grease hole" bored into the stock.
James T Buttler, Jr. and James B. Whisker's book, "Long Rifles of Virginia" on the other hand shows a number of rifles with very fancy metal patchboxes and inlays that are very similar to the guns being made in Pennsylvania. It does show a few that are very plain, without a patchbox and no carving but again, none of them had a grease hole bored into the butt. (That grease hole thing may be something that was popular only in Tennessee.)
Some of them were signed and many of them were unsigned but their major shapes and features led George to believe they were of Southern origin.
I looked thru these guns photos (several photos of each gun) and from what I see, the most common inlay was a metal "thumb" inlay located on the wrist, behind the end of the barrel tang. Three or four of the rifles also had a larger (maybe 1 1/4" X 2") oval or star or combination of the two inlays on the cheekpiece.
None of them seemed to have inlays on the forestock.
Several of them had carving on the cheek piece side of the stock, usually a incised type that was cut into the wood although there was some guns with raised carving. The carving ranged from rather crude to very fancy and well done.
These Southern rifles were not inexpensive "barn guns" and all of them have metal butt plates, side plates and nose pieces.
They all seemed to have or once had patchboxes. The sliding wood patchbox cover was popular with many simple metal, 2 piece patch boxes coming in second.
None of them had a "grease hole" bored into the stock.
James T Buttler, Jr. and James B. Whisker's book, "Long Rifles of Virginia" on the other hand shows a number of rifles with very fancy metal patchboxes and inlays that are very similar to the guns being made in Pennsylvania. It does show a few that are very plain, without a patchbox and no carving but again, none of them had a grease hole bored into the butt. (That grease hole thing may be something that was popular only in Tennessee.)
