What makes a Southern rifle?

[M. De Land]

Beautiful in its simplicity. you have a fine weapon.

Thank You for the compliment. I have come to really like the red high lights in maple or light colored walnut.

 

[oreclan]

As my SMR project comes to a close and I only offer what I learned during the study of my build. The SMR has it's roots in the Southern Applachian mountains. Including but not limited too the mountains and foothills of West Virginia south to Georgia. Styles of the rifle build seem to vary according to the geography and resources available to the builder. All styles were practical, durable, dependable and had no frills. SMR’s were carried daily by most Appalachians, enduring a lot of rough handling and exposure to the elements. I recommend the Foxfire books. These books describe from first-person accounts what life was like during the 19th and early 20th centuries. An SMR illustrates the previous culture and accurate history recorded in that culture allowed me to visualize what my ancestors would have carried and how it would have been utilized. I was raised and live my life to date in the foothills of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Here are my two cents on the question.

I live in the northern foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain and my ancestors fought for these hills and there in lies my problem with the SMR. It came too late for the French & Indian War, and Revolutionary War as well as the Indian wars and was generally of too small of a caliber for the Western fur trade. It was too early for the Civil War. It was a hunting rifle for subsistence trappers and farmers generally speaking. It or something like it, probably was used by my Kifers, and Abbotts, and Malloys, and Linns, and Hoges, and Sheets, and Leonards, and Vorhesses for rabbits, squirrels , and an occasional deer.
While there is nothing wrong with that, I like the more "glamorous" big bore fowlers, muskets, and rifles of the early Virginia / Pennsylvania frontier.
A plain and utilitarian muzzleloader is my preference even to less fancy wood (barn gun or trade gun), but of a more historical time period.

 

[Homesteader]

You have shared some beautiful rifles, and I thank you all for it. In the same spirit here's mine, a .45 that is absolutely one of my two favorite long arms (the other is a 14 bore fowling piece):

 

[Rifleman1776]

Here is my Southern...purchased new many decades ago...can't get much further southern than this one! Unfired, 50 cal., set trigger, bbl. 39", and note it is "warranted"; basic yet elegant!!!
View attachment 134604View attachment 134605View attachment 134606

Beautiful. Why ain't ye shooting it?

 

[david w]

Yes, why is it unfired? Guns are made to shoot.

 

[M. De Land]

I live in the northern foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain and my ancestors fought for these hills and there in lies my problem with the SMR. It came too late for the French & Indian War, and Revolutionary War as well as the Indian wars and was generally of too small of a caliber for the Western fur trade. It was too early for the Civil War. It was a hunting rifle for subsistence trappers and farmers generally speaking. It or something like it, probably was used by my Kifers, and Abbotts, and Malloys, and Linns, and Hoges, and Sheets, and Leonards, and Vorhesses for rabbits, squirrels , and an occasional deer.
While there is nothing wrong with that, I like the more "glamorous" big bore fowlers, muskets, and rifles of the early Virginia / Pennsylvania frontier.
A plain and utilitarian muzzleloader is my preference even to less fancy wood (barn gun or trade gun), but of a more historical time period.

That's a good point as I can't imagine a Buffalo was very impressed with a .45 cal patched ball even going 2000 fps.

 

[Cvkotvkse]

Just to give an example of "Southern" without specifically being an SMR...
This is a D.T. Peden, made in Greeneville, SC between either 1855 and 1861, or 1865 and 1870. (Peden spent the first part of the War serving in a South Carolina rifle company, and then was called back to SC to make ammunition at the SC Armory.)
.45 cal.,with a combination of influences... Angled, but not curved, stock w/. crescent buttplate; PA-like

brass, with double patchbox ( round for patches, and linear for a row of balls or conicals, I would guess...) With the typical Peden "stepped" upper end of buttplate... Pushing the envelope re: people's expectations, but I DARE you to tell someone from Greeneville that a rifle from a four-generation SC gun-making family isn't "SOUTHERN."

 

[XVIIc Wheelock]

Beautiful. Why ain't ye shooting it?

Rifleman 1776 and David W.: The answer is on post #29 on this thread...which is a twin of the Hatfield on post #25, and is also a Hatfield .50 flint of the same time frame. The twin is my go-to shooter and remarkable in its ability to nail its target. If at a later time I decide to sell one, it will be the unfired remarkable Hatfield on post #25, and not my twin shooter, as I believe the unfired one is what folks would find more desirable. Thanks, Larry

 

[hillbilly]

I am working on a southern mountain .50 cal.
Only hope mine may turn out half as good as y'all's.

 

[Pilgrim]

I have taken a couple of days away from my SMR build. I have created a couple of gaps and need to think through the options for repair.

 

[Coinneach]

I have taken a couple of days away from my SMR build. I have created a couple of gaps and need to think through the options for repair.

Maybe you need to slow down and be more careful and gradual with your work, that way you will avoid the "gaps"

 

[Adkarcher]

This is the SMR I had built for me last year. I had it built in .54 cal - simply because that is the caliber that I like. Not the caliber one thinks of typically with a SMR, but I was ok with that.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Gots me a Virginny Sheetz School rifle. Light, balanced, and dont look half bad either.

I thought poo boys were like barn guns, or field guns. No butt plates, nose caps and the such.

 

[david w]

Gots me a Virginny Sheetz School rifle. Light, balanced, and dont look half bad either.

I thought poo boys were like barn guns, or field guns. No butt plates, nose caps and the such.

For the most part, you're right. The rifles had no but plates, or a flat metal plate on a few. Sometimes there would be a simple grease hole drilled into the butt stock. Maybe there were a few of those mountain people who were more wealthy that could upgrade. Some could afford a pump near the house, a big enough front porch for all the dogs, and even a two hole out house.

 

[Cvkotvkse]

I live in the northern foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain and my ancestors fought for these hills and there in lies my problem with the SMR. It came too late for the French & Indian War, and Revolutionary War as well as the Indian wars and was generally of too small of a caliber for the Western fur trade. It was too early for the Civil War. It was a hunting rifle for subsistence trappers and farmers generally speaking. It or something like it, probably was used by my Kifers, and Abbotts, and Malloys, and Linns, and Hoges, and Sheets, and Leonards, and Vorhesses for rabbits, squirrels , and an occasional deer.
While there is nothing wrong with that, I like the more "glamorous" big bore fowlers, muskets, and rifles of the early Virginia / Pennsylvania frontier.
A plain and utilitarian muzzleloader is my preference even to less fancy wood (barn gun or trade gun), but of a more historical time period.

I suppose the true SMR was a bit late for fighting the Chickamaugua Cherokee, but definitely was carried by volunteers and local settlers serving in militia in the War of 1812. Most famous example was Jackson's Tenn. Volunteers at the Battle of New Orleans, began mowing down the British once they were within 300 yards of the American lines. I suspect also that they were carried by quite a few mixed-blood tribesmen on BOTH sides of the Red Stick War, a major component of the 1812 in the Southern interior... Some of your folks and some of mine may have been shooting at each other with them!

 

[Ed Pilkington]

NO NEED…THE JUGS WERE MORE PRACTICAL BECAUSE THEY HELD WAY MORE “LIQUID. I am Tar Heel Born, mostly Tar Heel Bred and have spent 53 years of my life in the Northwest mountains of this “First In Freedom” Blue Ridge mountain range. At 81 yrs. Of age I built a Kibler 58 caliber smoothbore colonial kit and found it too heavy (9 lbs +) and thick for the “Rhododendron Dum-Dum” thickets as well as too glitzy/goldy/shiny for the hunt. I sold it and bought a Kibler SMR .40 caliber that was plain and yet just seemed to fit into this easy living, honest mountain culture. I could carry this rifle all day at 6 and 3/4 lbs not to mention i can drive tacks all day on a whole lot less “Powder and lead”. All that to say I think the Muzzleloader came out of the culture/country/creatures and circumstances of that time and place. Just look at the AR rifle of today and the myriad of auto pistols in use and ask it what are you telling me about this century. I built my soul into my “Southern Mountain Rifle. Meet my rifle and you meet me. Bless.

 

[Flint Striker]

I live in the northern foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain and my ancestors fought for these hills and there in lies my problem with the SMR. It came too late for the French & Indian War, and Revolutionary War as well as the Indian wars and was generally of too small of a caliber for the Western fur trade. It was too early for the Civil War. It was a hunting rifle for subsistence trappers and farmers generally speaking. It or something like it, probably was used by my Kifers, and Abbotts, and Malloys, and Linns, and Hoges, and Sheets, and Leonards, and Vorhesses for rabbits, squirrels , and an occasional deer.
While there is nothing wrong with that, I like the more "glamorous" big bore fowlers, muskets, and rifles of the early Virginia / Pennsylvania frontier.
A plain and utilitarian muzzleloader is my preference even to less fancy wood (barn gun or trade gun), but of a more historical time period.

I won’t say that’s unreasonable. But I do see the value a utilitarian gun that feeds you, and protects you and your livestock every day too. Those rifles also trained generations of shooters from the South. I have no lineage with the South, but I still want a .40 SMR eventually.

 

[SOLANCO]

For the most part, you're right. The rifles had no but plates, or a flat metal plate on a few. Sometimes there would be a simple grease hole drilled into the butt stock. Maybe there were a few of those mountain people who were more wealthy that could upgrade. Some could afford a pump near the house, a big enough front porch for all the dogs, and even a two hole out house.

I am allowed to laugh. That was my grandmother's place.