There are a number of flintlock rifles makers attributed to the TN/SMR style, one being John Bull, IIRC.
What makes a Tennessee mountain rifle?
- Thread starter Big_Rubber_Duck
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Randal Pierce’s book Kentucky Rifles of the Great Smoky Mountains, by its title alone, says a lot. He shows rifles from eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
Let’s for a minute address fact and fancy. In the 1970s give or take, some enterprising builders and suppliers of parts and kits started offering something they called “Southern Mountain Rifles” or “Tennessee Rifles.” These had iron furniture all about the same, a narrow and deeply curved buttplate and a guard with the tight little curl, a Siler lock, and were plainly finished. Most of what most ML shooters know or think comes from decades of seeing these in catalogues and in person. It’s like taking a picture of one car in the 1900s and thinking all cars looked like that. I never use catalogues as a resource to learn about anything, with 3 or 4 exceptions.
If you are interested in iron mounted Southern rifles and their origin, they spanned 1780s to 1920s. Early ones are exemplified by “the old Houston rifle” from Virginia. The buttplate is flat, wide and tall and the guard looks like it belongs on a German jaeger rifle, but is forged of iron. It has a round faced English flintlock. Next up is the Bogle rifle. Look it up. Some think it’s 1790 but I think it’s post 1800. Buttplate is 1 and 9/16” wide, curved without the exaggerated later style. It has an English flintlock. Ok let’s move to something closer to the stereotype. A Baxter Bean rifle in Randal’s book has a buttplate that is well curved and an inch and a half wide, an English round tailed lock, and was likely made after the War of 1812.
Buy some books- Randal’s is only about $25 plus shipping.
Let’s for a minute address fact and fancy. In the 1970s give or take, some enterprising builders and suppliers of parts and kits started offering something they called “Southern Mountain Rifles” or “Tennessee Rifles.” These had iron furniture all about the same, a narrow and deeply curved buttplate and a guard with the tight little curl, a Siler lock, and were plainly finished. Most of what most ML shooters know or think comes from decades of seeing these in catalogues and in person. It’s like taking a picture of one car in the 1900s and thinking all cars looked like that. I never use catalogues as a resource to learn about anything, with 3 or 4 exceptions.
If you are interested in iron mounted Southern rifles and their origin, they spanned 1780s to 1920s. Early ones are exemplified by “the old Houston rifle” from Virginia. The buttplate is flat, wide and tall and the guard looks like it belongs on a German jaeger rifle, but is forged of iron. It has a round faced English flintlock. Next up is the Bogle rifle. Look it up. Some think it’s 1790 but I think it’s post 1800. Buttplate is 1 and 9/16” wide, curved without the exaggerated later style. It has an English flintlock. Ok let’s move to something closer to the stereotype. A Baxter Bean rifle in Randal’s book has a buttplate that is well curved and an inch and a half wide, an English round tailed lock, and was likely made after the War of 1812.
Buy some books- Randal’s is only about $25 plus shipping.
Big_Rubber_Duck
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Ah okay. So most peoples' idea of southern mountain guns aren't really historically accurate. They sure do look nice though. I do wonder why that super exaggerated buttplate style came about
YJake
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Folks tend to forget that much of the southern mountains from southwestern Virginia to North GA and Bama was the Cherokee nation officially until the 1830s. Sevier notwithstanding, most of the places tourists visit today in the Appalatchins were peopled by Indians until Jackson got his way.
While there were whites spanning both sides of the Nation just on the edge of the real-deal mountains, and some whites mixed in to the matrilineal Cherokee, the mountains were not full of enterprising white gunmakers until 1836 onward. Were there some? Yep, even the Cherokee could mend if not completely produce guns by then. But the southern mountain gun industry is a generation or more removed from the Golden Age of Pennsylvania. Virginia is a slight exception, because it is at the very top of the Cherokee territory.
While there were whites spanning both sides of the Nation just on the edge of the real-deal mountains, and some whites mixed in to the matrilineal Cherokee, the mountains were not full of enterprising white gunmakers until 1836 onward. Were there some? Yep, even the Cherokee could mend if not completely produce guns by then. But the southern mountain gun industry is a generation or more removed from the Golden Age of Pennsylvania. Virginia is a slight exception, because it is at the very top of the Cherokee territory.
Joined this forum just to comment on this thread.
East TN mountain folk have had their own stile of riles before breaking off from NC. Before the Revolution and prior to Statehood 1796.
Many served in the Revolution took their rifles with them and returned with other rifles. They modified them in ways to make them lighter and more accurate.
Our family have been here in East TN before TN became a state and we still have our rifles, our Walker hound breeds and our ways.
Them books are just that....... Books.
East TN mountain folk have had their own stile of riles before breaking off from NC. Before the Revolution and prior to Statehood 1796.
Many served in the Revolution took their rifles with them and returned with other rifles. They modified them in ways to make them lighter and more accurate.
Our family have been here in East TN before TN became a state and we still have our rifles, our Walker hound breeds and our ways.
Them books are just that....... Books.
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More context: the folk who went to the southern mountains were similar to the folk who went to Western New York, Mississippi, and generally westward. Many were poor compared to established East Coast folk, and they snatched up Indian land sometimes as the Indians were being led to the concentration camps for eventual removal.
Thus, when compared to the established folk of Eastern Pennsylvania, a place settled for two centuries by the time whites invaded the Blue Ridge, the guns that came out of the Blue Ridge have both different jobs and meaning. There were almost no big game animals left in the mountains by the time whites moved in. No deer, no bear, no cats, no nothin. There were ***** and boomers. And, most of your neighbors were as poor(relatively speaking) as you. A gun was not the same kind of status symbol nor of the same fashion as a status symbol as Eastern PA guns from 50+ years earlier.
However, even in the South, the closer you get to the coast, the more elaborate the guns. One of the most richly adorned of all American rifles came out of middle Georgia. It has silver everywhere.
Historical time and place has a lot to do with the different fashions of guns found in our country. Funnily enough, by the time mountain folk were actually making guns in the mountains, those enterprising Pennsylvanians had factories turning them out like Henry Leman.
Thus, when compared to the established folk of Eastern Pennsylvania, a place settled for two centuries by the time whites invaded the Blue Ridge, the guns that came out of the Blue Ridge have both different jobs and meaning. There were almost no big game animals left in the mountains by the time whites moved in. No deer, no bear, no cats, no nothin. There were ***** and boomers. And, most of your neighbors were as poor(relatively speaking) as you. A gun was not the same kind of status symbol nor of the same fashion as a status symbol as Eastern PA guns from 50+ years earlier.
However, even in the South, the closer you get to the coast, the more elaborate the guns. One of the most richly adorned of all American rifles came out of middle Georgia. It has silver everywhere.
Historical time and place has a lot to do with the different fashions of guns found in our country. Funnily enough, by the time mountain folk were actually making guns in the mountains, those enterprising Pennsylvanians had factories turning them out like Henry Leman.
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Sounds like regional pride more than documentable fact old son. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're going to need more than that to prove you own pre-Revolutionary guns that were made in Tennessee.
Stophel
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Regional pride?
Either you're from around here or you're just talking.
Don't recall making such a claim of "Making Guns"
Prior to successful roads into NC most arms were brought into East TN valley via the Hoslton river from VA. They were then modified.
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Your claim doesn't make much sense friend. If the arms were imported, how could East Tenn have it's "own stile" as you put it? By modification? Now I like to wittle as much as the next guy, but I've never known someone acquire a built to purpose tool and immediately rebuild it as a totally different tool, and tell all his neighbors to as well so that they could have their own style of tool.
Give us some actual facts, not claims. "I knows what I know" ain't truth or fact. Give us pictures of original guns. Guns imported into Tennessee and modified ain't Tennessee guns. Their whittled down imports. My Remington ain't a Bama gun because I put a brake on the barrel and carved my initials into it.
Frankly I don't give a flip what you or the next guy wants. You may take your wants and just deal with them. How's that for whittlin down your ego.
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Well, not much through a phone screen or a keyboard. You joined a forum just to defend your alleged claim to a style of gun and when it was developed. I concede we all have our egos, but I joined this forum to learn from others, not to tell them how wrong they are on my piddlin states behalf. But I will gladly tell others how wrong they are. Just ask the fellas here. As an aside: yall getting beat by us in Athens or Knoxville this year? Makes no difference to this Dawg.
Ha. Ole Sam Houston once ran a school house down the road from our land. Great, great, great Fathers kids attended. That was before ole Sam shipped off to TX, him and David Crockett among others.
Most elder folks in these MT's have long histories and nary a one has anything to prove. Go Vols.
Most elder folks in these MT's have long histories and nary a one has anything to prove. Go Vols.
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Well, by the time Sam's family moved to Tennessee when he was about 8 years old, my family had been in Edgecombe County North Carolina for 100 years.
Some of our folk wandered your way, but the rest of us stayed there and grew tobacco and bled and died. Until my granddaddy was sent to Savannah by the brand new U.S. Air Force. And when my mama dies one day, hopefully decades and decades from now, I'll own a share in that farm that has been ours since 1687. Our sense of place is firm. Davy Crockett died about 150 years into us holding the line against Tuscarora, British, Yankee, Spaniard, Krauts(twice), and even Hajis ending with me.
You may have your pride old son, but I can trace mine over 1000 years into the past. But it doesn't mean anything if all I do with it is yell at clouds. Enjoy your Tennessee stile rifles.
Style of the time. Ohio/Michigan guns at the same time came with that deep crescent shape. We see it on guns well into the 1850s
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Apologies to Big_RubberDuck. I had to see how far I could urinate real quick.
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You know the early Leman style that you get when you buy a Leman part set today has a similar if different crescent butt plate. Do you know if that was just the direction all civilian guns went? After all the 73 Winchester and even 86 Winch has a painful crescent butt. Seems that by 1850-ish the American notion of riflery(not musketey) believed a severe crescent was necessary for good shooting. Thoughts?
