pics indeed
I would love a brass rifle. Wanted one since I saw a picture years ago.
I would love a brass rifle. Wanted one since I saw a picture years ago.
Would this rifle be ok for a awi impression?
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Please understand I don't mean to pick on anyone, but there is a possible real safety hazard with using that nomenclature.
We may be and probably are thinking the same thing, but there is NO way I would ever dream of touching off a regular load in a brass barrel. This because the barrel would burst for sure, maybe not on the first shot, but not long afterward.
I THINK you and others meant in a BRONZE or "Gun Metal" barrel, as it used to be called. Bronze polishes up like brass, but bronze is a MUCH stronger alloy than brass. For example, cannon barrels were made of bronze, not brass.
I make this distinction only because someone might get a piece of brass stock and try to bore it out for a gun barrel. The results would be disastrous.
Gus
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Daryl Crawford
50 Cal.
@Artificer there's my Ordinance Sergeant! Well stated and appreciated distinction.
Brokennock
Cannon
Let them. We're overpopulated......
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Folks, here is a lot of 18th century background information that pertains to the OP’s choice of gun both directly and indirectly. Fair warning, this will be a long post. So, for those who complain about long posts, please feel free to stop now. For everyone else, I hope you will enjoy this.
Any gun here in the colonies during the 18th century before the AWI was very expensive, but not quite as expensive as some think. For example, it did not take a year’s wages for most folks to purchase a gun, rather more on the order of two to six months wages, depending on how much a person made. Now, it DID take most folks a year or more to save up the EXTRA money for a gun and that’s probably how that myth began.
For example, the following link shows what a rather high end rifle from a known Master Gunsmith cost in 1773, shortly before the AWI. It cost 8 pounds, no doubt from the added cost of the double triggers and inlaid silver.
Christian Oerter Letter (flintriflesmith.com)
On average for this period, average cost for rifles might go for as little as 5 pounds and up to around 7 pounds depending on the added features. (That’s 100 to 140 Shillings.) New Smoothbore guns often went for between 2 to 3 ½ pounds or 40 to 70 Shillings, for an average gun. The lowest wages paid was for common laborers and since meals were included in their wages, they only got 2 Shillings per week. So, it would take them 20 weeks or 5 months wages to pay for the least expensive new smoothbore. However, apprentices in the trades were paid between 4 to 6 Shillings per week, so the same gun would have taken no more than 10 week’s or 2 ½ month’s wages for them. Journeymen were paid between 10 to 14 Shillings per week, so it would only take them a month’s wages for the same gun. The rather high end Christian Oerter rifle above at 8 pounds, would have cost a Journeyman in the trades between just over 3 to 4 month’s wages and less than that for a plainer rifle. This is “sort of” comparable to what the “Average Joe” makes today.
It sometimes is difficult for us to imagine today, but in the 18th century, brass was EXPENSIVE here because virtually none was made here until small amounts during the AWI. They could get zinc from Peru to make it, but no major copper mining began until 1784, the year after the AWI was over. During the AWI, gunsmiths like the Geddy brothers in Williamsburg, VA advertised in the Virginia Gazette Newspaper for broken brass buckles, broken brass horse tack and broken candlesticks to get the scrap brass to cast into gun furniture. Up until that time, brass side plates, butt plates, trigger guards and sheet brass were made in England or the Continent and imported here. So not adding a patch box or even a butt plate were real cost saving measures IF a person couldn’t afford them or didn’t feel the need them.
Now to gun locks. An Apprentice gunsmith had to make one entire gun (either smoothbore or rifle) to successfully finish his apprenticeship. However, until the AWI, that may have been the LAST complete Lock the Gunsmith ever totally made in his entire career. Gunsmiths here could not compete with the prices of locks imported from the factory shops in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, or France. So almost every lock he used after making one for his first gun was imported. Now some gunsmith firms did set up lock making after the AWI, but many went right back to using imported locks until the 1790’s to the turn of the century when many English Lock Makers immigrated here.
Now as to the smoothbore the OP is considering. No, it is not a copy of a known gun, but it doesn’t have to be. MANY guns were assembled during the early years of the AWI with WHATEVER parts gunsmiths could lay their hands on. As long as the gun reliably and safely went BANG when the owner/user pulled the trigger, they were happy to get it. However, I would also echo some recommended changes to make it into a possible “composite” gun assembled during the early part of the AWI.
Some really cheap guns did not have side plates at all, but most had them and they were all with two side lock screws. It’s too late to go with no side plate on that gun and I concur with others who recommend a full side plate of pre AWI form be added. A surprising number of original guns had the front side lock screw heated and hammered thinner in the middle to full size at each end, to fit between the barrel and ramrod hole. Also and unlike the way many 18th century REPRO guns are drilled for full diameter rods and tips, it was common for the ramrods to be tapered in the rear end to clear the front lock bolt. Adding some kind of butt plate would also be good to keep down damage to the toe of the stock.
Gus
Any gun here in the colonies during the 18th century before the AWI was very expensive, but not quite as expensive as some think. For example, it did not take a year’s wages for most folks to purchase a gun, rather more on the order of two to six months wages, depending on how much a person made. Now, it DID take most folks a year or more to save up the EXTRA money for a gun and that’s probably how that myth began.
For example, the following link shows what a rather high end rifle from a known Master Gunsmith cost in 1773, shortly before the AWI. It cost 8 pounds, no doubt from the added cost of the double triggers and inlaid silver.
Christian Oerter Letter (flintriflesmith.com)
On average for this period, average cost for rifles might go for as little as 5 pounds and up to around 7 pounds depending on the added features. (That’s 100 to 140 Shillings.) New Smoothbore guns often went for between 2 to 3 ½ pounds or 40 to 70 Shillings, for an average gun. The lowest wages paid was for common laborers and since meals were included in their wages, they only got 2 Shillings per week. So, it would take them 20 weeks or 5 months wages to pay for the least expensive new smoothbore. However, apprentices in the trades were paid between 4 to 6 Shillings per week, so the same gun would have taken no more than 10 week’s or 2 ½ month’s wages for them. Journeymen were paid between 10 to 14 Shillings per week, so it would only take them a month’s wages for the same gun. The rather high end Christian Oerter rifle above at 8 pounds, would have cost a Journeyman in the trades between just over 3 to 4 month’s wages and less than that for a plainer rifle. This is “sort of” comparable to what the “Average Joe” makes today.
It sometimes is difficult for us to imagine today, but in the 18th century, brass was EXPENSIVE here because virtually none was made here until small amounts during the AWI. They could get zinc from Peru to make it, but no major copper mining began until 1784, the year after the AWI was over. During the AWI, gunsmiths like the Geddy brothers in Williamsburg, VA advertised in the Virginia Gazette Newspaper for broken brass buckles, broken brass horse tack and broken candlesticks to get the scrap brass to cast into gun furniture. Up until that time, brass side plates, butt plates, trigger guards and sheet brass were made in England or the Continent and imported here. So not adding a patch box or even a butt plate were real cost saving measures IF a person couldn’t afford them or didn’t feel the need them.
Now to gun locks. An Apprentice gunsmith had to make one entire gun (either smoothbore or rifle) to successfully finish his apprenticeship. However, until the AWI, that may have been the LAST complete Lock the Gunsmith ever totally made in his entire career. Gunsmiths here could not compete with the prices of locks imported from the factory shops in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, or France. So almost every lock he used after making one for his first gun was imported. Now some gunsmith firms did set up lock making after the AWI, but many went right back to using imported locks until the 1790’s to the turn of the century when many English Lock Makers immigrated here.
Now as to the smoothbore the OP is considering. No, it is not a copy of a known gun, but it doesn’t have to be. MANY guns were assembled during the early years of the AWI with WHATEVER parts gunsmiths could lay their hands on. As long as the gun reliably and safely went BANG when the owner/user pulled the trigger, they were happy to get it. However, I would also echo some recommended changes to make it into a possible “composite” gun assembled during the early part of the AWI.
Some really cheap guns did not have side plates at all, but most had them and they were all with two side lock screws. It’s too late to go with no side plate on that gun and I concur with others who recommend a full side plate of pre AWI form be added. A surprising number of original guns had the front side lock screw heated and hammered thinner in the middle to full size at each end, to fit between the barrel and ramrod hole. Also and unlike the way many 18th century REPRO guns are drilled for full diameter rods and tips, it was common for the ramrods to be tapered in the rear end to clear the front lock bolt. Adding some kind of butt plate would also be good to keep down damage to the toe of the stock.
Gus
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Just my 2 cents, but the stock looks a little thin on the butt for an AWI period gun, although it could be angle of the picture. Personally I hate barn gun ideas, but that's just me. You could improve the looks of it by adding a buttplate, if it's feasable. A wooden patchbox wouldn't be too hard to do either. It also would be easy enough to add a sideplate. If the ramrod is drilled through too high for the forward bolt you could always make a false bolt. If I was going the full smoothrifle look I would probably put an early rifle type trigger guard on it. It would be good winter project!
troy2000
45 Cal.
A very good point. Although for a subsistence farmer who was just scraping by, saving up enough extra money for a gun in just one year seems a little optimistic Was there any trade in used guns back then? Like maybe military muskets that wound up on the open market?
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It's difficult to say anything about all the colonies, as they all had their own way of doing things, but generally a subsistence farmer whose farm was inside a Colony's boundaries and was too poor to outright buy one, was issued often an out-of-date military arm by the colony for militia duty and then had to pay it off.
If prior to the AWI, a person went over the Alleghanies and therefore set up an illegal subsistence farm, he probably took that issued arm with him, whether or not he had paid it off yet. If he did not yet have a gun, he could often get one if he survived and paid for it with furs he trapped in one winter season. He could also obtain a gun or rifle on credit at some frontier outposts or by working for those in the deer hide trade. Since more men west of the mountains meant it was safer for all settlers there from NA attacks, he may also have been able to borrow a gun until he could afford one.
Firearms usually stayed inside a family at a person's death unless they had no heirs or land, then their estate including any guns were sold at auction to pay off the person's debts and burial. So, some used guns were available from time to time.
Gus
