A true American firearm: the Kentucky Long Rifle

[Lee]

Originally Posted by laEspadaAncha

Evan Johnson was one of only two gunsmiths in North Carolina with rifle boring machines in the mid-19th Century.

I have seen these old rifling rigs in museums and I am always somewhat overwhelmed when I consider the skill and labor that went into making one of the barrels, let alone the entire rifle (even though locks were usually bought from a specialist).

My first long rifle was fairly plain, like yours lacking a patchbox but with a well proportioned and crafted tiger maple stock. Enthusiasts chided me - to my horror - that if they had it they would promptly redress that deficiency. It had been flint and was converted and then reconverted with some overly worn parts. But, just as North Carolina guns are scarce, this one turned out to be from a maker who had migrated from PA to the Hudson Valley region of New York just before the Revolution and so it too is a bit uncommon. I will present it once I have my photo studio back and manage to dig it out from the back of the armoury.

Espada, if you will allow me a couple of days, I will dig out the originals of the Christian Beck rifle pictures. The ALR forum software downsizes the images and so the versions I retain are a little sharper. I enjoyed that bit of detective work and I am convinced that there are at least four blood-related Christian Becks that were making rifles. The eldest Christian Beck had a son also named Christian Beck, but that son apprenticed under a different maker and worked in a different, though very plastic style. I cannot imagine a man as proficient as he in engraving giving all of that skill up to place a single line of rocker engraving! Despite documentation deficiencies, the rifle over my mantle must have been made by a cousin of the eldest Christian Beck as it has features more in common with the eldest Christian Beck and his famed brother J.P. Beck, but in a rifle clearly a generation later than these golden age masters. But there is much more research to be done to prove or disprove this observation.

[laEspadaAncha]

Hi Lee,

I will happily wait for you to post the photos of your rifle, and look forward to seeing more examples to this thread. Regarding your your thread on ALR, your genealogical chart on the Beck family of gunsmiths was impressive... What meager research library I have at my disposal is focused primarily on edged weaponry and tribal arts, and I have next to nothing focused on antique firearms. What information I have on Evan Johnson was supplied by another area collector.

I guess I am a little surprised to hear antique firearm enthusiasts would suggest an alteration that would modify a piece beyond its original form... adding a patchbox to a stock that originally did not possess one?!? I can't think of a similar alteration one could make to an antique edged weapon that would be considered acceptable by the collector community.


*****


Mark - Thank you... I read somewhere that gunsmiths would cure the maple for - what was it? - four years, I think, before they would shape it. A definite aesthetic improvement over the walnut that I understand was the predominant wood of choice in the manufacture of European long arms of the period.

[Lee]

Early enough to have started out as a flintlock, but sufficiently late that the lock is secured by a single screw, as above, see the discussion on the ALR Forum. The promised photographs follow...

[fernando]

Originally Posted by laEspadaAncha

... I guess I am a little surprised to hear antique firearm enthusiasts would suggest an alteration that would modify a piece beyond its original form... adding a patchbox to a stock that originally did not possess one?!? I can't think of a similar alteration one could make to an antique edged weapon that would be considered acceptable by the collector community. ...

Yeah, a rather unorthodox procedure, so to say; both in fire and edged weapons .

[laEspadaAncha]

Beautiful rifle, Lee... It's nice to see another example added to the thread, and thank you for posting the pictures. Any idea what made the inscribed circles / circular impressions I see inside the patch box?

[Lee]

I believe that the scribed circles are tool marks reflecting the flat bottomed wood working drill used to 'excavate' the patchbox recess.

[fernando]

I was paging a book that i have and learned that "Old Betsy" was the name of the Kentucky rifle that was gifted by Philadelphia to David Crockett.
I have also scanned from the same book a nice air-brush illustration of the mechanism and butt of an example of these rifles, in which the patchbox has the particularity to open laterally.

.

[Matchlock]

Hi 'Nando,

The flintlock mechanism you posted is doubtlessly a replica of the mechanism of a Prussian military musket, ca. 1740!

I attach some images of a Pussian musket und pistol of the 1740's. The identifying characteristics are the sharply edged jaws of the cock, the edged underside of the pan and the even upper ridge of the frizzen. The original Prussian mechanisms were always signed POTZDAMMAGAZ for the Potsdam arsenal. The belly of the flat cock always protrudes over the lower edge of the lock plate.

Nobody's perfect, even books are not. I have noticed over the decades that a lot of rubbish about German military muzzleloaders has been published overseas ...

Best,
Michael