Shown here is a previously unpublished John Davidson rifle. It was made for a farmer in Rockbridge county and is still in the family. While the rifle is the victim of a very poor restoration job many years ago, there is still considerable artistic merit to the rifle.

The rifle is mostly intact. The original nose piece is missing as is the trigger guard. The guard on the rifle now does not belong by any stretch of the imagination. It was just stuck on there so there would be a guard. Missing wood in the forearm and around the lock and tang was replaced with body putty, but the thimbles appear to be original as does the lock plate with a period conversion from flint to percussion. The best part of the rifle, the butt stock, with the wonderful engraved patchbox and unique cheek side carving, is intact.

Rather than further describe the rifle, I will let the photographs speak for themselves. I do have to beg your indulgence for any deficiencies in the photographs. They were, by necessity, taken at the owners house, outside, on a sunny, windy day, in the partial shade of a large tree. It is amazing they turned out as well as they did.

PDF Data Sheet for John Davidson Rifle

Excel Data Sheet for John Davidson Rifle

Photos published with the permission of the owner. Please do not duplicate without permission.

Contemporary Longrifle in the Style of 1775-1785 Augusta/Rockbridge County, Virginia

“From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled with crude tools; fitted with a stock hewn from a maple tree in the neighboring forest; and supplied with a lock hammered to shape on the anvil; an unknown smith, in a shop long since silent, fashioned a rifle which changed the whole course of world history; made possible the settlement of a continent; and ultimately Freed our country of foreign domination.

Legend regarding this rifle which have never been confirmed have drifted out of the dusty past; inaccuracies have passed for facts. Few writers have given more than a passing word to a weapon which deserves a lasting place in history, and it is a pleasure to present herewith the data collected during the past ten years and to dedicate this work to the KENTUCKY RIFLE.”

—- Capt. John G. Dillon, 1924, From his book The Kentucky Rifle

It is hard to beat John Dillon’s description of an Kentucky Rifle, the popular name for the American longrifle. This hints at the fact that there are a lot of names for basically the same thing. There is even some disagreement as to whether you spell it longrifle or long rifle. Generically, we refer to the American longrifle which includes all longrifles made in what would become the United States of America. We refer to longrifles made in specific States or regions by adding the State or region names such as in Pennsylvania longrifles or Southern longrifles; or even Kentucky longrifles, not to be confused with Kentucky Rifles. Remember that Kentucky Rifles is the popular name for all longrifles and is equivalent in use to American longrifles.

Fry & Jefferson Map 1751 showing the Great Wagon Road (red) and the later Wilderness Road (blue)

The American longrifle originated in and about Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the second quarter of the 18th century and was made well into the second quarter of the 19th century. Martin Mylin, a German Swiss gunsmith, established a shop outside Lancaster in 1719, and is credited with making the first American longrifle about 1740. Eventually, the American longrifle gave way to more sophisticated, mass produced firearms starting with the Industrial Revolution in America around 1840. However, production of the American longrifle never completely ceased. Gunsmiths were making similar guns throughout the 19th century. Mostly, these were high end target rifles, but there were back country gunsmiths making longrifles for subsistence hunting in the Appalachians well into the 20th century. With the renewed interest in all things early American in the 1920′s and 30′s (the Colonial Revival period) as a result of the American sesquicentennial, there was a renewed interest in the Kentucky rifle. It was during this period that John Dillon wrote his book heralding an ever increasing interest in collecting, and recreating these uniquely American firearms.

But I still haven’t really told you what makes a gun an American longrifle. Well, they are long (usually five feet or more), graceful, slender, exceedingly accurate (by the standards of the day), muzzleloading (gunpowder and a round lead ball covered by a cloth patch were loaded from the muzzle(front) of the barrel), rifled (spiral grooves (furrows) were cut into the bore of the barrel to impart a stabilizing spin on the bullet thereby dramatically increasing accuracy), of relatively small caliber (average was around 50 caliber, decreasing into the 19th century), with either flintlock or percussion sidelock ignition systems, a full length wood stock, and usually a patchbox or grease hole on the lock side of the butt stock. The barrels were almost always octagon (“squared” in 18th century terminology) and tapered toward the muzzle and flared back out starting a few inches from the muzzle. This taper and flare (swamp) was generally very subtle giving way to straight tapered and then straight barrels in the mid 19th century. These guns were primarily mounted with brass fixtures (butt piece, toe plate, guard, side plate, thimbles and nose piece); but some, most notably in the South, had iron mounts; and, very rarely, there was a silver mounted gun. Many of these guns were decorated with baroque and rococo carving and engraving as well as inlays of silver and brass wire and sheet. Some of these rifles were extremely ornate and were one of the first truly American art forms. They are now recognized as a significant form of American decorative art and people collect them as such. This is what has driven the price of the best original flintlock American longrifles well into six figures.

The roots of the American longrifle are in the German rifles, or Jaegers, that were brought to this country by early German settlers and gunsmiths. Among other stylistic changes, the barrels of the Jaegers were lengthened, and the caliber reduced to produce the uniquely American longrifle which made more efficient use of powder and was very accurate at long range. The American longrifle developed to serve the needs of commercial hunters traveling to the frontier and beyond to harvest deer skins for export. These commercial hunters or “longhunters” have long been portrayed as pioneers and explorers of European origin such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. However, there is good reason to believe that as many as half of the early longrifles went to native American hunters who had been using European arms to harvest skins for export to Europe since the first contact with European traders in the 16th century.

There is lots more that I could write about the American longrifle, but the best way to learn about them is to look at them and handle them. On this site you will find photos of some of the better ones that I have made in my Portfolio as well as photos of original longrifles that I and others have owned in the Antique Longrifles Gallery. Look them over good, get some good books on the subject, and seek out original longrifles for study at museums, gun shows, and private owners.

Bibliography

The Kentucky Rifle by Capt. John Dillon
The Kentucky Rifle in its Golden Age by Joe Kindig Jr.
Rifles of Colonial America, Volume 1 & Volume 2by George Shumway
Recreating the American Longrifle by William Buchele, George Shumway, and Peter Alexander
The Gunsmith of Grenville County, Building the American Longrifle by Peter Alexander
The American Rifle: At the Battle at Kings Mountain by C.P. Russell, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1941
Rifle Making in the Great Smoky Mountains by Arthur I. Kendall, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1941

Brass Templates & Tumbler Mill

I had to use my tumbler blank for another project, so I will have to make another for myself. It is probably instructive to explain why I had to use the wrought iron blank on another project. I have been trying to make a replacement tumbler for a contemporary pistol using O-1 tool steel. I was forging a blank just like with wrought iron which involves hammering out what looks like a large lopsided nail. Then I was machining the blank on a lathe and filing the profile and notches. The problem is that I have been running into forging cracks in these tumblers, and you don’t find them until you have machined each surface. I lost count of how many blanks I have made. I almost finished two, only to self inflict some other injury at the end. That is two out of six or seven blanks that were free of forging cracks. The problem is that the tool steel air hardens to some degree, so if you are working below the re-crystalization temperature, about 1500F (cherry red), you run the risk of cracking it. The problem is that includes parts of the forging you can’t see when you are upsetting it. The more you work the blank, the more likely you are to crack it. The two blanks that were free of forging cracks(or at least as far as I could tell) were ones that I worked the least. My blows just happened to be more efficient on those. I have decided that it is just too much trouble to try to forge tumblers from tool steel. Fortunately, I have plenty of 1″ wrought iron that seems to be just fine for lock parts. There are a few small inclusions, but not many. So, from now on, I will make all my lock parts, except the springs, from wrought iron or mild steel and case harden them. That is period correct anyway.

Till later….

This is going to be an iron mounted Virginia longrifle with stylistic elements found on guns from the Augusta/Rockbridge county area down into southwest Virginia and Eastern Tennessee. This Virginia longrifle will be fully iron mounted with a two piece patch box and some silver wire inlay, and will be for sale when complete.

The technical details:

I have started over on this rifle twice for various reasons. The pictures below show the latest, and ,hopefully, final attempt. I think that I am going to make a fancier rifle than I had initially intended. At least, I am looking at adding a good bit of silver wire inlay.

A the mounts have been completed, all but finish polished, and the lock is fully filed, polished, and ready to inlet. Pictures of the mounts are shown here along with the wood I plan to use. There are also sketches of the finished patchbox and cheek.

Preliminary sketch of patchbox with silver wire.

Preliminary sketch of cheek showing silver wire inlays.

Steel mounts ready for inletting

Side of red maple stock blank showing figure

Top of stock blank showing figure.

Muzzle showing barrel just inlet and ramrod groove just cut.

The stock has been profiled on all sides using the bandsaw. Now, the rest of the work is entirely by hand unless you count drilling the pin and screw holes with my trusty DeWalt 18v Lithium-Ion drill/driver. I still use a brace with spur bits for a lot of my inletting work, but I love my DeWalt cordless drill/driver. It is always on my bench. That and my bandsaw, I would find hard to give up. Oh, and lets not forget my Tormek sharpening system and my diamond hones. I would hate to have to go back to old fashioned stones.

Stock profiled on all sides and inletting the lock.

Till later…

I want to make a fancy silver mounted Virginia pistol to go with either my Augusta/Rockbridge rifle or my Southwest Virginia chunk gun. The problem is that I can’t make up my mind as to what period Virginia pistol I want to make. Most of the extant Virginia pistols are from the 19th century. However, I really don’t want to make a pistol with a straight barrel which is pretty much what I would have to do to match the chunk gun. Of course, I could hand taper the barrel, but that is a lot of trouble. So, the current plan is to make a fantasy gun of sorts to go with my planned 1775-1785 Augusta/Rockbridge rifle. I will use the same very curly maple stock, but with a 10″ swamped and rifled barrel and a small round faced lock. I felt that that barrel and lock would be most appropriate for an early Virginia pistol from the longrifle culture. Of course, there isn’t much evidence that such a Virginia pistol ever existed. Any early Virgina pistols were most likely on an English model, smoothbore, and almost certainly not silver mounted. I only actually know of one orginal silver mounted longrifle and it was 19th century. That is why I consider this a fantasy early Virginia pistol.

I intend to carve the pistol in a manner similar to the Augusta/Rockbridge rifle with the same sort of tang treatment and forearm moulding, including the upper moulding with foliage and checkering in front of the lock panels. The thimbles and sideplate will be similar, and I am thinking about a Rocco raised relief on the butt cap instead of the typical baroque mask.

The technical details: