Interesting article on Pre Revolutionary NC Rifles

Interesting article, thanks for sharing it. No matter how much I dig around on that website it seems I'm always missing something, hadn't seen this one before.
I do wish the author had included some support for many of his claims. It still seems to me that much of what he claims to be true still amounts to supposition.
Especially regarding "barn guns and schimmels."

As I look at pictures of many of the "early" rifles that get posted here, and "there" (I don't have access to RCA 1 or 2 ☹️) I note that while they were still in that period some would call "transitional" many had sling swivels.

If we put aside the lack of supporting evidence, part of the reason I don't buy into the whole "plain gun," theory is that it seems to be based on consumer choice. Folks are assuming the buyer got to choose a dead plain gun. If we look at one of the reasons many don't think that "most guns" were plain with no engraving (we can get to no buttplates in a bit) or other ornamentation, the division of labor and labor costs vs. parts cost, I wonder if a gun maker would even offer guns with absolutely no adornment. At the time parts were the big expense (compared to now where any project you wish to hire someone else for has labor costs that far exceed parts) and labor was fairly cheap. Add in having an apprentice or apprentices doing much of the basic work, it cost the guy with his name on the sign very little to add a few scratches in the metal and some carving to the wood. This wouldn't necessarily have just been value added,,,,, bringing me to my comparative point,,,, it would have been marketing.
If I'm that gun maker and it costs me very little to add a little engraving and a bit of basic carving,,,, do I want a dead plain boring gun out there associated with my name? Or, do I want someone to ask my customer who made his gun because it looks really nice?
"Only accurate rifles are interesting," hadn't been written yet. I'm not talking anything involved or even all that unique, but something to give credit to the maker.
So, did the customer have much choice? Or, if he went in and asked for a rifle of ___balls to the pound, a length of pull to fit him, maybe of a certain length barrel, and that is all he requested,,, did the rifle get delivered with at least a basic scallop shell or such around the tang and basic scroll work behind the cheek, maybe a little border around the sideplate and a simple design on the trigger guard?


"Barn guns"? If folks were so poor they couldn't afford a gun with a buttplate and other basic parts,,,, were they really going to buy a gun just to hang in the barn? Really? Probably not. They would probably buy the best gun they could afford, to include a used gun that was actually complete and keep it with them. (I know this is a lot more conjecture on my part than is normal for me) The idea of folks then buying a gun just for the barn doesn't sit right with me. I think the idea came much later from someone who saw an old .22 rifle with a hole drilled in the stock hanging on a wall in a barn and applied the idea to a basic no frills muzzleloader.
No buttplate???!!! Not if I have to rely on that gun for my life and livelihood, especially far from home or settlements. Sounds like someone begging for a split stock.
Honestly, it sounds like something a gentleman sportsman might ask for in a gun to be used gently on his property. A gun well made and well carved, of the finest wood, leaving off the buttplate to show the beautiful end grain of the makers best stock wood. We see modern high end shotguns now with lexan "windows" in the buttplate showing off the wood. Then some combination of modern muzzleloader builder and customer saw one and used the idea to make a cheaper gun, with a backstory to justify it,,,, and it stuck.

Nock,

There is no way I can answer everything at one time from your last post above.  So, I'm probably going to have to break this down into more than one post.

Let me begin by saying colonial Americans had basically two choices to get guns.  The first was "made for the trade" guns, which meant a Factor (something like a contract Distributor today) ordered a bunch of guns in or from England or the European Continent and made to general specifications, but usually with a certain maximum price he would pay for the guns ordered.  Then those guns were sold in America by the Factor or his partners.  Such guns could range from the cheapest/lowest quality "trade" guns they thought they could sell to some medium to high grade guns by the English quality standards.  

The second main way was having the gun made locally by a gunsmith or gun stocker as "bespoke work" or what we would call an individual order or even a custom order.  These guns ranged from using all old parts or at least some old and possibly outdated parts to put the cheapest gun together they could and up to brand new barrels, locks and other parts imported from normally England, but other places on the European Continent like Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium.  

OK, as to stocks not having butt plates.  It seems that even the very cheapest trade guns made "for the trade" in England had THIN sheet stock butt plates and trigger guards that were nailed onto the stocks and not inlet.  

However, guns made with no butt plates or materials other than metal (like horn or bone) and wooden or other non metallic trigger guards and were still being made in Germany and Switzerland where it was sort of a tradition for some guns to be made like that.  Here is what may be the highest grade example I know of where the trigger guard is wood and there is NO butt plate on the gun, even though it was highly carved in many places on the stock.  Someone actually carved the rear of the stock to make it LOOK like there is a butt plate, when there isn't one.

www.flintriflesmith.com/Antiques/Swiss%20or%20German%20Gun.htm

So I don't think we can totally discount a stock made without a butt plate, especially by a gun stocker who immigrated from Germany or Switizerland.  

Gus

Hi Nock,

Have to admit I'm having a hard time accepting the reason they didn't put a butt plate on a gun was to show off the end grain of the stock.  I'm not dismissing it out of hand, but I've never run across anything that remotely suggests that's why they did it.  French Polishing was known on guns made in Philadelphia in the 1760's and I assume a finish like that would be necessary to really show off the end grain of the wood, but again, no evidence of the butt plate being left off to show off the end grain on the stocks they did French Polish.  

OK, now as to labor charges.  When you don't get much for your labor, you must work not only well, but also fast to get enough money to eat or at least pay you back for the time it took to do a job.  If you are putting together a rather inexpensive gun to begin with, it's hard to justify doing something for free when you already are not being paid much for a job.  Further, if a gun is being put together with a varied collection of old parts that don't fit modern fashion of guns OR the style I developed as my own, I'm not sure I would want anyone to know I worked on the gun other than to get something serviceable in the hands of a customer.  (I've actually run into this myself in some of the gun work I've done when my main job was working on guns.)      

Now there was a definite period in the 18th century when gunsmiths added extra carving and engraving for free to show off their skills and to gain more business.  However, this was after the AWI was over and there were a glut of gunsmiths all trying to remain in business while having to compete with so many other gunsmiths for the same lesser amount of gun work in that period.  IOW, when the competition was fierce, the customers got more for their money.  This is why the American Long Rifle's golden age is generally accepted to be the period from the end of the American Revolution to the turn of the 19th century, while there were still so many gunsmiths trying to stay in the trade.

Gus

Without wading into the great butt plate debate, though this is an interesting and enjoyable article, I agree with Nock regarding the frustrating lack of primary source evidence to support the author's contentions.

On another note, my understanding is that the "schimmel" was largely an early 19th c. phenomenon. I have never heard it suggested in a mid 18th c. context before this article. If one considers the aesthetic "arms race" of the so-called "Golden Age" rifles, a low budget alternative seems to fit that context.

I remember reading a good number of years ago that even before the AWI, some American gunsmiths were building rifles that were then sold to trading posts for eventual sale to individuals there on the frontier.  IOW, sort of a smaller version of British and Continental gunmakers making guns "for the trade" and not built specifically for an individual.  These were rather plain guns, but ones that still worked and shot well.  (It caused me to think of the fact my Dad bought our earliest guns at Western Auto Hardware Store and a local Hardware store whose name I can't remember.)  

Unfortunately when I read such things, I never thought to document when and where it was done.

So I guess the question is does anyone have such documentation from early trading posts?

Gus

In Mark Baker's book "Sons of a Trackless Forest", he cites trading post records for a fusee sold for 60 shillings and a "fine rifle" sold for 7 pounds. Best I have found for now.