Guns Along the Susquehanna

Through some links provided here that lead to other links and more reading, I've somewhat broadened my outlook on what might be acceptable for your time and place.
For your situation I'd also be feeling pretty good about an early style smoothrifle similar to RCA 19, that was linked to previously, which belonged to Chief Paxinosa.
And, looking at the ads recently provided by Spence, in another topic, from the Pennsylvania Gazette, I'm starting to wonder if average grade imported fowling pieces and other smoothbores ("straight rifle" being listed among these) weren't more common than previously thought. With "trade guns" being more often used for trade and barter with natives.

I believe straight rifles probably are one description covering two items. Both having rifle stocks architecture and furniture, to include rear sights. But, two different bores. Possibly it covers what is also known as a smoothrifle, but, I'm sure it also covers guns with said design that have barrels with what is known as straight rifling. That would be rifling grooves that run straight down the bore instead of a spiral. This is believed to have been done to give fouling a place to go. 
Straight rifling leads me to question a common belief amongst many of us. That patches were not used when shooting roundballs out of smoothbores during the period. I do agree that with the fowling piece, musket, and buck and ball gun, no patch was used. And, there is no mention that has been found of anyone loading these guns with a patch.
But, straight rifling would cause a problem with gas seal when shooting without a patch to fill the grooves. And, of someone were to have a smoothrifle, either because that is what they purchased or because they had a rifle with worn rifling bored smooth, I would assume them to be most familiar with shooting a rifle and thus be used to using a patch.
It used to be commonly accepted that smoothrifles were the result of worn out rifles being rebored to smooth. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of this, and with the number of advertisements that folks like Spence have found and shared, I'm really not buying that anymore.
I find the smoothrifle to have many benefits, and I'm sure folks in that time period found the same. If one is not "shooting flying," they can be seen to be very versatile and possibly superior to a fowling piece or a trade gun (with the possible exception of the Type-G) with their front and rear sights.
If the user does most of their shooting, including with loose shot, at somewhat stationary targets, in other words rifle style shooting, their hit potential increases with a smoothrifle. If shooting at turkeys, squirrels, stationary rabbits, or sitting/standing birds, with shot, we are shooting as if with a rifle, only our projectile is a load of loose shot. If then we are to load a ball to shoot a deer, elk, or bison, we are still shooting rifle style. We loose nothing to have our gun built with rifle style architecture and we gain the increased hit potential (not accuracy) of front and rear sights.
We only loose out to the fowling piece, if it is properly fitted to the shooter, when we start trying to hit things flying. 
Now, I have hit flying pheasant with my smoothrifle, but, there was much luck involved, and the conditions of the shot were a bigger factor in making the hit than my or the gun's ability. I've missed a lot more than I've hit with that gun. Many that I've missed I would likely have hit with a fowling piece fitted to me properly.
So, if we take, "shooting flying," and roundball shots past 50 to 75 yards out out of the equation, a smoothrifle makes perfect sense for versatility. 

Clear as mud?

That is a very interesting passage, Spence. It confirms my impression that 18th c. shooting and firearm design was a curious blend of science and mythology.

I have found similar examples in Colonel George Hangar's "To All Sportsmen, Farmers, and Gamekeepers" book, published in 1814. He includes a section on rifles and riflemen partly drawn from his experience facing them in the AWI. Often when he offers "explanations" for the phenomena he observes, they are contrary to the physics of ballistics.

In 1730 [Caspar] Wistar established a trade connection with Georg Friedrich Hölzer, a family friend in the Palatinate. He ordered goods from Germany, which were then transported by German immigrants in their personal belongings in order to avoid British duties and then sold in his shop in Philadelphia. Using the immigrant transportation system for illicit trade was quite common among non-British immigrants at the time since the restrictions and duties imposed by the Navigation Acts were prohibitive. Although nowhere near as profitable as his land speculation, Wistar’s trade in imported commodities from the Rhine and Neckar Valleys represented an important step in his entrepreneurial and personal affairs. Establishing himself as the main supplier in an emerging market, he was able to furnish his fellow immigrants with specialized services since the items he imported (knives, scissors, needles, brass and iron goods, copper kettles, mirrors, eyeglasses, tobacco pipes, ivory combs, lace, and custom-made rifles) were not readily available in the colonies at the time. He only ordered high quality items and managed to attain market dominance in rifles by making sure his source in Germany was kept secret."

www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=1



“Many gunsmiths may have spent much of their time repairing guns rather than creating new ones. There had long been a steady stream of imported guns into colonial America. Caspar Wistar imported German rifles in the 1730s and 1740s, asking his supplier to tailor them for the American market, where consumers “prefer rifles with barrels that are three feet and three to four inches long[26]

[26] Caspar Wistar to Georg Friederich Hölzer, October 1, 1737, in Rosalind Beiler, Immigrant and Entrepreneur: The Atlantic World of Caspar Wistar, 1650-1750 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 145-146.” www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=180#_edn26



Note: The rifle barrel lengths mentioned above were 39 to 40 inches long, not quite the 42 to 46 inch lengths they would eventually grow to, but longer to much longer than many traditional German Jaeger or Hunting rifles.



“Caspar Wistar (1696-1752), who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1717, imported more than fifty rifles, many especially tailored for the American market, from gunsmiths in Suhl and Rothenberg between 1731 and 1745.”

From: JOHANN ANDREAS ALBRECHT: MAKING RIFLES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MORAVIAN ECONOMIES

Scott Paul Gordon


Gus

Hiya, Gus! Get through all seven pages?? Thanks for chiming in! 

I love the Wistar documentation and I’m always amazed at how early the German rifles were being lengthened to meet demand. I’d love to know who the customers were and what these early longer rifles looked like. I do remember quite a few barrels and other components came into Pennsylvania via Wistar. 

Fascinating stuff, eh?

So a local fella reached out via the MLF. He’s been building for 25 years and it turns out he and his son remember me from Scouting 25+ years ago. It truly is a small world. 

Anyway, he’s offered mentorship and is plugged into a local network of builders here. Apparently there are a LOT of guys building flintlocks in the area besides Allen Martin. 

I just got off of the phone with this fella and he has a couple of 20ga. octagon-to-round Getz barrels he’s offered. 1-1/16 or so at the breech. He also has a few guys within 20 miles of me that will inlet the barrel and drill the ramrod in a stock blank. 

He suggested a ‘period of emergency’ Pennsylvania-built smoothbore with a composite of import and reclaimed parts. Now, I’m not sure that that kind of arm goes with the persona I’m building… (this guy is into HC/PC flintlocks but really is a builder/shooter, not into living history)… but I’m moving in the right direction. 

I gotta go back to my notes and books. I had pretty well settled on an English Import Fowler… specifically one in Of Sorts… of which the Chambers kit is a very close approximation. The original gun and the Chambers kit have 20 gauge full-round barrels with fairly heavy breeches and are dramatically tapered and flared. The lighter octagon-to-round Getz barrels are also tapered. The are also real 20ga. barrels, not 12s bored to 20 with thick wall thickness. 

So… some soul searching and some research. Can I build an appropriate gun around this barrel? Because this process is HIGHLY attractive for the mentoring and networking opportunities. 

(Wringing hands and gnashing teeth…)