Import Rifles in Colonial America

I think it's well established that colonial gunmakers were essentially 'assembling' rifles, rather than building locks and making barrels. I always enjoy your quote stating that the complete gun an apprentice made at the end of his apprenticeship was likely the only complete gun of self-made parts that a gunmaker was likely to build. 

So then, if using imported locks and riffled barrels of at least good quality, where does the inherent advantage in accuracy of a fine English riffle come from? My impression, which admittedly may be an incorrect assumption on my part, is that "1st Quality" and "Best Quality" etc. were more along the lines of fit, finish and adornment. Again, my impression, but I'd think that even a 'cheap' rifle barrel was still a pretty fine component considering what was required to make it, compared to say the difference between a trade gun barrel and a fine Spanish fowling gun barrel. Not being argumentative, just trying to learn.

Mold making is something I hadn't considered, but rings true to me. Something I'll need to follow up on eventually. 

I've located some interesting European rifles with assumed use in North America. I need to scan some photos, then I'll post. Pretty neat stuff. 

Good questions.

OK, as the British and Continental Gunmakers making better barrels, we have to first consider what they were made from and how they were made.  

Of course, barrels were made from Iron but were there different grades of Iron barrels?  Yup.  What made them different?  The more the iron was heated and rolled or heated and hammer beaten to refine it, the lower amount of slag was left in the Iron.  The more highly refined barrels had the least amount of slag, which allowed better/more uniform barrel vibrations and thus better accuracy.  Now, they didn't explain it that way in the period, but they most certainly were aware that the more the Iron was refined, it made the barrels stronger and better.  Also, with less slag in the Iron, the barrels didn't wear through into a hidden pocket of slag or need "freshening" of the rifling or bore diameters as much.  
www.flintriflesmith.com/WritingandResearch/WebArticles/ironandsteel.htm

The English and Continental Barrel Makers had factory shops set up to make barrels and that included water powered rolling mills and trip hammers to more highly refine the Iron.  Now I'm not going to say it was impossible to refine Iron in an American gunsmith's forge to the quality that the European Factories could do it, but it wasn't economical to do it.  Most American gunsmiths did not have water powered rolling mills and hammers to refine the Iron that much.  Those who worked in European Factory Shops by experience learned how to refine the Iron Barrels much, MUCH better.  

Now here's something Very Few people know about.  Gunsmiths used paper, between the long square final barrel reamers and the wooden rods that held them.  The more uniform the paper, the more uniform the barrel was reamed.  We have to remember paper was "hand laid" in the period and came in varying qualities and how uniform in thickness.  Now I'm not saying American Gunsmiths did not have the ability to import the best and most uniform paper to do this, but there is no documentation I've found they did.  European Barrel makers had the easiest access to the best quality paper to do this.  We will touch on period paper more later. 

Spence has done a grand job of documenting how period molds may not have actually cast a really uniform ball.  European Makers in their factories were set up to make more uniform molds that cast more uniform balls.  Again, when that is all or the primary thing one makes, the workers in your factory get really good at it.  Though they didn't have precision calipers to check the balls as cast, they did remarkably well with standard calipers.  (BTW, my Grandfather who was taught to be a machinist before and after WW1, had a remarkable selection of different types of standard calipers that were plain, non-measuring types.  So they were still used long after Brown and Sharpe made the first affordable and recordable calipers to a reading of .001" in the 1840's.)  

It is well documented in the period they used the term "windage" when talking about the difference between the size of the ball and the size bore in the period.  However, even in the few period accounts made on the subject, it doesn't document how they chose the fit of the size of the ball to the size of bore.  They knew that too loose fitting of the ball in a rifle did not give the best accuracy, but I have yet to read how they determined that.   

My CONJECTURE from studying period gunsmithing is they COULD have done that by wrapping paper around the ball and see how it fit in the bore and how many wraps of paper could be wrapped around the ball and it still went in the bore.  Matter of fact, my further conjecture is at least on the better/best made rifles, they actually took a cast ball from a really good mold and then reamed the bore so it would fit that ball with the amount of paper wrapping they thought best.

OK, so far I have talked about mechanical reasons for better accuracy.  Now it's time to get into the psychological reasons.

When I first got into making National Match Rifles almost a half century ago, I was a bit surprised the better they looked, the better accuracy shooters got out of them.  Further, when shooters knew who had built or worked on them and the more they held the Armorer/Gunsmith in high esteem, the more accurate they shot those rifles.  Of course, this is entirely psychological, but it is absolutely real today as I'm sure it was back then.  Mostly what this comes from is the better the rifle looks, the more the shooter trusts the Gunsmith to have done everything to that quality when building a rifle. 

So I'm sure the higher quality guns with their better finish and made by a trusted Gunsmith in the period, caused them to shoot those rifles (and guns) more accurately.

Gus

So let me see if I understand the thread accurately:

As I understand it, the assertion is that a British made rifle with a British barrel was likely more accurate than a colonial made rifle with a British barrel because the superior aesthetics of fit and finish on the British made rifle would have imparted a psychological advantage to the user?

Am I reading that right?

More on Caspar Wistar's early importing rifles to Pennsylvania in the 2nd quarter of the 18th century.   

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 and some other 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
and
www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/johann-andreas-albrecht/


Gus

I have asked on other forums and no one has yet found a rifle that could definitively be proven to have been imported by Caspar.

I'm also not sure what exactly to make of this info from the linked text above, "He only ordered high quality items."  Since this writing is from a modern author and he doesn't footnote the info, I don't know if that was in the original documentation or not.  I'm guessing Caspar ordered rather plain, but well-made rifles, because those would have been easier to sell.  So, I could see something like the rifle you pictured having been at least similar to the rifles ordered by Caspar.  

The wood "button" on the end of the ramrod on that rifle really intrigues me, as well.  I'd sure like to know if that is the original ramrod that came with the rifle or a later replacement.  

Gus