This is a story about muzzle loading “mountain” rifles, an old man, and a boy. One of the rifles is shown in these pictures. The old man was my grandfather. And the boy was me – many years ago.
I come from an Appalachian Mountains heritage where, to say it gracefully, people weren’t wealthy. I learned at an early age that if I wanted something, there was usually no money to buy it, so I would have to make it myself. I made the rifle pictured here in 1967 when I was 18 years old. I’m now age 64. The story goes like this:
I went to visit my Granddad one weekend in Fayetteville, West Virginia. To have something to do, we drove over to Hawk’s Nest State Park where there is a little museum. Hanging on the wall of the museum were several old original muzzle loading rifles – beautiful antiques in every sense of the word. Some people call them Kentucky rifles after the early pioneers of that region. My ancestors were among those pioneers. Granddad simply called them mountain rifles. He always loved guns and had done a fair bit of gunsmithing himself. I believe these were the first muzzle loading firearms I had ever seen in person, and they fascinated me. I knew I had to have one, but how? I’d have to build it myself.
I went home and started scheming and saving my pennies. It took a few months of looking at pictures in magazines and combing through every nook and cranny of gun catalogs, but finally I had a plan in mind. I saved up enough to order a .40 caliber barrel, percussion lock, and trigger from Dixie Gun Works in Tennessee. I also bought a very rough sand-cast brass trigger guard and butt plate. All the rest I would have to make from scratch.
Fortunately, my Dad was a musical instrument maker, so I had access to a fully equipped shop. I had been working in his shop practically since birth, so I had some pretty good skills by then too. Still, building this rifle was well beyond any projects I had undertaken to that point. One lesson my Dad taught me was that a person can do just about anything they set their mind to. He instilled in me the confidence that I could build nearly anything if I wanted to badly enough. As I worked through this project, he didn’t help me very much. He was busy with his own projects, and I think he wanted to give me the freedom to see just what kind of work I could produce. Of course, if I really needed him in a pinch, he was there, and I did call on him for advice a few times. Almost in its entirety, though, this rifle is the work of an 18 year old kid.
The stock is curly maple, a traditional wood for such guns. Dad always had a lot of curly maple on hand for building violins. The tree this wood came from is one I helped him cut down with a 2-man crosscut saw. It had been drying in his shop for a few years. Shaping the stock was done almost entirely with hand tools. The decorative features were my first experience at wood carving, and they are my own original design.
The ramrod is hickory, which I formed from a square blank by passing it through successively smaller round holes in a steel plate.
Except for the rough-cast trigger guard and butt plate, which I filed to shape, all the other brass work on the rifle was hand made by me from brass plate. The decorations on the patch box were my first attempt at metal engraving. They aren’t of professional grade, but they somehow seem to fit in with the theme of an old backwoods rifle.
I stamped my name and the date, Dec. 1967, on the barrel. Rather than “blued” like guns are today, these old rifles were “browned”, a similar process using a different chemical.
To finish the stock, I applied potassium permanganate as a stain, then linseed oil which I hand rubbed (i.e. polished with the palm of my hand). The picture on the left below is me cleaning my rifle, circa 1967. On the right is my grandfather many years earlier when he was about the same age.
The first time I shot the rifle I didn’t know what to expect. I actually positioned a tree trunk between me and the rifle so that if it blew up, it might take off my arm but at least wouldn’t kill me! It shoots very well and is quite accurate. I’ve taken deer and small game with it.
I felt a proud sense of accomplishment when I took the rifle back to West Virginia to show Granddad. His look of approval told me I had done well. Interestingly, this seemed to create in him a desire to build one of these rifles too. He began to make some of the parts, which I now have, but unfortunately he never finished his rifle before passing away. He took things a step further than I did, though, by building EVERY part by hand. He had very few metal working tools, so the parts he made were with hacksaw and file. I have a couple of his handmade locks that are a true work of art. Rather than the traditional leaf springs, they are made with coil springs. I’ve never seen another like them, but they work flawlessly. Pictured below are the handmade parts he began assembling in preparation for building his rifle, along with a powder horn he made. I also have a curly maple stock blank he intended to use. Perhaps one day, when his spirit moves me to do so, I’ll complete this project for him.
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