Hampshire County Long Rifle: CHARCTERISTICS OF A HAMPSHIRE COUNTY RIFLE

The Hampshire County Rifle

The Hampshire County Rifle is a muzzle loading long rifle that was made in the boundaries of Hampshire County from the late 1700's, though the late 1800's. I think it is possible that a few could have been made as late as 1900. The Hampshire County Rifle is a Kentucky Rifle such as the one Daniel Boone carried. The Kentucky Rifle is truly the first American Rifle. These long rifles with beautiful maple stocks and stunning patch boxes were first made by German immigrants in Pennsylvania. The Germans were already familiar with rifling firearms in the Jaeger Rifles from their homeland.

The German Jaeger had a large caliber and short rifled barrel. The rifles they made here had long barrels with smaller calibers. Calibers seen on Hampshire Co. rifles range from about 36 to 50, with the larger calibers on earlier rifles and smaller calibers on later rifles. Barrels on Hampshire Co. guns seem to range between 30" to 46" in length. Typically the early rifles had longer barrels and the later ones shorter. These barrels were also mostly octagon shaped. Most Hampshire County rifles have Double Triggers, one being a set trigger as these rifles were made for accurate shooting. Hampshire County Rifle's are almost always stocked in Maple and some have wonderful Curl & Tiger stripe. Most Hampshire County rifles are full stock, though a few guns 1850's and later are halfstocks.

A star inlayed with coin silver on the cheek piece was common on Hampshire rifles

The first guns made here were flintlock; then around 1830 percussions started to show up, and probably from 1835 on, most rifles made here had the percussion lock. The earlier Hampshire County rifle had a wider, taller butt on the stock, and many of these were carved, some incised, and some relief. These are the most sought after rifles, and they rarely ever surface. On these rifles you will typically find a star inlayed on the cheek piece made from coin silver.

The early Hampshire County rifle looked the same as the Winchester Virginia, Charles Town, and Shepherdstown West Virginia rifles. Probably about the time that the percussion lock came into use, maybe even a little before Hampshire County makers began to develop a unique style of rifles. Today collectors call it a "School". In this case, the Hampshire County "School" rifle had the famous Roman Nose Stock. This is also about the time that carving on guns was replaced by coin silver inlays: hearts, weeping hearts, stars, fish, ovals, crecent moons, etc. Most of these inlays had some Christian meaning, which now collectors call symbolism. From this time on the acorn also began to dominate the finial on the engraved brass patch boxes. This is not to say the flower or pointed finial was not used anymore, just not as much. Another thing almost unique to the Hampshire County rifle is that once percussion locks dominated our area rifles, there were small brass lid boxes on the cheek piece side that were used for percussion caps. Naturally, these are called "Cap Boxes." You do see a few of these on Ohio guns, but not many.

Many, but not all, of our Hampshire County Rifles are signed by the maker on the octagon barrel between the breech and the rear sight. It is nice when you can find a signature whether initials or the entire name as this leaves no doubt as to who made the rifle. But through careful study and comparison to other signed pieces, you can usually determine who made the rifle. This should give you some idea of what a Hampshire County Rifle is.