“ Native American” guns—barrels shortened & brass tacks and straps of rawhide wrapped and bound around the wrist and the barrel & forestock. Some of these are legit pieces of Native American or frontier usage. Some of these are present-day embellishments added to a plain-looking or abused antique muzzle-loading gun to enhance their appeal to the Native American artifact collector. Almost all of them are antique-manufactured arms.
It is a known fact that some Native Americans decorated their rifles with brass tacks, as many original old photos show. They also shortened their rifles as short rifles were much handier on horseback.
Here is a percussion rifle made in Hampshire County in the
mid-1800s. It has been shortened to an overall length of 30 inches, with a
rifled .40 cal. barrel reduced to 18 inches. Hampshire County Rifles in unaltered conditions
have barrels from 38 to 44 inches. The stock has been cut at the butt, and naturally, the forestock has been cut.
This rifle originally had a standard percussion lock but was converted to this back-action percussion lock. Why? Was that back-action lock the only one they had? Possibly at the same time, the barrel was cut at the breech. The front sight and front ramrod pipe are in their original location. The muzzle has the original decoration as seen on many old longrifles. One thing of note is that this rifle has been shot a lot in this current shortened configuration, as the loss of steel and pitting on the barrel breech indicate much use of early corrosive percussion caps. The rear sight would have been added after the barrel was shortened. That is possibly a later addition, as some historians claim Native Americans had little or no use of sights.
We pulled a tack to identify its period of manufacture. It
is a mid-1800s brass tack.
The crudely made grease hole still has remnants of patch grease. The stock is broken all the way through at the center of the lock mortise. It is stabilized by the side plate, metal trigger guard, and a recently added metal strap under the lock. The trigger guard was hammered out of a piece of metal. The trigger appears to be forged. The wood added in front of the lockplate, covering the void in the original lock mortise, resulting from installing the back-action lock, could be a modern repair.
Was this rifle used by Native Americans or even a blanket rifle carried by some old-time trapper? We will study this rifle more and get input from other American Long Rifle students before we conclude. One thing is for sure: this rifle has had years of hard use and abuse. When this little rifle left Hampshire County in the mid-1800s, it was a long, slender thing of beauty, proudly carried by one of our ancestors, similar to Evan P Ward rifle below.
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Folks may tire of the old adage, " If this gun could talk," so we changed it to " These guns do talk."
Hope you enjoyed this, John & Mark
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