A Riffle Gun and What Belongs To Her | Muzzle Blasts Archives January 2003
An original Muzzle Blasts Article by Wallace Gusler
These articles will be presenting conclusions and details without footnotes - the extensive
documentation and more developed analysis will appear in the two volumes.
The first several articles will focus on longrifle terminology.
The technical vocabulary used in modem studies of long rifles appears to have come down as verbal
tradition that was constantly evolving throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. While the terms lock, stock, and barrel have remained stable, other terms were almost lost entirely. The flintlock
"cock" that is today frequently referred to as "hammer" is a usage that is percussion-period. When the hammer was used in the flintlock period, it referred to the frizzen and /or steel. Terms such as
swamped barrel and wedges ap peru· to be of late 19th century or early 20th-century origin. Butt
plate probably developed in the late 19th century with the simple plate without a top extension.
Accessories also have had names applied to them over time that was not in existence in the primary time of longrifle production and use. The term butt plug for the wood closure of the large
end of a powder horn undoubtedly wins the prize for one of the ugliest modem terms
Returning to original terminology is a major change in approach I am taking, in the belief that
if we know the terms used by the makers and users of rifles to describe these arms and
accouterments we should use their language. The documents that provide details of longrifle
makers and users terminology are scarce and found in obscure sources. Undoubtedly
regionalism existed in terms, thus confusing our under standing. The majority of the terms
that follow have more than one reference and when a lone document has to suffice, it is
presented as such.
Before rifled guns became part of the Virginia frontier and back-country culture (prior to I 730s),
the term for firearms was simply "Gun." After rifles become pa11 of the culture the term "smooth
bore gun," or "round bore gun," appears in court documents and other sources apparently to
differentiate the two types. Occasionally, other smooth bore designations ap pear: "Firelock,"
"Muskett," "buckneers gun," "Turkish guns," and "Pistols." Rifled pistols are rarely cited;
however, the ear liest in the Shenandoah is 1748 and was owned by a minister.
And, of course, the mixture of terms - the rifle style but smoothbore, "A smooth bore rifle Gun," advertised for sale in 1739 in The Pennsylvania Gazette. This
term also appears in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1750s.
The spelling of rifle has great variety, more than a dozen versions recorded in Virginia
records. Regardless of the spelling of rifle, the dual term rifle gun is far more typical than
rifle standing alone. This was especially true prior to the American Revolution. During the war and after, the term rifle gradually replaces rifle gun in the 19th century. From the earliest listing
in 1701/2, "Rifle Gun Iron ramer" in Ralph Wormeley, Esq.'s inventory, rifle gu.n is the primary
term used throughout the 18th century in Virginia.
When referring to a rifle in more personal tenns, the female rather than the male gender is used -
Henry St. George Dixon, Abingdon, Virginia, 1809 "every time that Saws are put into the gun she is made tinner and when fired often will play her bullets." This is also seen in the 1759
inventory reference that is used as a title here - "... Riffle Gun and what belongs to her." Since
the ban-el is the defining feature of a rifle gun, the detailed discussion begins with
rifling. The interior of the bar rel is occas ionally described (1770s) as having rifles
rather than the modern term lands and grooves. However, the term most often used by longrifle makers was lands and furrows . When lands is rejoined with furrows, the origin of " lands" becomes clear. "Lands and furrows" must have originated as a metaphor for agricultural plowing. While lands survived until today, furrows has long since disappeared.
Touch hole is another term that has remained consistent over time, while breech plug and
tang are in the early period simply breech pin, or breech screw; an Augusta County man in
1808 stated it "six full threads in the Breech screw is most common, and approved by one of
the best gunsmiths, I be lieve, in America who resides in Staunton, yet perhaps four may
be sufficient."
In the mid-18th century well into the 19th the breech refers to the back of the barrel as it does today; however, the term also doubles for the butt stock.
This account from 1775, "flour ished in the Breech," meaning the butt stock is carved, is a
somewhat confusing reference. This reference from 1808 is clearer in meaning: "from the length of the breech that a man of middle size cannot without much
difficulty extend his finger to the tricker." Another example from the early 19th century: "the
breech of the stock is too short." These are examples of breech referring to the pull and/or length
of the butt stock.
The drop of the stock was simply the bend: "... let the Stock be of the same Bend, and Substance of the Britch as the old one," as George Washington put it. A modem might phrase it this way, "make it the same drop and the same thickness as the old one."
The front of the ban-el was called the muzzle, the same as it is today, while it is fitted with
a fore sight and a hind sight, "the hindsight fifteen inches from the breech of the ban-el..."
The octagon barrel exterior is referred to as squared both by users and gunsmiths, and this
terminology is supported by many references from the early 18th century through the I830- 40
period. Octagonal and round barrels are "part squared and part round" as John Clark stated it
in Richmond, Virginia, in 1808; and from Orange County, Virginia, 1768: "a Dutch gun square up
the barrel about a foot..."
The overall shape of early rifle barrels is well designed, typically with the weight and
strength in the breech with a taper towards the muzzle and a small flare the last few inches. This produces a strong barrel, the heaviest section being the breech, where strength is most important - the taper reduces weight toward the front, giving the rifle better balance. The flare achieves a larger cross section at the muzzle, approxi mately the size of the barrel at the hind sight, making it pos sible to
have low sights parallel to the bore. This tapered and flared barrel is differentfrom the 19th and
early 20th century barrels known as swamped in the southern Appalachians
These barrels of later period are a stylistic holdover from the 18th century. They usually have breeches and muzzles of the same dimensions with the taper and flare between. Many have the flare(muzzle) larger than at the breech. I first heard the term ·'swamped" barrel from Hacker Martin in 1959 or ' 60 when he was living at Appomattox, Virginia. Perhaps the term is older than Hacker's early 20th-century experience. It is a fortunate circumstance that an early 19th -century descri ptionof a Virginia rifle barrel survives: ''the barrel three feet nine inches long - the Caliber the size of fifty bullets to the pound - the hind sight fifteen inches from the breech of the barrel - the fore sight one inch and a quarter from the muzzle - the barrel heaviest at the breech tapering a linle to the hind sight, then continuing the same thickness fifteen inches from there a gradual swell to the muzzle so that the substance at the muzzle will be nearly as thick as the breech - the touch bole made in the barrel close to the end of the breech pin... "
References to the exterior of the barrel are rare; however, bluing is documented: "barrels Bored blued and rifled. " Williamsburg 1751; from store record and advertisements, "London blued barrels." Charcoal-blued barrels were common on 18th-century longrifles. For a detailed description of this process of bluing, see The Journal of Historical Armsmaking Technology. Volume V, pp. 53-62.
This charcoal bluing evidence is found on the bottom of the barrels where the finish was
protected by the stock. A number of longrifle barrels have no evidence of blue, and must have been finished in the white. In Europe browning replaced bluing in the late 18th century. It is mentioned as new in the English book, Essay on Shooting, published in 1789, and a 1781 ad in Philadelphia cites "blue" and "browned." The earliest documentary reference in the Shenandoah Valley is 1808, "also to the barrels colored to a brownish cast to keep them free from rust, as well as to promote their usefulness from the Rais of the sun when necessary to use them." Some rifles of the 1790s have evidence of browning, although it is dif_ficult to interpret with certainty. This evidence makes it doubtful that longritle guns were browned before 1790.
Bluing lasted well into the 19th century, overlapping the use of browning. The fittings on the bottom of the barrel for stock attachment that pins go through are consistently referred to as loops in both military and sporting arms. The more expensive treatment from the second quarter of the 18th century on is a flat piece of metal (known today as a key or wedge) that goes through a barrel loop with a rectangular hole. The most expensive
of these has a slot in the metal piece that slides, along with a retainer pin. The pin is
inserted from the bottom of the barrel channel and its purpose is to prevent the metal fastener
from being pulled completely out, but far enough to release Lhe barrels. The earliest
Virginia reference to the rectangular fasteners comes from George Washington's order in 1767 for a fowling piece, "a false britch and sliding bolts." The tenn "slid ing bolts" may have been
common, but with only one reference, it is difficult to know if this is a standard terminology or particular to Washington. In
the post-Revolutionary period and in longrifle counties of the Shenandoah, Potomac, and
Monongahela Valleys, the term used is draw loop rather than sliding bolts. If inlays are around
the pins or draw loops, they are described as "silver about the loops."
In summary, the terms used to describe the barrel in the 18th- and early 19th-century Kentucky
rifle making back country are:
Length: Feet and inches: "3 ft 9 in."
Caliber: Balls to the pound
Barrel Shape: "Squared," "part squared and part round," "breech," "muzzle," "tapered and flared"
Barel Interior: Rifled, smoothbore, round bore, touch hole Lands and furrows
Barrell Fittings: Breech pin or breech screw, loops, draw loops, hind sight, fore sight