The three images below show a plain, unadorned antique percussion black powder rifle that is stocked in curley maple. It was made by the Bedford County, Pennsylvania gunmaker John Border. The first photo shows the right-hand side of this old muzzle loading gun, including the lock, trigger guard, and buttstock. The rifle does not have a patch box or the typical rat tail lock of the Bedford School of gunsmithing. It does have the streamlined lock panel shape common to many rifles of the Bedford School, where the trailing end of the panel tapers to a point.
The next picture shows the left side of the rear portion of this antique black powder rifle. The buttstock has a cheekpiece and terminates in a crescent buttplate. The bow of the cast brass trigger guard houses an adjustable double set trigger arrangment. The rear trigger, known as the set trigger, is significantly curved. The front trigger, known as the hair trigger, has a less pronounced curvature. These differing trigger shapes allow the shooter to feel which of the two triggers is being pulled. The comb is very low, and generally straight. The belly of the stock is also generally straight, and incorporates a long brass toe plate. The brass lock bolt plate is flat and unengraved and has three screws. The pin that retains the front of the trigger guard to the stock is visible just below the lock bolt plate. The pin that retains the rear of the trigger guard to the stock is also visible.
The following photograph shows the percussion lock and mating lock panel on this 19th century muzzle loading rifle. The lock plate has a rounded tail, rather than a classic Bedford County rat tail. Although this is a very plain firearm that is devoid of decoration, its arching Bedford-style hammer is particularly graceful and aesthetically pleasing, with the curve of the spur blending smoothly into the curved nose of the hammer. As with most percussion hammers, the nose is hollowed out to prevent eye injury by containing fragments resulting from detonation of percussion caps. Most of the outer periphery of the lock panel of the stock (except at the front of the panel) is not raised from and filleted to adjacent surfaces of the stock. The pointed rear of the lock panel fades into the wrist area. The percussion nipple is mounted on a drum that incorporates a vent screw. The rifle stock is damaged fore and aft of the drum as a result of exposure to the flash of many percussion caps (percussion cap flash tends to make wood punky). Immediately aft of the octagonal barrel, the loss of wood has exposed the right-hand flank of the breech plug tang.
Return to the Gunsmith Index for more Pennsylvania long rifle history.