Mountain Man Guns

[Lloyd]

I knew I had these pictures somewhere.
These are the Mountain Man guns at the Museum of the Fur Trade

[Dan'l Hickham]

So, from the things I am looking at - it seems a 58 caliber rifle was common in the fur trade.

Dan'l Hickham

[Longarm]

Great pictures, thanks! Keep in mind that barrels could have been "freshened". Some may have started life as a smaller gauge.

[sean]

That's from the fall 2006 Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly and is a pretty good cross section of rifles for the fur trade, although some of his dates may be optimistic. On the bore size thing, some of these were likely freshed out a bit and they were often coned at the muzzle (sometimes fairly heavily), which may up their estimates a bit. I've also seen several original guns that have had pretty substantial wear and erosion at the muzzle resulting in an extreme and often times irregular crown. Anyway, if you were to look at the documentation on fur trade orders you would find that bores in the range of .58 were present, but not super common. Bore sizes were represented in gauges with numbers like 40, 32, and 25 balls per pound were among the common numbers. If I were to give a seat of the pants number for most common bore size, I would say 40 ga or about .48 for 1800-1825 and 32 gauge or about .53 for 1825-1840. That said, I've seen a handful of War of 1812 era Deringers in really good condition, unshortened, with apparently original bore sizes in the .58-60 range.

Speaking of Deringers, the one in that photo is an interesting one as it has a lock on it with a fox in a tombstone view mark on it. I think its a replacement. That gun is likely 1825-1835 based on its hardware.

I also like the Gumpf a lot. This family made a lot of guns for the fur trade, but you don't hear much about them today. Jim Gordon has several in his book and there are some in Shumway's writings.

Finally, some of the others that I would add to the list here include Jacob Dickert's gransdons, Jacob and Benjamin Dickert-Gill, and Jacob and Melchior Fordney. The Dickert-Gills were sending rifles out to the St. Louis area in the 1820s (See Garavaglia and Worman) and according to Hanson some of the early Henry orders for Lancaster Pattern guns were based off a Dickert Gill pattern gun supplied to AFC. I'm pretty well convinced that the box on the Henry Lancaster pattern in Lloyd's photo was inspired by that Dickert Gill pattern and I've seen about 3 guns that support that assumption.

As for the Fordneys, I think Jacob supplied more guns to the West than Melchior. Jacob tended to make plainer guns than his brother, and because he avoided drunken ax-wielding nut-jobs, he had a much longer career as a gunmaker. There's a fine example of a standard grade J. Fordney flint gun of the 1830's in Jim Gordon's book.

Sean

[Lloyd]

Anybody notice that the Hawken in the photo has a Tristian Campbell style patchbox??

Several years ago I made a copy of a beautiful fancy silver and iron Tristian Campbell rifle for a guy down in Springfield, Oregon.

When he got it, he said it was too pretty to hunt with.... He has only taken one deer with it....

[whitehair]

Lloyd, Isn't that patch box like the one on the Modena Hawken? I had Dave Dolliver put one of those on the full-stock Hawken flintlock he made for me. I think you've seen that gun.

Shoot sharp's the word!

[Lloyd]

Mike,
I believe it is very close if not exact... Those fancy one's done by Tristian Campbell were also pretty close...

[Chuck Burrows]

Those patch boxes IMO were very probably obtained from Tryon, a major supplier of such goods during the 1820's and onward.
In The Plains Rifle by Hanson there are some 1850's era advertisements from Tryon and in one of them there is a an iron patchbox pictured that is a virtual dead ringer for the Medina rifle and the MOFT one.

[whitehair]

Yes, Tryon was a major supplier to many builders. In The Plains Rifle, the 4-screw oval cap boxes that Leman often used are also shown. Of course, Leman worked for Tryon for a while so he knew where to find things. Shoot sharp's the word.

[Lloyd]

The amazing thing is Tyron parts are marked so... I run across them on these guns I am restoring all the time.. I think the last one I finished had a side plate and triggerguard marked Tyron.

The one I am working on now has a lock marked Leman.... However I don't think the gun is a Leman,,, not unless he made one completely out of school...

I did recently restore a Connestoga Rifle Works (el cheapo Leman) rifle that the stock had been painted red (I think most of them were painted red according to Kauffman).... It was in great shape and once again, it was a thrill to handle it... All it needed was to have the drum threaded for a new nipple.... The old one had rusted out...

[sean]

A Hawken collector that I know tells me that several of those pineapple boxes on Hawkens are apparently stamped by Tryon on the inside.

Sean

[Longarm]

Lloyd, Any pictures of these guns you are working on?

[buckconner]

Aug 12, 2010 15:28:29 GMT -7 Chuck Burrows said:

Those patch boxes IMO were very probably obtained from Tryon, a major supplier of such goods during the 1820's and onward.
In The Plains Rifle by Hanson there are some 1850's era advertisements from Tryon and in one of them there is a an iron patchbox pictured that is a virtual dead ringer for the Medina rifle and the MOFT one.....

We think of the Tryon Family as just gun builders from the mid 1800's, but what is interesting is they were not only in the business of gun building. They were suppliers for hardware, cookware, and most items that were used in the settlements of that time. As time went on and guns were available from manufacturers like Remington and other builders they became the wholesaler for other firms through out the centuries. 

SIDE NOTE: In the 1950's and 60's my family had a Power Outdoor Equipment business in Malvern PA (Site of the Paoli Massacre). Our main distributor for many of the name brands of this type of equipment was Edward K. Tryon Company.

In the "pickup" area at their store were several rifles hanging in the office. One day I asked if I could look at them, originals from the early days in mint condition. Then the "light bulb" came on in my head, TRYON the gun builders. I asked if they were for sale, the answer was a big NO. The officer manager said he had 41 years with the company and had made that same reply at least a dozen times each of those years.

The Edward K. Tryon Company developed into a sporting goods retailer and wholesaler located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were in business under various Tryon names from 1811 until sometime in the mid to late 1970s. Edw. K. Tryon was the largest sporting goods retailer in the United States and possibly the world for some time. Their primary business was firearms and hunting related items but they also sold and produced a wide variety of outdoors and sports items. These were sold under a variety of trade names such as Apollo Bicycles, Keystone Shotguns, Pennell Fishing Reels, Imperial Fishing Rods, Gold Medal Fishing Hooks and Tryon-Tru-Temper Cutlery. Their primary trade mark was the “Sign Of The Golden Buffalo”. From the company's earliest beginnings in 1773 and to it's official founding in 1811 through the 100th Anniversary celebration in 1911. They had a 125th anniversary celebration in 1936 and were still producing catalogs until at least some time in the mid to late 1970's. Talk about a family business  WOW ...

.

[Duane]

Fascinating Buck.