The founders legalized the primary infantry assault weapons of their day. The British Brown Bess and French Charleville muskets, both equipped with bayonets, were field grade infantry weapons. American made long rifles, made mostly by immigrant German gunsmiths, were slower to load and fire, but much more accurate at distances.
The longrifle developed on the American frontier in and about Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the 1740s.[ citation needed] It continued to be developed technically and artistically until it passed out of fashion in the second quarter of the 19th century. Strong pockets of longrifle use and manufacture continued in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina, however, well into the 20th century as a practical and efficient firearm for those rural segments of the nation. Longrifles could be made entirely by hand and hand-operated tooling, in a frontier setting.
Although experts argue the fine points of origin and lineage, it is accepted that the longrifle was the product of German gunsmiths who immigrated to new settlements in Pennsylvania and Virginia as early as the 1620s.[ citation needed]
Initially the weapon of choice on the frontier was the smooth bore musket or trade gun, built by the thousands in factories in England and France and shipped to the colonies for purchase.[ citation needed] Gradually, rifles became more popular due to their longer effective range. While the smooth bore musket had an effective range of less than 100 yards, a rifleman could hit a man-sized target at a range of three hundred yards or more. The price for this accuracy was longer reloading time. While the musket could be reloaded in approximately 20 seconds, the longrifle required up to a minute.[ citation needed]
Among the earliest documented working rifle makers are Adam Haymaker, who had a thriving trade in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and the Moravian gunshops at Christian's Spring in Pennsylvania and in the Salem area of North Carolina.[ citation needed] All three areas were busy and productive centers of rifle making by the 1750s. The Great Wagon Road was a bustling frontier thoroughfare, and rifle shops traced this same route - from eastern Pennsylvania, down the Shenandoah Valley, and spilling into both the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and the Yadkin River (Salem) area of North Carolina.[ citation needed]
In Pennsylvania, the earliest gunsmiths that can be documented are Robert Baker and Martin Meylin. [2] Robert Baker formed a partnership with his son, Caleb and on August 15, 1719 erected a gun boring mill on Peques Creek.
Martin Meylin's (Mylin) Gunshop was built in 1719, and it is here that the Mennonite gunsmith of Swiss-German heritage crafted some the earliest, and possibly the first, Pennsylvania Rifles. [3] The Martin Meylin Gunshop still stands today in Willow Street, Pennsylvania, on Long Rifle Road. [4] [5] The Lancaster County Historical Society has an original Pennsylvania Long Rifle smithed by Meylin that was passed down within the family for seven generations before being donated to the society in the middle of the twentieth century. A document describing the history of Meylin, the Gunshop, and archeology of the shop is available online from Millersville University. [6]
Some historians [7] have written that the role of Martin Meylin as one of the earliest gunsmiths in Lancaster is not clear. The argument is that the will of Martin Meylin, Sr. makes no mention of gunsmith items while the will of Martin Meylin, Jr. is replete with gunsmith items, and thus the reference to Meylin as a gunsmith is more properly placed on the son - not the father. The resolution may be lost in history.
There is documentation stating that the first high quality 'Kentucky rifles' were from a gunsmith named Jacob Deckard, possibly of German, Pennsylvanian, or Virginian background. The name 'Deckard Rifle' was considered the brand name and 'Kentucky rifle' was the more broadly accepted nickname of this rifle. [8]
The settlers of western Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina soon gained a reputation for hardy independence and rifle marksmanship as a way of life, further reinforced by the performance of riflemen in the American Revolution as well as the War of 1812.[ citation needed] In that war, the long rifle gained its more famous nickname the Kentucky Rifle, after a popular song "The Hunters of Kentucky", about Andrew Jackson and his victory at the Battle of New Orleans.[ citation needed]
The reason for the American rifle's characteristic long barrel is a matter of some conjecture. The German gunsmiths working in America would have been very familiar with German rifles, which seldom had barrels longer than 30 inches (760 mm). The longer barrel gave the black powder more time to burn, increasing the muzzle velocity and accuracy. A rule of thumb used by some gunsmiths was to make the rifle no longer than the height of a customer's chin because of the necessity of seeing the muzzle while loading. The longer barrel also allowed for finer sighting. Some speculation is that a longer gun was easier to load from horseback by resting the butt of the rifle on the ground. This was not a consideration, as the rifles were not exclusively used from horseback, and making rifles long enough to be loaded in this fashion would make them inconveniently long to be loaded while on foot. Regardless of the reason, by the 1750s it was common to see frontiersmen carrying the new and distinctive style of rifle.[ citation needed]
[ edit] The Rifle evolves into new forms In 1792 the US Army began to modify the Kentucky Rifle, shortening the barrel length to 42 inches in their 1792 contract rifle. The Lewis and Clark expedition carried an even shorter version, 33-36 inches, similar to the Harpers Ferry Model 1803 which began production six months after Lewis paid the arsenal a visit. Both the contract rifles and the Model 1803 resemble what became the plains rifle.
The "Plains Rifle" or " Hawken rifle" was a shorter, carbine variant. It was popular among mountain men and North American fur trappers in the 19th century. [9] Kentucky Rifles tended to be slimmer and more elegant than the later, more massive, and shorter-barreled Hawken variant rifles. The Hawken rifles evolved from the Kentucky Rifle for use against larger, more dangerous game encountered in the American West. For firing heavier and larger diameter bullets and heavier powder loads, the barrel wall thickness was necessarily strengthened, and the barrel length of the Hawken was shortened to keep the carrying weight manageable.[ citation needed]
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To conserve lead on the frontier, smaller calibers were often preferred, ranging often from about .36 to .45 cal.[ citation needed] As a rifle became worn from use, with accumulated corrosion from firing blackpowder causing the bore to enlarge, it was not uncommon to see many rifles re-bored and re-rifled to larger calibers, to keep the rifle shooting accurately. Many copies of historical Kentucky Rifles are seen with a bore of around .50 caliber.[ citation needed]
The longrifle is said by modern experts to have a range of 80 to 100 yards.[ citation needed] This figure is meant for the normal or novice user. A trained, experienced shooter who knows how to take variables into account such as (gunpowder) load, windage, drop, etc. can easily extend the median range of the long rifle to 400-500 yards.[ citation needed] In 1778 at the siege of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the officers of the combined British/Shawnee assault force was hiding behind a tree. He stuck his head out from behind the tree and was instantly killed by a ball to the forehead fired by Daniel Boone, who was known for always firing the same fixed measure load of blackpowder in his rifle. This shot was later confirmed by witnesses on both sides and the distance measured at 250 yards. Hitting a target so precisely at that range would probably make the Kentucky Rifle comparable in total effective (long) range with the British Baker rifle at 700 to 800 yards
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en.wikipedia.org
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During the Revolutionary War the British soldiers trained for volley shooting, and were fitted wholly with Brown Bessies; surprisingly, the volume of the American Armed Forces also carried muskets. George Washington made a special effort to recruit frontiersmen who owned Kentucky Rifles.
Advantages of the Brown Bessie muskets over the Kentucky Rifles were that they could be loaded easily and more rapidly than rifles, and did not require custom-made bullets. They would fire anything dropped down the barrel of the gun and would even function as a shotgun. Moreover, some of Washington's raw recruits were not good enough shots to require the extra accuracy of the Kentucky Rifle.
General Washington was able to assemble about 1,400 riflemen or backwoodsmen carrying Kentucky Rifles. In training camps their feats of marksmanship astonished onlookers, some of whom were British spies. Word of these buckskin-wearing riflemen quickly spread to the British Army. Washington soon observed that the British gave his backwoodsmen wide latitude. As a hoax, he dressed up some of his musket-bearing soldiers in buckskins, knowing that the British assumed that anyone wearing frontier garb was carrying a Kentucky.
Riflemen, when available, were used by the American Army as pickets and snipers. These skilled soldiers operated from the flanks of the regular Army. At the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, riflemen were used to pick off British officers. This feat greatly contributed to the American victory there, which was a decisive battle of the war.
The Battle of King's Mountain in 1780, another decisive victory, was won by rifle-toting backwoodsmen. These heroes were quickly gathered together from the neighboring southern Appalachians. At the close of the war, a British captain wrote in effect that the Americans had riflemen who could hit a man anywhere they liked at 200 paces. He suggested that at King's Mountain the mountain men whipped the British troops.
Another British officer remarked on General Andrew Jackson's great victory at New Orleans in 1815, a battle largely fought by Tennesseans and Kentuckians. He described how a lone Kentucky sharpshooter dressed in buckskins and firing a Kentucky Rifle picked off British soldiers buried in the mud flats, creating total confusion in the British ranks.
The Kentucky Rifle was considered to be a necessity by frontiersmen, and practically every frontier family owned one. Rifle shooting was a way of life on the great American frontier, and nearly every settlement had a shooting match on weekends and holidays. The rifle was thus used for recreation, as well as for protection and hunting.
http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-bogan/KentuckyLongRifle.html
IOW the most high performance sniper rifles of the day owned by backwoodsmen played a vital part in winning our independence. |
