The websight seems like an excelent source however im having trouble finding a kentucky longrifle on it. Perhaps you can help me out? With that being said i must say those are beautiful.
That's because "Kentucky longrifle" is too generic, and not really "correct". "American Longrifle" is probably more correct.
Nowadays we all think of "Kentucky longrifles" and "Hawken's" as being the mainstay firearms of their periods, but in reality they weren't.
Historically, gunsmiths made individual guns one at a time, and there was a lot of variance both in tolerances/dimensions, and also in style and decoration. Being individually handmade, expensive as all get-out, and made by artisans, they were commonly decorated more than "necessary". Some were very ornate with brass and silver furniture, inlays, and carving; some wore iron furniture, little or no carving or inlays, and were more along the lines of a "poor-boy".
A good rifle might cost as much as 1/3 of the average workers annual salary!
The rifles referred to as "Kentucky longrifles" were a style of firearm "invented" by German and Swiss craftsmen in 1730's or 1740's Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. They were originally all flintlocks, but a few percussion ignitions were made beginning in the mid to late 1830's. They were of lighter caliber than the most common firearms of that period (smooth bores in the predominately .60-.75 range) and were generally .45 caliber and down (to .32 or .36). There was no need for larger in that area of the US, and lead and powder were very costly. There were also no real "standards" when it came to caliber. A gunsmith made a rifle, and made a mold to make balls for that rifle. You wouldn't be able to just get a ".45". It might be a .43, .44, .45, .46, etc...
Of course, the rifles originally made in Lancaster were effective and beautiful, and didn't take too long to become popular. Soon various gunsmiths throughout Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and all across the eastern US were making rifles very similar, but with each artisan's own modifications, differences, or preferences. The military even began making their own similar rifles eventually. Many times various sub-types were known to come from certain locales or even specific counties.
All of these rifles eventually became lumped together and referred to as "Kentucky longrifles".
Most (if not all) mass-produced modern "Kentucky longrifles" are horridly inaccurate historically. They don't mimic any one rifle, and share many facets that likely would never have been found all on one rifle. They're seldon "finished" either. The stocks are clunky, squared off, and left where modern machinery could carve them, never having known the human touch. An easy example of this is the forestock shape, which looks ok from the side if you squint, but has nowhere near the cross-section of a historical piece. You can fix that of course, because the problem is too much wood being left in place. Carve it down to where it should be, and refinish it, and you'll be at least a small step closer to realistic.
Or, better yet, build one from components (not exactly a "kit" that most people would expect, but they ARE referred to as "kits" sometimes"). Most "kits" on the market are just the modern mass-produced historically-inaccurate versions, which justhaven't been sanded, finished and browned yet.
Nowadays, when people care enough to want to build/own historically-accurate muzzleloaders the only real way to do that is to pick an individual artisan, locale, or museum piece and set to work reproducing it. That's why when you look through the TOTW website you see "Pennsylvania's, Lehigh Valley's, and various county names followed by "longrifle".
When I built my Hawken's, I built it from components and a blueprint copied from a museum piece. The components included a stock that could be carved to be correct, a barrel blank that could be made to be correct, a trigger that could be made to be correct, etc...
In reality, they're ALL (or at least most) of the longrifles on the TOTW site are "Kentucky longrifles", even though
none of them are... Make sense?
