Target rifle to identify

H

Heinrich

New member
This rifle was brought over to South Africa by an American family after WWII. It has not fired in many, many years. Maybe even the past 100 years.

But it is an unknown, the owner would like to know more about this rifle.

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Any ideas to maker, or maybe design. It clearly is a target rifle of sorts.
 
It is certainly a target rifle, as shown by the tang peep rear sight, windgauge globe front sight, and false muzzle for precise loading of a paper patched bullet - not ball. Looks like a single set trigger, not as common as the double set on target rifles but better than a plain trigger.

In the absence of legible markings I don't know how to identify the maker, they were all one-offs in those days. Ned Roberts' book 'The Muzzle-Loading Cap Lock Rifle' illustrates (pg 230) a rifle built by one P.H. Howe with back action side lock and that rather peculiar trigger guard. Unfortunately, he has no biographical information, just a picture. The only P.H. Howe in Google was a schoolmaster in Idaho in 1864.
 
There should definitely be SOME sort of markings on it, even if nothing more than a set of proofs (which would tell you where it was built; these are comonly marked on either the lockplate or the barrel, but usually with very fine, light engraving, so it's difficult to see.
 
On a next visit I'll try and convince the owner if I may remove the barrel to see. Or even behind the lock. One of my own originals has the initials of the builder stamped into the back of the lockplate.

I've been able to identify a number of interesting originals because of proofs. But this one has nothing that is visible to the eye.
 
It certainly doesn't look like the rifles carried by the First Andrew Sharpshooters. They had a back action lock, target barrel gun like yours but the trigger guard on their rifle is different.

Can you provide pictures of the stock? That can offer us clues if there's no markings on the barrel or lock. Remember, even if the barrel or lock is marked, it doesn't necessarily mean that the named individual assembled the gun. Salvaging parts was not unknown in the 18-19th Century.
 
So I checked my copy of Phillips & Tyler's Vermont's Gunsmiths & Gunmakers to 1900.

J. D. Hatch of Burlington, Vermont, used a similar trigger guard. However, he didn't use a back action lock. The comb of J. D. Hatch stocks are different in that it protrudes forward towards the muzzle.

A closer match would be Alonzo Selden of Dorset (Bennington Co.), VT and Whitehall, New York.

Charles W. Willard of Springfield also made guns with similar trigger guard.

I should mention that trigger guards could be specified by the buyer and so the gunsmith built the gun according to the buyer's whims. Thus the unusual trigger guard of one gun doesn't necessarily infer that it was made by a particular gunsmith. The gun in its totality must be examined and full length photos of the gun will help.
 
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