Guns International #: 102168207
Seller's Inventory #: 226952

Category - Kentucky Rifles - Antique Revolvers - Percussion

Category
Kentucky Rifles
Antique Revolvers - Percussion

Antique THOMAS & CO. Half Stock BACK ACTION Percussion .40 Cal. Long Rifle Mid-19th Century HOMESTEAD/HUNTING Rifle

Description:
Antique THOMAS & CO. Half Stock BACK ACTION Percussion .40 Cal. Long Rifle

Mid-19th Century HOMESTEAD/HUNTING Rifle

Here we present an antique Thomas & Company Back Action Half Stock American Percussion Long Rifle, made circa the mid-19th Century. Its stout octagonal barrel is in .40 caliber, large enough to take small to medium sized game or to defend the homestead against unwanted aggression. Rifle manufacture in the mid-to-late 19th Century was rapidly changing over from thousands of craftsmen all over the United States and on the Frontier making and selling their wares, to the large factories with standardized assembly lines and modern manufacturing techniques. Many makers’ names of the so-called Kentucky long rifles have been lost over time. This rifle is one such example.

The American Long Rifle, more commonly, but less correctly, known as the ‘Kentucky rifle’, was described by Captain John G. W. Dillin in the dedication to his seminal 1924 book, The Kentucky Rifle:

“From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled with crude tools; fitted with a stock hewn from a maple tree in the neighboring forest; and supplied with a lock hammered to shape on the anvil; an unknown smith, in a shop long since silent, fashioned a rifle which changed the whole course of world history; made possible the settlement of a continent; and ultimately freed our country of foreign domination. Light in weight; graceful in line; economical in consumption of powder and lead; fatally precise; distinctly American; it sprang into immediate popularity; and for a hundred years was a model often slightly varied but never radically changed.”

These locks were called “back action” because the mainspring hangs behind the tumbler. The back action is often used in single and double rifles, and occasionally in single barrel shotguns where the need for strength requires as little steel as possible be removed from the bar of the action.

The overall condition is good. The action does not function. Good bore for its age. This example sports a solid stock with an expected amount of wear despite various period repairs. “THOMAS” is marked on the left barrel. The ramrod is replaced.

Own the original! This is a legitimate antique and not a reproduction.

Barrel is 39-5/8 inches.

Caliber:  .40 Percussion

Overall condition as seen in photos.

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ancestryguns

$1200

#226952
 

SOLD

Antique: Yes