Guns International #: 101459158
Seller's Inventory #: 20123

Category - Kentucky Rifles - Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

Category
Kentucky Rifles
Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

BACK ACTION Half Stock .475 Caliber PERCUSSION American LONG RIFLE Kentucky Style Long Rifle with CONSTABLE Marked Lock!

Description:
BACK ACTION Half Stock .475 Caliber PERCUSSION American LONG RIFLE

Kentucky Style Long Rifle with CONSTABLE Marked Lock!

Here we present an Antique Back Action Half Stock Percussion Long Rifle, made circa the mid-19th Century. Its stout octagonal barrel is in .475 caliber, large enough to take medium to large 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 Longrifle, 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 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. This lock was popular on percussion guns made in St. Louis, New York, California, Ohio, England and Belgium. Back Action percussion locks were a “late” developed style of lock. Used primarily on the hardware store line of guns, these locks did, however, show up on some better pieces in the mid-to-late 1800′s. Back Action locks are extremely fast and are often used on competition, squirrel, and light-weight boy’s rifles.

The overall condition is very good. The action is strong. The bore is in very nice shape with nice rifling. The breech in inlaid with a nice band of platinum. “CONSTABLE” is engraved on the lock. Here is a solid plains rifle to collect and display!

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

Barrel is 40-3/4 inches.

Caliber: .475 (from land to land)

Overall condition as seen in photos.

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Guaranteed AUTHENTIC & Includes CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY.

ancestryguns

$1550

#20123
 

SOLD

Antique: Yes