For you smoke pole guys

[osage outlaw]

I took a few pictures of a gun my parents own.  It was my great uncles.  I remember he had a rack full of guns like this hanging up in his house.  When he passed away the guns were divided between the family members.  I don't know anything about it.  Its 60" long and very heavy. 

[Pat B]

Clint, the style looks like my .50 cal TC Hawkins but it is small bore. Maybe a squirrel gun.

[nclonghunter]

I have very limited knowledge on that style of gun, but it looks a lot like the gun Dixie Gun Works sold as a Tennessee squirrel rifle. Yours is of course an original. The crescent shaped butt plate, double set triggers and small caliber are all classic Tennessee Mountain Rifle. Those guns would have carried over into the western expansion but were mostly built and used after the Indian wars and such were over and large man stopping calibers were not needed.
Beautiful gun and love the curly maple that runs through the length of the stock. It was obviously used for supplying food for the family. That is a real prize to have.

[Danzn Bar]

nclonghunter, IMHO is right on I was writing this at the same time......

Clint..............looks like a 32 or 36 cal percussion with a very nice tiger stripe/curly maple stock.  Your typical every day mans squirrel rifle was a 32 or 36 cal percussion but with iron hardware and browned barrel and hardware with a cherry stock.  looks like the hardware on that rifle is brass, barrel looks like it was browned but pitted a bit.  That's a nice one you got there, probably just needs a little work/clean up and it would be ready to shoot....I built a 32 cal percussion iron hardware with browned barrel Tennessee squirrel rifle that I have used many times to a take few squirrels.
again nice smoke pole
DBar

Also the double set triggers is a very accurate system.....

[Eric Krewson]

I suspect it is an Ohio gun, circa 1850 or so, hardware store gun for the working man.

The #1 thing you should do is to check to see if it is loaded, many of these older guns were left loaded, black powder never goes bad if it is kept dry.

Run the ramrod down the bore, if it stops ahead of where the drum screws into the side of the barrel it is loaded. Don't even think of shooting the load out, pull the ball with a ball puller and wash the powder out. A CO2 discharger might blow the load out. The last resort is to pull the breech plug and knock the load out. Pulling the breech plug is gunsmith work unless you have some BP gun building experience.

[mullet]

Yep! I have to agree with the two post above. How old was your Great Uncle? That wood looks pretty nice for a kit gun, though.

Oil and clean that baby up in the mean time.

[osage outlaw]

My parents have no interest in shooting it.  Its just a family heirloom.  I'm not sure how old my great uncle was when he passed.  Its been quite a while back.  He was in a wheel chair for most of his life because of polio.  He lost a brother to the disease.  His two other siblings had it but didn't have much permanent damage.  I doubt he ever hunted or shot the gun.  As far as I know he just collected old rifles like this for display.

Bill, next time you are up this way you can get a better look at it.  Just remind me. 

[Stoker]

Nice peice of history.. Thanks for sharing
Thanks Leroy

[Eric Krewson]

This is my late wife's old family gun. Her Grandfather was a sheriff long ago and used it. It is in pretty rough shape having been abused by my dummy brother-in-law, epoxy poured in the barrel pin holes, the drum is actually wood made up to look like metal and the barrel is bent. Of course it was shot and not cleaned afterward so the barrel is rusted out. Not worth much money, it is an Alabama gun.



You can post pictures on the American Longrifle site and they will tell you the guns history as they really know their stuff. Look to see if their is  name on the barrel as this will define the maker.

[bubby]

It's a shame that someone a used that that way Eric, some people are just morons

[RyanR]

That's a nice old gun Clint. Kind of nice it is a family heirloom.