Rifle Making in the Great Smoky Mountains (continued)

The Rifled Gun

The rifled gun, the American rifle,¹ or, as it is frequently called, the Kentucky rifle, which in the hands of the sturdy settlers turned the tide against the Indians, was very largely evolved in America.

The idea of rifling a barrel to make it shoot truer and harder, to be sure, was not new or novel. About 1550 one Gaspard Zeller, or Zollner, of Nuremberg, Germany, cut spiral grooves in the barrels of guns, but rifling, in its perfected state, is almost entirely an American development, a highly important step in the generation of the American rifle which was especially designed to meet the conditions that existed in the wilds of the east-central part of the United States. Indeed, this extraordinary arm evolved gradually to its highly perfected state very largely in response to the demands of the hunters who used it, and the chief credit for the mechanical perfection of the American rifle apparently should go to the highly skilled rifle makers of Lancaster County, Pa., who incorporated patiently, step by step, the suggestions of the pioneers who used it.

The several factors which a rifle, satisfactory for frontier use, should possess were: first, sturdiness, not too heavy or unwieldy; second, rapidity in loading; third, economy in the use of ammunition; fourth, accuracy and hard shooting for reasonable distances; fifth, smallness of report upon discharge.

Preceding the perfection of the rifle, several accessory factors, each important in itself, had to be developed. Even-burning, uniform-grained, high-grade powder had to be evolved. A patch to facilitate the loading of the rifle and accuracy of delivery of the bullet was necessary; a device to cut the precise rifling in the barrel to give to the spherical bullet its spinning flight had to be invented; and, finally, perfection of the firing mechanism, without which the rifled gun would be ineffective.

The primitive, original guns were merely tubes of iron closed at one end and fired by means of a burning stick applied to a touchhole. They were clumsy, inaccurate, and ineffective.

Next, the matchlock was invented. The essential feature of the matchlock was a movable arm capable of being raised and lowered, pivoted at one end on the side of the gun, and containing on the free end of a slow-burning fuse which, at the proper time, was lowered by a simple mechanism into a small pan of powder, connecting through the touchhole with the main charge in the barrel. The matchlock was portable, capable of being aimed, but very uncertain in wet or windy weather.

The next improvement in the development of the gun was the wheel lock. The "wheel'" of the wheel-lock gun had its periphery serrated in a way comparable to saw teeth and was not of flint but of steel. The flint was held in a "serpentine" quite similar to the hammer of a flintlock gun. Pulling of the trigger released a device that rotated the wheel, and, at the same rime, pushed the flint into contact with the notched periphery of the wheel, throwing a shower of sparks into the powder pan and thereby setting off the main charge in the barrel of the gun. The wheel lock was heavier than the matchlock but rather more certain in its firing ability.

Next came the snap haunce, a somewhat primitive progenitor of the flintlock, which was the method of ignition of the true early American rifle. The flintlock consists of three parts essentially—a hammer or cock, having in its jaws a sharp flint; a frizzen or steel, against which the flint is thrown when the trigger is pulled; and, immediately below the frizzen, a pan containing powder which is ignited by the sparks from the fall of the flint. The fire in the pan is communicated through a touchhole to the main charge of powder in the barrel of the gun.

The final improvement in the fabrication of muzzle-loading rifles was the introduction of the percussion cap. With the perfection of the percussion-lock guns, the art of rifle making in the Great Smoky Mountains came to an end. The machinery required to manufacture breech-loading rifles with steel barrels to withstand the high velocities attained by smokeless powder was beyond their simple tools and primitive equipment.

These several essential details of the American rifle were evolved and nearly perfected prior to the Revolution. The pioneer gunsmiths of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, and many in the Carolinas and Virginia, brought the art of rifle making with them. This art was handed down from father to son, together with the tools and other equipment, secrets of tempering and case hardening, and certain accessory details which were jealously kept within the family. Certain of these details are of value both as a means of identification and as milestones in the ultimate development of the rifled gun.

The American rifle, as evolved in Lancaster County, was often ornamented in a variety of ways, with silver sights, silver inlays in the stock, and by beautifully tooled and engraved trigger guards and patch boxes. The rifles made by the gunsmiths of the Great Smoky Mountains, on the contrary, were usually devoid of ornamentation. The mountain people, cut off from communication with the outside, had to rely upon their own resources, and their hard lives were reflected in the simplicity and unostentation of the rifles which were made by them. But these rifles, in spite of their austere appearance and unostentation, possessed the essential characteristics of a satisfactory and formidable weapon.

Almost all the material necessary for the fabrication of rifles was ready at hand in the Smoky Mountains—pure iron from the Cumberland Mountains for barrels, locks, and triggers; seasoned curly maple or walnut from the forests for stocks; hickory for ramrods from the standing timber; and lead from local mines for bullets. The small amounts of steel required for springs were carefully retrieved from worn-out files, saws, or discarded and broken agricultural mechanical instruments.

Powder, as a rule, had to be imported from the outside world.² During the War between the States, attempts were made to manufacture powder from nitre obtained at the Alum Cave on the south side of Mount LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains, but the crude, very corrosive, unreliable product was not only ineffective but it ruined many a splendid rifle barrel worthy of a better fate.

Last Modified: Sat, Oct 20 2001 10:00:00 am PDT popular/13/ps13-2.htm