The long rifle or longrifle was a type of rifle A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile (for small arms usage, called a bullet), imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the used in early America Between 1776 and 1789, the United States became an independent country, creating and ratifying its new constitution, and establishing the federal government. In an attempt to gain autonomous status within the British Empire, American Revolutionaries implemented nonviolent means of protest which quickly grew into a political revolution followed by by both the military The United States armed forces are the overall unified military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard and civilians. It is characterized by an unusually long barrel, sometimes more than four feet (1.2 m) in length, which is felt to be in large part a unique development of American rifles.^[1]

The Pennsylvania rifle, Kentucky rifle, and Tennessee or hog rifle were all variants of the long rifle.

Origins

The long rifle developed on the American frontier A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary in the period beginning in the 1740s, and continued its development technically and artistically until it passed out of fashion in the mid to late 19th century.^{[citation needed]} It is interesting to note, however, that strong pockets of long rifle use and manufacture continued in the Appalachian Mountains Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama of Virginia The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Land from displaced Native American tribes and slave labor each played significant roles in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was, Tennessee The State of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. In the, Kentucky Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that native bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, based on the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources,, and North Carolina North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet in the mountains. The coastal plains are strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical, well into the 20th century, as a practical and efficient firearm for these still quite rural segments of the nation. Long rifles could be made entirely by hand and hand-operated tooling, in a frontier setting.

Although experts argue the fine points of origin and lineage, it is accepted that the long rifle was the product of German The German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German ancestry (Deutschstämmige). Historically, in the context of the German gunsmiths who immigrated to new settlements in Pennsylvania and Virginia as early as the 1740s.^{[citation needed]} Initially the weapon of choice on the frontier was the smooth bore musket or trade gun, built in the thousands in factories in England and France and shipped to the Colonies In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan state is the state that owns for purchase.^{[citation needed]}But gradually a group of solitary frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and professional market hunters began using more and more rifles due to their longer effective range. While the smooth bore musket had an effective range of less than 100 yards, a good rifleman could hit a man-sized target out to three hundred yards or more. There was a price for this accuracy, however. The long rifle required a full minute to load, far longer than a musket's twenty seconds.^{[citation needed]}. Modern riflemen can shoot up to three shots a minute with a muzzle loading rifle.

Among the earliest documented working rifle makers are Adam Haymaker who had a thriving trade in the northern Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley is both a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , to the north by the Potomac River and to the south by the James River. The cultural of Virginia The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Land from displaced Native American tribes and slave labor each played significant roles in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was, and also the Moravian The Moravian Church or Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine is an evangelical Protestant denomination. Its religious heritage began in 1457 in Kunvald, Bohemia . Its official name is Unitas Fratrum meaning Unity of the Brethren (not to be confused with the small Unity of the Brethren church based in Texas). It is also occasionally referred to as the Bohemian gunshops at both Christian's Spring in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary and also in the Salem area of central North Carolina.^{[citation needed]}All three areas were busy and productive centers of rifle making by the 1750s. The Great Wagon Road The Great Wagon Road was a colonial American thoroughfare from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and from there to Georgia. It was the heavily traveled main route for settlement of the Southern United States, particularly the 'back country'. This was the area that received many German and Scots-Irish immigrants in the 18th century. The Scots-Irish was a bustling frontier thoroughfare, and traced this same route - from eastern Pennsylvania, down the Shenandoah Valley, and spilling into both the Cumberland Gap Cumberland Gap is a pass through the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap, at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Famous in American history for its role as one key passageway through the lower central Appalachians, it was an important part of the into Kentucky Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that native bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, based on the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, and the Yadkin River The Yadkin River is one of the longest rivers in North Carolina. It rises in the northwestern portion of the state near the Blue Ridge Parkway's Thunder Hill Overlook. Several parts of the river are impounded by dams for water, power, and flood control. The river becomes the Pee Dee River at the confluence of the Uwharrie River. The river flows (Salem) area of North Carolina. Rifle shops dotted this road and kept the frontier supplied with the tools of exploration and conquest of the frontier.^{[citation needed]} There is documentation stating that the first high quality 'Kentucky rifles' were from a gunsmith named Jacob Deckard, possibly of German, Pennsylvanian, or Virginian background. The name 'Deckard Rifle' was considered the brand name and 'Kentucky rifle' was the more broadly accepted nickname of this rifle.^[2]

The settlers of western Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina soon gained a reputation for hardy independence and rifle marksmanship as a way of life, further reinforced by the performance of riflemen in the American Revolution as well as the War of 1812 The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. It was fought between 1812 and 1815, and started over a multitude of reasons, including trade restrictions, impressment of United States Navy personnel into the Royal Navy, alleged British support of American Indian.^{[citation needed]} In that war, the long rifle gained its more famous nickname the Kentucky Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that native bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, based on the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, Rifle, after a popular song "The Hunters of Kentucky", about Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). He was military governor of pre-admission Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. A polarizing figure who dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s, his political and his victory at the Battle of New Orleans The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 and was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, commanded by General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory America had acquired with the Louisiana Purchase. The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24,.^{[citation needed]}

Just why the American rifle developed its characteristic long barrel is a matter of some conjecture. The German gunsmiths working in America would have been very familiar with German A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, rifles, which seldom had barrels longer than 30 inches, and often had barrels much shorter. The main reason is the longer barrel gave the black powder Gunpowder, also called black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. Gunpowder can be made just using potassium nitrate and charcoal, but without the sulfur, the powder is not as strong. It burns rapidly, producing a volume of hot gas made up of carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen, and a solid residue of potassium sulfide — which burns slower than modern powders — more time to burn, increasing the muzzle velocity A gun's muzzle velocity is the speed at which the projectile leaves the muzzle of the gun. Muzzle velocities range from subsonic for some pistols to more than 1,800 m/s (~5910 ft/s) for tank guns firing kinetic energy penetrator ammunition. The latter velocity is close to the limit achievable with chemical propellants. The velocity of a projectile and hence the accuracy. (A rule of thumb A rule of thumb is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation. It is an easily learned and easily applied procedure for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making some determination. Compare this to heuristic, a similar concept used in mathematical discourse, used by some gunsmiths was to make the rifle no longer than the height of a customer's chin because of the necessity of seeing the muzzle while loading.) The longer barrel also allowed for finer sighting and thus greater accuracy. Although some speculation would have it that a longer gun was easier to load from horseback by resting the butt of the rifle on the ground, this was not a consideration, as the rifles were not exclusively used from horseback, and making rifles long enough to be loaded in this fashion would make them inconveniently long to be loaded while on foot. For whatever reason, by the 1750s it was common to see frontiersmen carrying a new and distinctive style of rifle that was used with great skill to provide tens of thousands of deer hides for the British leather industry.^{[citation needed]}

These woodsmen were also exceptional trackers and Indian Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terminology used to fighters, and played an important role in the French and Indian War The French and Indian War is the common U.S. name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756 the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war. In Canada, it is usually just referred to as the Seven Years' which was fought in many parts of the American back country as a guerilla war Guerrilla warfare is irregular warfare, conflicts in which a small group of combatants uses military tactics, like ambushes and raids, to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army.^{[citation needed]} By the time of the American Revolution The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. They first rejected the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without a strong tradition of riflery had been ingrained into the citizens of Virginia The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Land from displaced Native American tribes and slave labor each played significant roles in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary, and North Carolina North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet in the mountains. The coastal plains are strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical, and all lands extending westward into the Indian territories The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the use of Native Americans. The general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834.^{[citation needed]}

A shorter, carbine A carbine (from Greek καραμπινα "carbine." is a firearm similar to a rifle or musket. Many carbines, especially modern designs, were developed from rifles, being essentially shortened versions of full rifles firing the same ammunition, although often at a lower velocity. There have also been many cases where the carbine and variant was the Hawken rifle The Hawken "plains rifle" was made by Jacob and Samuel Hawken, or by their St Louis, Missouri shop, which they ran from 1815 to 1858. Their shop continued to operate and sell rifles bearing the "Hawken" name under later owners William S. Hawken, William L. Watt, and J. P. Gemmer, until Gemmer closed down the business and or "plains rifle," popular among mountain men and North American fur trappers Before the colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur-pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia. Fur was a major Russian export as trade developed in the Early Middle Ages, first through the Baltic and Black Seas. With the development of railways, Russia traded through the German city of Leipzig. In 1950 it came to an abrupt in the nineteenth century. Kentucky Rifles tended to be slimmer and more elegant than the later, more massive, and shorter-barreled Hawken variant rifles, the Hawken Rifles having evolved from the Kentucky Rifle for use against larger, more dangerous game encountered in the American West, against which more massive bullets and larger amounts of black powder were used. For firing heavier and larger diameter bullets and heavier powder loads, the barrel wall thickness was necessarily strengthened, and the barrel length of the Hawken was shortened, relative to the Kentucky Rifle, to keep the carrying weight manageable.^{[citation needed]}

Characteristics

Artistically, the long rifle is known for its graceful stock, often made of curly maple Flame maple, also known as flamed maple, curly maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe, is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, producing wavy lines known as "flames". This effect is often mistakenly said to be part of the grain of the wood; it is more accurately called &, and its ornate decoration, decorative inlays, and an integral, well-made patchbox that was built into the stock.^[1] The decorative arts of furniture making, painting, silver smithing, gunsmithing, etc. all took their style cues from the prevailing trends of the day, and as in most things the fashion was set in Paris Paris ([paʁi] in French, pronounced /ˈpærɪs/ in English) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). The city of Paris, within its administrative limits largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated. Baroque Baroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century in Europe. It is most often defined as "the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and Rococo eras, a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric" and later rococo Rococo also referred to as "Late Baroque" is an 18th century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly more ornate, florid, and playful. Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing motifs found their way into all the decorative arts, and can be seen in the acanthus The acanthus is one of the most common ornaments used to depict foliage. Architectural ornaments are carved in stone or wood in the appearance of leaves from the Mediterranean Acanthus spinosus plant, with some resemblance to thistle, poppy and parsley leaves leaf scroll work so common on 18th century furniture and silver. The American frontier, as remote as it was, was not divorced from this trend, and the best American long rifles have art applied to them that is fully the equal of any Philadelphia Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth-most-populous city in the United States cabinet A tallboy is a piece of furniture incorporating a double chest of drawers and a wardrobe on top. A highboy is similar but consists of both upper and lower having drawers, many of which may not be doubled, and some of which were tripled. A lowboy, is a table-height set of drawers designed to hold a clothes chest, which was and had been the or silver shop. Many people also would give their rifles names such as "Killdeer", the rifle of Natty Bumppo Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales from the Leatherstocking Tales The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, each featuring the main hero Natty Bumppo, known by European settlers as "Leatherstocking," 'The Pathfinder", and "the trapper" and by the Native Americans as "Deerslayer," "La Longue Carabine" and "Hawkeye&.^{[citation needed]}

Originally rather plain, it did not take long for the long rifle to be a source of pride for its owner, and by the 1770s every surface of the rifle could be used as a canvas for excellent applied art.^{[citation needed]}Gunsmiths To pursue the entirety of this trade, a gunsmith must possess skills as a mechanic, a metalworker, a woodworker, and an artisan; be knowledgeable in shop mathematics, ballistics, and chemistry; and be capable of working accurately and precisely. Those who are employed in small gunsmith shops must also possess skills as small business operators; were recognized as the preeminent craftsmen of their day for they, more than any other tradesmen, had to be expert in all the materials of the time.^{[dubious – discuss]} An accomplished gunsmith had to be a skilled blacksmith A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from iron or steel by forging the metal; i.e., by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Blacksmiths produce things like wrought iron gates, grills, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, horseshoes and weapons, whitesmith A whitesmith is a person who works with "white" or light-colored metals such as tin and pewter. While blacksmiths work mostly with hot metal, whitesmiths do the majority of their work on cold metal, wood carver, brass and silver founder, engraver, and wood finisher. While the European shops of the day had significant specialization of the trades, leading to many separate tradesmen building each rifle, the frontier had no such luxury, and quite often only one gunmaker, aided by perhaps a lone apprentice would make the entire rifle, a process almost unheard of in 18th century trade practice. Mechanically, a Kentucky Rifle was often the most complex mechanical object owned by its user. The flintlock action, with its spring mechanism, and single-action trigger, though, was often purchased in bulk by gunsmiths from England, and then fabricated with skill into an elaborate rifle. Although early locks were nearly always imported, in later years, the domestic manufacturing of locks arose in America among the most skilled gunsmiths.^{[citation needed]}

To conserve lead on the frontier, smaller calibers were often preferred, ranging often from about .36 to .45 cal. Such were commonly used for hunting squirrels and other small game, as well as for hunting deer.^{[citation needed]} As a rifle became extensively more and more worn from use, with accumulated corrosion from firing blackpowder causing the bore to enlarge, it was not uncommon to see many such individual rifles being re-bored and re-rifled at larger calibers, to keep the rifle shooting accurately. Many extant copies of historical Kentucky Rifles are seen with a bore of around .50 caliber, having been the last caliber to which the barrel had been bored and rifled.^{[citation needed]}

The long rifle is said by modern experts to have a range of 80 to 100 yards.^{[citation needed]} This figure is meant for the normal or novice user. A trained, experienced shooter who knows how to take variables into account such as (gunpowder) load, windage, drop, etc. can easily extend the medium range of the long rifle to 400-500 yards.^{[citation needed]} In 1778 at the siege of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the officers of the combined British/Shawnee assault force was hiding behind a tree. He stuck his head out from behind the tree and was instantly killed by a ball to the forehead fired by Daniel Boone, who was known for always firing the same fixed measure load of blackpowder in his rifle. This shot was later confirmed by witnesses on both sides and the distance measured at 250 yards. Hitting a target so precisely at that range would probably make the Kentucky Rifle comparable in total effective (long) range with the British Baker rifle at 700 to 800 yards.^{[citation needed]}

Although less commonly owned or seen on the frontier, the Kentucky Rifle style was also used on flintlock pistols during the same era.^{[citation needed]} These Kentucky Rifle style pistols were often matched in caliber to a Kentucky Rifle owned by the same user, to enable firing a common-sized and common-patched round lead ball.^{[citation needed]} With the same graceful stock lines and barrel style, and craftsmenship, they were noticeably slimmer and had a longer rifled barrel with better sights than had been seen on the earlier Colonial style flintlock pistols. Dueling pistol sets in the Kentucky Rifle style were also made, sometimes in a cased set, for wealthy gentlemen, such as when serving in politics, to defend their honor.^{[citation needed]}

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