Guns International #: 102844643
Seller's Inventory #: 244134

Category - Kentucky Rifles - Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

Category
Kentucky Rifles
Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

1800s Antique J. RATHVON Half-Stock .43 Percussion PENNSYLVANIA LONG RIFLE LANCASTER, PA Long Rifle

Description:
1800s Antique J. RATHVON Half-Stock .43 Percussion PENNSYLVANIA LONG RIFLE

LANCASTER, PA Long Rifle

Here we present an antique J. Rathvon Half Stock Percussion Long Rifle, made circa the mid-19th Century. This maker was likely the son of George Rathvon (1747-99), a Moravian gunmaker from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This rifle’s octagonal barrel is in .43 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.”

The overall condition is good. Dark patina throughout. The action only has one cocked position and is a bit stiff but functional. The lock is from N. Kendall of Windsor, VT. The bore is dim and smooth. The stock, forward of the percussion bolster on the right side, was chipped long ago. There is a thin split on the left stock flat, otherwise solid.

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

Barrel is 42-1/2 inches.

Caliber: .43 Percussion

Overall condition as seen in photos.

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ancestryguns

$1300

#244134
 

SOLD

Antique: Yes