AmericanLongRifles Forums

American LongRifles ^ | Various | Various

[ZULU]

The mission of AmericanLongrifles.org is to promote, preserve and support the traditional art and craft of building and using the American Longrifle. This would include accouterments and related arms of the period.

[ZULU]

One of my favorite sites.

[Jet Jaguar]

Bump

[Graewoulf]

I double BUMP your Bump.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Great site, very helpful forum members. I’ve learned a lot about Kopp rifles from them.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I was active there until my health limited my shooting.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

By my gggg grandfather, 2 of his sons, and by me. There are several rifles I made kicking around, all I kept is my .45 halfstock and a little .36 I made for my daughter.

The .45 was a hard working meat rifle for years, also won some matches.

[varmintman]

Never understood this one. A 308 doesn’t gain any power from any more than a 20” barrel, and I don’t see how a black powder weapon would.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

By my gggg grandfather Andrew Kopp (top and middle) and my ggg uncle George Kopp (bottom):

And by Andrew Kopp:

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Do you know when and where the Kopps settled? My bunch came from Hinwil, Switzerland to Philadelphia in 1749, then to S.W. Virginia. Name spelled Honegger, Honaker, Honiker.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The Kopps came from Bavaria in 1732, landed in Philadelphia and settled in York County PA. Andrew Kopp learned PA long rifle making at the “York school” and built guns there before moving briefly to Emmitsburg MD. He then settled in Geeseytown which is just outside of Hollidaysburg (Blair County) PA. At the time Geeseytown was part of Huntingdon County so Andrew and his son George are considered Huntingdon County long rifle makers.

Huntingdon County Historical Society will be having an exhibit of Huntingdon County long rifles at the end of February if you’re interested.

[Yo-Yo]

Never understood this one. A 308 doesn’t gain any power from any more than a 20” barrel, and I don’t see how a black powder weapon would.

It all depends on the powder burn rate. This article says that an optimum length in a bolt action .308 is 26-27 inches.

[ZULU]

That is awesome. Real works of art. Even before I was interested in guns, I thought long rifles were beautiful works of art. Later I learned how very well they can shoot also.

I hope your children carry on with your family heritage.

[Big Mack]

It is my understanding that the quality and consistency of powders in the old days was nor on par with today's powders.
It was thought that a longer barrel allowed the full charge to burn thus increasing the velocity.

There were many shorter barrels on the old guns.
The longer barrel also gave the shooter a longer sight picture for more accuracy.

Danial Boone and Davy Crockett never shot squirrels out of trees at 200 yards, but could consistently hit a man size target at 100 yards, if it wasn't too windy, too still, too damp, too dry, too light, or too dark.

[ZULU]

The early grades of black powder were very poor. They had different formulas, depending on the manufacturer. They were not granulated and protected by a covering of carbon. The sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter tended to settle out and the barrels had to be periodically rotated. Thompson Center ran tests with MODERN black powder and found the optimal length of a barrel was 28” beyond that, the extra length gave no mechanical advantage. But there were no chronographs available back then, so who knew?

BUT there were OTHER reasons for the long barrel

1) A long barrel tends to muffle the report. If you are hunting in the woods you don’t want to let every Indian in the area know where you are if you are white, and if you are an Indian (American Indians were big customers of long rifles and trade rifles and according to some authorities contributed to the evolution away from the Jaeger type guns by requesting modifications in the gun to suit the new world forests) you don’t want to let enemy tribesmen or hostile whites all over the area know where you are.

2) With open sites, a longer site radius makes the gun more accurate.

3) The artists - and they were artists as well as woodcarvers and metalsmiths - who made these guns followed the “Golden Mean” in their construction and a longer barrel made the gun more appealing.

[ZULU]

You guys are SOOOOOOO fortunate and talented. Those are BEAUTIFUL!!!

[SWAMPSNIPER]

This is from page 218 of the Foxfire 5 book, an article by Wallace Gusler.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Thanks. My ancestors were quite talented. Unfortunately, I only learned about our heritage as an adult and never learned gunmaking myself. I have not built any but hope to learn to some day.