My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

Finally got around to taking some pictures of my Ky Long Rifle. It was my grandpa's gun, those are his initials carved into it, mom said he hunted with it up into the 50s. When we got it, my dad took it to a gun smith to clean up. He said it was made in 1807 and after the civil war was bored out into a shotgun. Also used to be flint but was changed to cap. The barrel looks somewhat crystalized and I not sure if it would be safe to fire now, any old gun experts here that might be able to tell by the pictures? Also, had to throw in picture of my modern guns.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

Nice AR... Rock River?

:biggrin:

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

No it's from Panther Arms.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

It's a wall hanger for sure. NOTHING wrong with that.

With todays powders you would have issues. EVEN using black powder in a 200+ year old gun? If you do fire it, I'd fire the first load with it tied to a tire and a REALLY LONG length of rope to pull the trigger. IF it doesn't blow up in your face, then and ONLY then would I load a second round in and try again.

I've seen these guns fired first hand. They don't make them like this any more. The steel in the barrel was heated BY SIGHT (IE - gee GOOBER, it LOOKS hot enough) type of thing. So it's a crap shoot at best.

It could be a great shooter. OR it could blow up in your face the first time.

Besides, as it was converted to a shotgun sometime after the 1870's, I'm assuming you have several shotguns and don't NEED to fire a black powder shotgun.

Get a really nice wooden backing plate and hang that puppy on the wall over your fireplace. That way you and everyone else can enjoy it all the time.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

Neat piece of family history. Thanks for sharing.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

I'm going to throw the BS flag on your mom for that claim. The gun would have been 250 years old at that point (based on your dating). Powders then would have been too strong, not to mention the condition of the gun 50 years ago probably wasn't too much better than it is today.

Nice piece of history though.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

You mean 150.

Re: My Kentucky Long Rifle
 

Pretty sure it's not BS, he was an old country farmer in NC. He was not a wasteful man and would have used that gun till it couldn't fire again before he would go out and buy a fancy new shotgun. Born in 1892 lived through the depression and never trusted banks after that. I remember back in the 70's we go down there and he always want my dad to count his money for him. He would dissapear for about 30 minutes and then come back with an old iron box. I remember watching my dad count it once and it was over 120 thousand. He did put it in the bank a few years before he died and my uncle wound up stealing it all and the farm and stuck him in an old age home for the last year of his life. All saved from years of farming. That man work from sun up to sun down every day and lived to be 103.