Prewar sporting arms of Texas

[hardeeflag]

I came across this looking for typical sporting arms in the Texas frontier and far west. Most of the examples given on here are of the plains rifle probably a design taken from the 1803 Harpers Ferry and Tennsessee rifle design. Most of the examples here are .50 to .45 cal. Any toughts on what the most common rifle in the hands of a civilian west of the mississippi on to california? I am getting ready to do a rifle build and am looking at a .50 to .54 cal plains rifle type. I was going to go for .54 cal but it seems .50 or less might have been more common.

http://www.texasguntrade.com/texassportingrifles.htm

[David Fox]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Contemporary printed guides to educate "pilgrims" tended to recommend double barrel shotguns, useful for ball and shot.

[hardeeflag]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Mr. Fox,

What model of percussion pistol is that you are holding in your avitar?

[David Fox]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

M.1836 Johnson.

[hardeeflag]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Mr. Fox,

I have a question, who was writing those guides? Are they written from practical end users on the Frontier West or "guide" writers in the east. A lot of the gold mining pamphlets of the time were written by people in the east who never set foot west of the Mississippi.

[ACo.]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Don't forget that the flintlock would have been MUCH more common than most want to or are to able believe. It may be that the so-called "plains rifle" was a rare thing in Texas before 1861.

[David Fox]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Rich: I'm at work and have no access to my library. Don't know who was writing the guides. Will take some time tonight to discover. As I recall from memory, guidebooks were generally primers on then exotic western travel, especially popular during the hectic "GTT" craze and for navigation of the Oregon Trail. They contained practical insights on types of conveyances to utilize, animals to take, sustenence requirements, choosing "captains", tips on river crossing, useful medications and amateur doctoring, seasons to start journeys and from where, routes (with maps featuring intervening water sources and forts), particular hazards, seeds and farming implements to bring, etc. I suppose some might have been conjured-up by inexperienced easterners, but my recollection was they tended in the main to be practical and based upon experience. As to the thread's original query, I'll attempt to find a specific source for the recommendations for shotguns. The classic St. Louis-style heavy barrel, large calibre rifles of the Hawkin type were always a specialty item and, for most, prohibitively expensive.

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Sporting arms? They may have been sporting arms in other parts of the world, but not in Texas...not before the war.

[hardeeflag]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

B. Garrison Beall,

Please comment and elaborate.

I am getting together a prewar civilian impresssion for west Texas, NM etc. I am wondering what the most common weapon (long arm) would have been on the frontier. For me with open range I would think a shotgon would be worthless unless up close or hunting birds. with open range your going to need to reach out a little farther.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Hallo!

A tough call...

Not so much in the available arms of the era, but, IMHO, far moreso in the choice of the Period impression.

Meaning, the time, place, and socio-economic status of the individual being portrayed has a profound effect on the type of sporting arms AND/OR more offensive and military type.

For example, a Republic of Texas or Texas State ranger would have been more "martially" armed with say very late "Lancaster" pattern rifles or non Hawken "Plains" type fullk and half-stock rifles- while a Houston business man might be carrying a shotgun for doves.

Curt

[gilham]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Sporting arms? They may have been sporting arms in other parts of the world, but not in Texas...not before the war

B. Garrison Beall,

Please comment and elaborate.

I am not the poster of the above comment but I think the point he was making is that they were not sporting arms but a necessity of life.

[David Fox]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Profuse apologies, but I cannot find my sources re; frontier shotguns and pilgrim guides. It may well have been in a "Man at Arms" or like publication. I recall an illustration in the article of a double barrel with the muzzles cut back at an angle away from the centerline. This, it was asserted, aided quick reloading. According to Carl Russell, "Guns on the Early Frontier" (Univ. of Nevada Press, 1957), a Captain Levine wrote in 1846, speaking of the more northern frontier: "There is not the facility of carrying about several kinds of guns, and a smoothbore 'double gun' which will throw ball true at 60 yards,--and most guns will--is the best weapon for deer shooting". It was also "available for small game." Levine went on to recommend ball be a calibre under bore size and using the tips of kid gloves as patching around the ball; so loaded they will then "fly quite true...in 99 cases out of a 100" such a load will "fly nearly as true at 60 yards as one fired from the best rifle...." (pp.232-233). Russell documents that frontier traders inventoried musket balls (useful in shotguns) and several sizes of shot, from "Pigeon shot" through "buck shot" (p. 233). He states (p.231) that "a smoothbore gun...had the advantage of being easily and quickly loaded, and it had the further virtue of throwing a handful of shot in lieu of a single ball...." A-C comrades living in Texas and across the Great Plains can better answer this, but I'd swan that most table game shot in much of the pre Civil War West was feathered: praire chicken, sage hen, passenger pigeon, turkey, etc. Flankers in wagon trains heading west through much of the route likely could feed the pilgrims each night on birds they kicked-up walking during the day. Evidence specifically of ubiqitious Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri shotgun usage prior to the Civil War is found in the surviving individual photos and accounts of the many western Rebels going off to war in 1861 carrying their personal guns to camp and campaign...double barrel shotguns. This is what these western men possessed in large numbers in civilian life. Terry's Texas Rangers and others preferred the weapons. It was a Confederate infantry staple at Shiloh. A special bayonet was even designed for southron double barrel shotguns, forsooth! A double gun may not be as sexy as a brass-mounted rifle for an 1850s Texas-west impression, but it is surely qualifies as being an accurate one.

[Sut Lovingood]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

Shotguns were quite common out here in AZ prewar, no worse range than the Musketoon the Dragoons were using here. I am not currently at the site where my records are but I have information regarding what civilian arms were being sold around Fort Buchanan in the late 1850s-60. I do remember seeing flintlocks were being advertised...in 1859. I will have to look at the records tomorrow.

[hardeeflag]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

I would like to see that Rae. You are in the same state as me. I have an inventory from Ammi White's Mill that Sherrod Hunter captured north of Tucson on the Gila River. There were two arms he reported. One was a shotgun the other looks to be a standard military rifle. I would need to look at that again though as it has been years. Now were these arms being traded to the Pima's or what would have been in the hands of common caucasians?

[AZReenactor]

Re: Prewar sporting arms of Texas

I recently saw a report from 63 or 64 regarding the arms in the hands of Arizona civilians in case it was necessary to call militia forces into active service. The reporting officer specifically noted that pistols were present in abundance but that there were inadequate long arms in civilian hands should it be necessary to call upon their service. His recommendation was to create a stockpile of Mississippi rifles or Musketoons since any militia force in the territory was likely to serve mounted. I'm recalling this from memory but, once I get down to the report and transcribe it, I'll let you know.