Bayonet on Sporting rifle build

Joined
May 4, 2014
One of the guns from the Civil War I've always wanted to build is a fireable militarized sporting rifle. These were quite common in the south. These guns were referred to as country rifles, sporting rifles and Kentucky rifles. They were donated to the cause literally by the wagon load. Shops like that at Holly Springs, Mississippi rebuilt them to a military standard. They were shortened to on average 33 1/2", bored 54 cal, rifled and fit for a musket bayonet by turning the muzzle round and brazing a lug on. The set triggers were removed but the trigger plate was reused and only the single forward trigger put back in. Swivels were also added to both full and half stock guns, and an iron ram rod was added to replace the original wooden one. The one I started today is being built from a Lyman Plains rifle. A good copy of a typical mid 19th century sporting gun. As always, I do the most difficult work first. In this case, its the barrel and attaching the bayonet - a M.1842. The rest of the works pretty easy: reshaping the stock and finishing it, adding the swivels, iron rammer and replacing the modern sights with period correct ones. Final details include stamping the barrel. I'm thinking something out of Memphis or Natchez. I'll post the finished piece. It should be done by next week. Here are some images of the work so far.
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Here are some images of the finished rifle. This will be a good example of a southern county/sporting rifle re-fit for infantry service circa 1862 on. It is 54 cal. It would fire a hollow base mine ball. It is fit with a musket bayonet, iron rammer and sling swivels. These rifles were re-worked by numerous shops and armories. Most notable were the ones done at Holly Springs, Miss. What's nice about this particular rifle is that it's all new. It can be taken out to range to shoot or do living history duty. Final note: the lathe is an A.J. Barnes which dates from around 1870-80. The bayonet lug is brazed on as were the originals.
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Had a problem posting the pictures. Here is 1 more picture of the complete rifle showing the numbering on the muzzle and bayonet. This was done because these were all fitted together by hand.
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I am curious as to why you hung the bayonet on the left side of the rifle? Bayonets of the day were mounted to hang on the right side of the arms. Using "Holly Springs" as an example of a location known to have altered what they identified as "Country Rifles" is well done as some of their records show 1,500 "Country Rifles" having been altered. I seriously doubt the armorers at Holly Springs would have deviated from the normal and accepted conventional mounting of a bayonet.

I have had the good fortune to handle one of the altered "Country Rifles" attributed to the Holly Springs Armory. It had been a Leman full stock Kentucky Rifle. The stock was shortened to leave 3" of barrel exposed, nose cap moved back, and set trigger removed. The barrel was shortened to 33" from the breech and re-rifled to .54 caliber. The octagon barrel was turned round for the 3" that was left exposed, with a standard rifle musket block and blade front sight dovetailed and brazed to the barrel. The bayonet with it is a Model 1816 with the bridge cut open to allow for the front sight to fit through. The muzzle is also properly tapered for the 1816 bayonet.
J.
 
This is the first one of this particular alteration I've done. Your observation is a good one. The pattern I followed was of the Holly Spring country rifles shown and detailed in text in the book "Confederate Rifles and Muskets. The 2 altered country rifles shown have their bayonet lugs on the top of the barrel, so I followed this example. The bayonet used in my copied alteration is a 42 musket bayonet. On the 42 muskets, the lug is on the bottom of the barrel, so when the 42 bayonet is on a 42 musket the bayonet will orientate correctly to the right. But putting it on the altered rifle with its lug on top of the barrel, the bayonet will set to the left. I do agree the workers tried to follow some set system of altering these guns, and I will say its a fairly easy piece of work; but, most all these civilian rifles were so dis-similar they may have required a more individual approach to some of the alterations such as fixing of the bayonet. It also depends which bayonet were provided to be put on the rifles. The text just states, fit for musket bayonets. I'm going to build another one of these, but in full stock. That one will be entirely from scratch. I will continue to study and ask questions among my Civil war collector friends and any new details will be applied to that rifle.
 
A number of rifles have been fitted for bayonets and also 2-double barrel shot guns. Some are shown on this site. I research original guns that are shown in various books and private collections as a source for this work. As long as there is a documental example of a confederate firearm that was altered from a civilian gun, I'll look for a way to make it. The issue that I've been encountering is a good supply of bayonets. I've used up Lodgewood's stock of re-pros, so now we're starting to use some originals.
 
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