mofederal
Major
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2017
- Location
- Southeast Missouri
Hello and welcome to the CivilWarTalk from Southeast Missouri. A great looking rifle, whatever it's origins.
You have 3 bands and all three have the springs. So I was totaling that up as 6.I was referring to the two springs next to the bands.
Thanks - I know they're quite a pest where European antique furniture is concerned - that may be where I first read about them, though of course they obviously and unfortunately LIKE wooden gun stocks as well!In case you ever wondered how these insects look like, here's a couple of pictures of them "at work", shot this morning.
The flies are planting their eggs in some beech wood, same wood as the Lorenz stock is made of.
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Thank you so much for that very interesting piece of information!I don't know much about wood eating beetles, but the fact that the Lorenz subject to this thread has an Enfield hammer on it is a good indication that this gun was used in America. Just my two cents anyway.
Well James N (Colonel) already stated those holes in the stock only come from European wood eating beetles. So "used in America" does not add up as far as a CW weapon. If that beat up hammer is an Enfield than the gun is a parts gun or Frankenstein.I don't know much about wood eating beetles, but the fact that the Lorenz subject to this thread has an Enfield hammer on it is a good indication that this gun was used in America. Just my two cents anyway.
I don't know for a fact that we don't have a similar pest here, though I don't believe I've ever heard of any, and hoped that if one in fact does exist some of our other members would correct me. The little Belgian-made French Revolutionary musketoon is the only one of my firearm collection that shows the problem, including several other pieces of European origin.Well James N (Colonel) already stated those holes in the stock only come from European wood eating beetles. So "used in America" does not add up as far as a CW weapon. If that beat up hammer is an Enfield than the gun is a parts gun or Frankenstein.
I don't know for a fact that we don't have a similar pest here, though I don't believe I've ever heard of any, and hoped that if one in fact does exist some of our other members would correct me. The little Belgian-made French Revolutionary musketoon is the only one of my firearm collection that shows the problem, including several other pieces of European origin.
Well I guess I was right from the beginning having seen them on stocks long ago. So the a Sergeant schooled the Colonel, good to be an Enlistmen !!!Let me say it clearly - All parts of the United States are home to the powder post beetles, and the larvae of the powder post beetle is what makes those holes in the wood.
According to Wikipedia, "Powderpost beetles are a group of seventy species of woodboring beetles classified in the insect subfamily Lyctinae." They a found in every state. In addition to seeing their damage in gunstocks and old furniture, I have seen their damage in Ohio grown firewood and in the oak timbers of an 1890s barn on the family farm here in Ohio (trees cut on the farm, milled on the farm, and erected on the farm. I am quite sure that that those oak timbers didn't travel to Europe to get infected.
Actually those are not uncommon to the US, just called, I think "post beetles"; last weekend we were doing artillery training at Sharpsburg and a friend brought over an Enfield that had been found by an ancestor on their farm after the battle. The musket had been bored out, stock shortened and used as a fowler by the Poffenburgers, even had a round still in the barrel (steel bird shot and wadding)! Long story short, it had been badly stored and the beetles ate so much that the butt plate was gone! The Enfield was legit and had all the correct markings, just chewed up.........There were many small pin holes and larger destruction where they really let loose.Those "pin holes" in the stock are usually evidence of European powder-post beetle larva which bores into and eats wood; one of my French Revolutionary musketoons has them pretty badly. They had been plugged with wax and I didn't realize they were there, or at least how bad they were until I rather stupidly washed the stock to remove old oil, grease, etc. and they became glaringly obvious. Fortunately a coat of fresh linseed oil made them once again less apparent. To me this suggests that your Lorenz *may* have spent most of its life IN Europe where these little bast*rds are found - I'm not aware of similar insect pests on our continent. If so, like mine it could've come here much later and not have seen service in "our" war; maybe it was a G.I.'s "souvenir" after WWII.