This is a hand made reproduction of a 1730s French Fowling piece:

• All parts with the exception of the trigger guard and lock were made my me.
• This gun features a 62 cal., 50″ octagon to round hand turned barrel. The octagon section of this barrel was hand rasped and filed to transition with a step into the round section of the barrel.
• The barrel is very lightweight and perfectly balanced and has been flared and relieved at the muzzle. The sights for this barrel were hand made. Rear sight was dovetailed into the octagon section of the barrel, like most originals. The front sight is a tear drop shaped brass base with a coin silver blade which was soldered to the muzzle, again like most originals.
• For the stock of this Fowler, I chose a piece of hand cut cherry wood which I harvested from a downed tree in Hocking county Ohio. I worked the stock from a blank which included hand in-letting the barrel, ramrod channel and all other parts.
• For the lock, I chose a Chambers Colonial Virginia flint lock. This lock was totally reworked being that it started with a round faced plate and I flattened it and added a faceted border molding. I removed the bridle from the pan, lengthened the lock and banana shaped the plate. This was all done to make the lock a circa 1730s French style lock.
• The trigger for this fowling piece was hand hammered, shaped and in-letted for perfect leverage and has a light trigger pull. The trigger was added to a brass trigger plate which accepts the tang bolt from the breech plug.
• The trigger guard is a brass lost wax casted French style trigger guard from the R.E. Davis Company. I totally reworked the front and rear extension and finial to closely replicate an original from Tom Grinsdale’s book Flintlock Fowlers: First Guns in America. On the bottom of the trigger guard bow, is an engraved snowflake design seen on similar French Fowlers.
• On the butt stock of this French hunting gun is a hand hammered sheet brass butt plate which was also designed after the very same original from which the trigger guard was replicated.
• In the tradition of the 1730s French gun makers, I selected a fancy dragon style side plate which was hand made from sheet brass. I hand cut, pierced and engraved this dragon from an original seen in Torsten Lenk’s book, The Flinklock: Its Origin, Development, and Use.
• Holding the ramrod to the fore-stock, are three hand rolled brass ramrod pipes. The decoration on the pipes include double wedding bands on each end and a barrel shaped center. The ramrod pipe closest to the muzzle has been tapered larger towards the front and smaller towards the back making for easy ramrod insertion or entry.
• A piece of hand split hickory was scraped and burnished in the old style and is larger towards the tip and has been finished off with a piece of cream colored cow horn to make it resistant to wear and splitting.
• Carving and decoration for this smooth-bore consists of a thin shell style carving around the breech plug tang, a single molding that runs up the fore-stock from the entry to the muzzle. Also on the fore-stock is a double scroll carving on each side, and an ovate styled carving that accentuates the notched entry at the fore-stock that accepts the ramrod.
• A coin silver wrist escutcheon also has been bordered with a similar ovate carving that runs near to the comb.
• Around the brass trigger guard is a single border line relief carving that runs to the bow. On the rear extension of the trigger guard the single relief boarder line continues to a single C-scroll on each side of the rear finial and is linked with another ovate style carving that ends in two more C-scrolls and a finial.
• The escutcheon is a hand hammered silver coin that is slightly domed and in-letted inside an ovate carving on the wrist. Engraving on the escutcheon is a fine outer borderline and other small decorations. The initials LF have been added to signify French (le Français) ownership.
• The gun has been lightly aged including dings, scratches and small cuts to resemble an original 1730s French fowling piece.

1730s French Fowler Flintlock: SOLD