As most firearms enthusiasts no doubt will attest, there are arguably three types of firearms from America’s past that have achieved legendary status: the Winchester rifle, the Colt revolver and the Kentucky rifle. Of these, the last has the longest pedigree by far. A sleek, elegant weapon that combined art and accuracy, it put food on the table in peacetime and performed yeoman service in time of war. And while the Colt and the Winchester were produced by the thousands in factories, the muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle was made one at a time to suit its owner. It was crafted by men who combined the consummate expertise of the gunsmith with the deftness and skill of a fine artisan.
In a time when hitting a target—two-legged or otherwise—at any distance beyond 60 yards with a short-barreled smoothbore musket was at best a matter of chance, the long, full-stocked Kentucky rifle was remarkably accurate up to and exceeding 200 yards. Whereas the typical military musket fired a heavy lead ball as large as .75 caliber and often lost direction, the Kentucky rifle generally fired a much smaller ball, allowing for not only greater accuracy but also more ammunition per pound of lead in a time when lead often was not readily available.
What accounted for the weapon’s accuracy was its rifled barrel. Rifling—the term referring to the helical grooves running the inside length of a barrel, causing a projectile to spin unerringly toward its target—had been pioneered in Europe sometime in the 16th century. It was a precise process, demanding a tremendous amount of time and skill.
The weapon brought a heretofore unknown ballistic accuracy to the frontier. Writes historian Dallas Bogan: “The Kentucky Rifle was considered to be a necessity by frontiersmen, and practically every frontier family owned one. Rifle shooting was a way of life on the great American frontier, and nearly every settlement had a shooting match on weekends and holidays. The rifle was thus used for recreation, as well as for protection and hunting.”
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It is commonly acknowledged that the Kentucky rifle was, in fact, first made in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century forges of immigrant German and Swiss gunsmiths. Its popularity quickly spread. While the standard military firearm used on both sides during the American Revolution was the heavy, inaccurate musket, a large number of Patriots carried their own long rifles. In the hands of sharpshooters and snipers, they were especially effective in targeting enemy officers. As Nancy McClure of Cody, Wyoming’s Buffalo Bill Center of the West writes, “[M]any British soldiers fell because of the mistaken assumption that they were out of range of the revolutionaries’ guns.”
How, then, did the rifle become associated by name with Kentucky? According to the Buffalo Bill History Center, the weapon “just happened to be ideally suited for use in the dense forests of Kentucky, and its virtues were extolled in that state—both in use and in song—earlier than elsewhere. One might say with at least a fair degree of accuracy that these guns were adopted and brought to maturity in Kentucky.”
According to a popular legend, it wasn’t until the 1820s that the rifle would take on its new parent name, and it supposedly was due to a song. “The Hunters of Kentucky,” a tremendously popular ditty written in the early 1800s to commemorate Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans, contains this verse:
“Jackson he was wide awake, and wasn’t scared at trifles,
For well he knew what aim we take with our Kentucky rifles.”
So popular was the song that Jackson used it as the official song of his two presidential campaigns. Kentucky claimed the name, and the weapon henceforth was known as the Kentucky rifle.
As with many widely credited legends, this origin story—while seductive—is purely apocryphal. In fact, as Kentucky rifle collector and lifelong authority Dr. Mel Hankla points out, a gunsmith in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was specifically advertising Kentucky rifles as early as 1796, and by 1803, the name could be commonly found in newspapers as far north as Boston.
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In addition to their skill at the forge, fabricators of the Kentucky rifle had to be versed in wood crafting. Stocks were made of hardwood, and although cherry sometimes was used, many—if not most—of these rifles sported stocks carved from curly or “tiger striped” maple. It was commonly available, durable and beautiful when finished. To bring out the dramatic contrast in the wood, the maker would coat the stock with a nitric acid solution, bring an iron bar to a red heat in the forge, and pass the bar low over the stock, bringing out the alternating light and dark stripes in the grain with each pass. (Modern-day gunsmiths still use nitric acid but in combination with an electric heat gun rather an iron bar.)
The finer Kentucky rifles boasted engraved patch boxes and delicately wrought birds, animals and religious symbols inlaid in silver, nickel, ivory and brass, all combining the skill and artistry of the maker with the specifications of the customer. The Kentucky rifle was conceivably the most personalized firearm America has ever produced.
The first Kentucky rifles featured a flintlock ignition system, in which a flint would strike a spark, igniting the powder and propelling the ball forward and out of the barrel. The system was developed at the turn of the 16th century (some say by Leonardo da Vinci), long before the first colonists settled along the Eastern Seaboard. Sometime around the early 1820s, a new, faster and more efficient method of loading and firing was introduced, with a system involving a percussion cap instead of the flint-and-powder mechanism. By the 1830s, many gunsmiths had adapted the older Kentucky rifles to the new system by replacing the flint assembly.
The percussion system was here to stay, mechanizing firearms throughout the Civil War and into the early settlement of the West. However, as Hankla points out, those who had grown up with the Kentucky flintlock were—and are—loath to make the change. “There is a dependability to the flintlock,” he states, “that is lacking in the cap-and-ball rifles. Should the rifleman lose his tin of caps, or should they become damp, he is effectively left without a weapon.”
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Owners often honored the timeless tradition of assigning names to their Kentucky rifles. Naming one’s weapon is a custom going back to the time of hand-wrought swords and axes. Of the 13 reasons listed by the National Rifle Association describing why owners name their firearms, the first—and arguably the most logical—is simply, “[T]hey love their guns.”
Famous figures in our country’s history gave their Kentucky rifles names that eventually found their way into America’s folklore. As those of a certain age will recall from Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier, Crockett named his rifle “Old Betsy.” In fact, David Crockett (he preferred to be called “David”) had more than one “Betsy.” According to Western historian and author Jim Cornelius, Old Betsy was Crockett’s favorite, while “Pretty Betsy” was a gift from Whig Party officials upon his 1833 re-election to Congress. While one “Betsy” purportedly was lost at the Battle of the Alamo, another rifle alleged to have belonged to Crockett is on display at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville.
Daniel Boone also named his rifle. “Tick Licker,” as the story goes, was so accurate that it could shoot a tick off a deer’s back. According to Cornelius, the larger-than-life frontiersman Simon Kenton called his Kentucky rifle “Jacob” in honor of the man who gave him the weapon.
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Today, skilled gunsmiths recreate the Kentucky rifle using the same basic techniques as those of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Although the tools might be of modern manufacture, the process is nearly the same and is as time-consuming. The rifles’ popularity is undiminished; one maker recently spent 400 hours recreating one of Crockett’s long rifles for a relative, only to find himself beset with orders for nine more.
The historic Kentucky rifle was not without its drawbacks. As with all flintlock firearms, a misfire—called at the time a “flash in the pan”—was not uncommon. The rifle often would foul with powder after five or six rounds, requiring immediate cleaning. Nonetheless, for range, accuracy and beauty, the Kentucky rifle had no equal on the American frontier. In the words of National Park Service Supervisor of Interpretation C.P. Russell: “Light in weight, graceful in line, economical in consumption of powder and lead, fatally precise, and distinctly American, it was for 100 years the great arbitrator that settled all differences throughout the American wilderness.”