American Rifle - Alexander Rose [223]
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61. The exact number of balls one could extract from a pound varied. I’ve used the most common figures, but authorities differ. For instance, Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, p. 36, says that a pound of lead sufficed for 16 balls for a .70 and 48 for a .45. Nevertheless, the difference in most cases between American and German rifles seems to have been a factor of three. See also Wright, “Rifle in American Revolution,” p. 294; Sawyer, Firearms in American History, pp. 2:32–38.
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62. G. Hanger, Colonel George Hanger, to all sportsmen, and particularly to farmers and gamekeepers . . . (London: G. Hanger, 1814), pp. 125, 141–43.
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63. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America, p. 268.
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64. Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, pp. 59–60.
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65. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America, p. 268.
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66. C. W. Sawyer, Our Rifles (Boston: Williams, 1946), p.13. Sawyer claims that it was Daniel Boone, but it was Crockett who was famous for naming his rifles Betsey. I have accordingly amended Sawyer but kept the anecdote. See, for instance, B. Ball, “The Most Famous Rifle of Texas! Recreating Colonel Crockett’s rifle at the Battle of the Alamo,” Guns Magazine, January 2004. (Ball spells it “Betsy,” though Crockett, in his memoirs, says “Betsey.” See Life of Col. David Crockett, written by himself . . . (Philadelphia: G. G. Evans, 1860).
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67. J. Doddridge, Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783, inclusive . . . (1824; reprint Pittsburgh: J. S. Ritenour & W.T. Lindsey, 1912), pp. 123–24. Colonial Americans did not regard offhand shooting as “as any trial of the value of a gun; nor, indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman.” Modern attitudes are less strident. D. Anderson, “Offhand Shooting: A Rifleman’s Primary Skill,” Guns Magazine (July 2003), believes that “when you can shoot well off-hand, you can almost certainly shoot very well from more stable positions.”
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68. Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, pp. 69–71. Successive experiments have confirmed the Kentucky’s relative accuracy. In 1953 Cleves Howell Jr. found that a Jäger rifle circa 1730—one very similar to an early Kentucky—actually outperformed a modern .30-30 lever-action carbine at ranges of 50 and 100 yards. See Muir, “Father of Kentucky Rifle,” p. 76.
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69. B. P. Hughes, Firepower: Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield, 1630–1850 (Staplehurst, U.K.: Spellmount, 1997), p. 59.
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70. B. R. Lewis, Small Arms and Ammunition in the United States Service (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1956), p. 90. For the British test, see J. W. Wright, “Some Notes on the Continental Army,” William and Mary Quarterly, 2d ser., 11, no. 2 (1931), p. 88.
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71. Some of the “Germans” in Lancaster were actually former French Huguenots, in particular the Ferree and LeFevre families, the survivors having escaped France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). They moved to the Black Forest, near the Grand Duchy of Baden, and intermarried. The two families emigrated together and arrived in New York on December 31, 1708. They settled in Lancaster County in the fall of 1712. During their decades in Germany, Huguenots had learned their hosts’ language and mingled easily with the other Germans in Lancaster. Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, pp. 19–22.
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72. Kauffman, Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle, pp. 16–17.
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73. Gill, Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, pp. 18–19, 28–30.
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74. Rosenberger and Kaufmann, Longrifles of Western Pennsylvania, p. xvii.
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75. See Kauffman, Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle, p. 152.
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76. Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, p. 23.
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77. Gill, Gunsmith in Colonial America, pp. 19, 28–30.
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78. Kauffman, Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle, p. 146.
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79. Dillin, Kentucky Rifle, p. 25.
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80. Cited in Brown, Firearms