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Question About the "Typical" Northwest Gun
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Booshway
Picture of Notchy Bob
posted
I have been thinking (for the past forty years or so...) of ordering a Northwest gun. I've about decided it's now or never, either North Star West or Caywood.

I do want to get a very typical gun. My question is: What is the most typical caliber or gauge for a Northwest gun of the 1780-1820 period?

I was thinking .58 caliber (24 gauge) would be a good choice, but just finished an article in a back issue of The Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting which indicated Northwest guns distributed by the Northwest Company were typically 16 gauge (.66 caliber). To my knowledge, this bore size is not even an option with today's reproductions.

Of the options available from today's makers (28, 24, or 20 gauge), which would be closest to the most typical bore size of the 1780-1820 fur trade era?

Thanks! I know I can count on you guys...

Notchy Bob


"Should have kept the old ways just as much as I could, and the tradition that guarded us. Should have rode horses. Kept dogs."

from The Antelope Wife
 
Posts: 333 | Location: Florida | Registered: 24 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Most common, guess the Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting covered that. Of the 3 gauges you offered 20 is closest to 16. I have a bunch of 12 ga and 14 ga wads and stuff (for my original 14 ga SxS) so would try to get a 14 ga (69) or a 12 (.72), If that was too pricey, would get a 20.
TC
 
Posts: 138 | Location: Cedar Valley, Travis Co., TX | Registered: 24 December 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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NSW has the chiefs trade gun in 16 gauge. I have a Caywood in 20 gauge and a NSW in 28 gauge both are nice.


The best thing about owning a dog is that someone is happy when you get home.
 
Posts: 959 | Location: Alabama | Registered: 09 December 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Notchy Bob
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Thanks for the responses. The problem with the CJAC article is that the information about caliber or gauge conflicts with some of the other sources I have on hand, and I'm not sure it is accurate.

I had read something about the NSW Chief's Gun in 16 gauge, but I think there were only one or two of them built. It isn't offered as a standard option. I don't think Caywood offers a 16 gauge, either.

Thanks for the responses! I'll look forward to hearing from some of the other members of the Campfire Brain Trust.

Notchy Bob


"Should have kept the old ways just as much as I could, and the tradition that guarded us. Should have rode horses. Kept dogs."

from The Antelope Wife
 
Posts: 333 | Location: Florida | Registered: 24 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Graybeard
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In the book For Trade and Treaty, Firearms of the American Indian 1600-1920, I see several Northwest Trade guns that are around .595-.62 so a 20 gauge gun would be well within historical correctness. In fact leafing through it again for this post I'd say the majority are of that diameter.
 
Posts: 214 | Location: Big Arm Montana | Registered: 17 September 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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All mentioned would be appropriate.
Yer choice. Get wat makes ye happy.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Twenty or 24 gauge. Look in Charles Hanson's book on northwest guns. Orders from HBC and AFCo are documented. Mine is 24 gauge, most of my friends have 20s. Either is correct. Most orders were for 36" barrels during the western fur trade era. 30" barrel were very popular with buffalo hunters for ease of loading on horseback. Mine is 30" and I like it. It must shoot as good as the longer barrels because I've won half the smoothbore shoots that I've entered with it. Also be sure to check out James Hansen's "Firearms of the Fur Trade", available from the museum of the fur trade.
 
Posts: 507 | Registered: 14 August 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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Notchy, If you want a NW Gun in 16 gauge just contact North Star West and they will fix you up with a nice one. It will have a 37 1/2 barrel with no options for barrel length. And it's a good one. Shoot sharp, Mike
 
Posts: 3531 | Location: Pacific Northwest | Registered: 25 October 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of andy*
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In my mind its hard to say what is "typical"...What was typical in one place and time might not be in another region...timeframe...or for a particular fur trade company and or comsumer base...
In addition to Hanson's fine book on the trade gun....S.James Gooding's Trade Guns of the Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1970 is a excellent book as well.
Andy


Follow me I am the Infantry
 
Posts: 668 | Location: Everson, Washington | Registered: 27 June 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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I'll have to throw in with Scoundrel on this. All the research I've done strongly points to 24 gauge and then 20 gauge. In fact I've never really come across 16 gauge but maybe this shows my studies are incomplete. I do tend to focus on the western, southwestern fur trade, not northern (Canada).

My sources are good though, Hansen et.al etc.

I would go with either the 24 or 20. These were both very common and both shoot very nicely if you plan to hunt turkey, small game with shot or deer etc with ball.

I have a Caywood, Wilson 20ga, may be a bit early for what you are looking for? It has been a wonderful gun, built in days of the Mike Roe locks.

I will say that I "personally" had many issues with inconsistent fire from the coned flash hole and ended up installing a white lighting. This totally cured my issues. And again let me state this was with my gun and I'm not making a general statement. I love my Wilson, it's a turkey slayer.

Rio
 
Posts: 140 | Registered: 18 March 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Rio
Sent you a PM....


The best thing about owning a dog is that someone is happy when you get home.
 
Posts: 959 | Location: Alabama | Registered: 09 December 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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My nw gun is from Northstar West, and I love it. If I were ordering a new one today, whether 24 or 20 gauge would depend on my mood at the time. I'd keep the 30' barrel. One minor advantage that the 20 gauge might have. If you are stamping out wads with an arch punch the 5/8 punch may give a little bit better fit for the 20 than the 9/16 does for the 24. That would only matter in a very few instances if it matters at all.
 
Posts: 507 | Registered: 14 August 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
<mtnmike>
posted
I own a NSW 20gauge,wouldn't even think past Matt,cannot nor will not go wrong Wink
 
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Booshway
Picture of Notchy Bob
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Thanks for all the responses!

Just to be clear, we are talking about the classic Northwest gun, and not the earlier types, the Dutch or French guns, or the Chief's guns. I was going on what I had seen in Charles Hanson's book, The Northwest Gun, in which he wrote, "The barrel is part octagon, nearly always 24 gauge (about .58 caliber), and smoothbored for using either shot or a 30 gauge patched ball" (p.2). The author also quoted James Willard Schultz, who married a Piegan woman and lived out his days with her people. Schultz said, "...the balls were thirty to the pound." Depending on whose chart you look at, a true 24 gauge might be .579" to .586", and 30 gauge (i.e. 30 balls to the pound) would be .532" to .544". They must have used mighty thick patches. We won't get into the patches versus wadding debate here...

The CJAC article mentioned in the original post said Northwest guns from the Northwest Company were typically 16 gauge (.663" - .670"). As a Hanson disciple, this took me by surprise. After posting that original question, I went back through a bunch of my references. There is indeed a good section on "Caliber, Gauge, and Bore" in Gooding's Trade Guns of the Hudson's Bay Company 1670 -1970. He rambles a bit, but the takeaway was that 28 gauge balls, known back in the day as "Low India Shot," was very commonly used, and he even located a 1797-era gang mould in the HBC collections that cast balls of .550", which is precisely 28 gauge.

Probably the most interesting browsing was in Ryan Gale's For Trade and Treaty: Firearms of the American Indians 1600 - 1920. Northwest guns pictured and described in this book have bore sizes ranging from about .565" up to almost .70. The majority of them, however, seemed to be in the .59 to .60 caliber range.

So, you fellows were right. Either 24 or 20 gauge would be a good choice as a shooter and as a typical historical reproduction, but if a fellow wanted something a little bigger or a little smaller, he could easily find a documented example to use as a historical precedent.

Much obliged to all who contributed.

Notchy Bob


"Should have kept the old ways just as much as I could, and the tradition that guarded us. Should have rode horses. Kept dogs."

from The Antelope Wife
 
Posts: 333 | Location: Florida | Registered: 24 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Notchy Bob,

Looks like you got the answer to your question and figured out what gauge you need to get.

This is not to change your decision, but a word of caution about converting 18th century terminology to modern terminology.

During the fur trade era, gun size was usually referred to as the number of balls to the pound that the gun would take. Modern terminology usually refers to gauge for smoothbores and caliber for rifles. The caution is that the number of balls to the pound is not the same as modern gauge size, even though you will typically see it presented this way in reference tables in books and on the internet.

The number of balls to the pound is a measure of the size of the ball or its OD. Modern gauge is a measure of the bore ID. The difference between the two is the windage or space for patching material and fouling buildup. James Gooding discusses this some and T. M. Hamilton goes into it in more detail in Colonial Frontier Guns. I've found that few other writers bother to discuss windage and make the error of using period balls-to-the-pound and modern gauge sizes interchangeably--they are not.

Military smoothbores appear to have had more windage than sporting and trade guns. And smoothbores probably had more windage than rifles since they did not have the grooves to take up some of the patching material. A military gun could have .05" or more windage while a trade gun could have windage around .03" and a rifle more like .01" or .02".

The size of a ball 28 to-the-pound is .550" OD. Adding .03" for the windage, the bore size of the gun that will take that ball is .580" or close to the modern 24 gauge bore.

Similarly, a gun that will take a ball 24 to-the-pound (.579" OD) with the same windage would have a bore ID of about .609" or just under a modern 20 gauge bore.

The book, For Trade and Treaty, has a couple examples of this. Look at the trade gun discussed starting on page 41. It is stamped with the number 24 on the barrel and has a bore ID of .597". The next gun presented, starting on page 47 also has 24 stamped on the barrel and is reported to have a bore ID of .612". The differences in bore ID in these two guns and the theoretical ID of .609" for .03" windage is within manufacturing tolerances as discussed by Hamilton.


Phil Meek
 
Posts: 78 | Location: Denver | Registered: 19 August 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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