Original Southern Mountain Rifle Photographs
Series #6
Gentlemen, there's many novices who just don't know what an original Appalachian, East Tennessee, Southern Mountain, bear or hog rifle really looks like. Unfortunately, they git a hold of a catalog, buy up all th' cast iron parts listed, slap'em together, an' then tell everone they built an "EXACT" replica of Joe Hillbilly's squirrel rifle. Yeesss, indeedy! They saw the picture inna catalog and now they have a real McCoy in their hands.............SO.....I'm offering these photographs from my personal collection for their education AND your enjoyment. I'll swap'em out ever once in a while. CAVEAT: Some of these photos are intended for use in a book later on and just might be copyrighted. If you want to use'em on your website an' don't have th' balls to ask permission.....don't.
Series 6 of this album concerns an original Clements rifle. I took these pics here in th' shop and again, the rifle's proud owner, Jim Sichlau, over to Illinois, graciously allowed me to use'em. He is one super fellow and a Brother to boot! He's built himself a wooden rifler and you can find photos of Jim at work elsewhere in this site.
Here is the checkered wrist on this particular rifle gun and it does add a nice touch. The curl on the trigger guard spur is a tad on the small side. Guess I like them a bit larger. Nicely proportioned guard though and similar to my guards in profile..
Here is the cheek piece. Stands pretty proud, don't you think?
A simple, long, flat toe plate with flat termination.
Here's the underside of that trigger guard. Round lobate ends on the extensions.
And lastly, here is the side plate side of the rifle. Nice shape of the side, but the decoration of checkering makes me think someone had too much time on their hands! Unusual side plate, too.