Silver John Armstrong (1978)

By now, I had photos of the original, so I used my second Paris swamped barrel. I pulled a Beck trigger guard out of the parts box by mistake, and could not get the gun to come out right. Now, it lives in Germany.

George Shreyer (1978)

I had bought an original (circa 1780) smooth rifle by George Shreyer, of Hanover, Pennsylvania which I decided to duplicate. Don Getz made me two interchangeable octagon to round 48 3/8" barrels - .45 calibre rifled and .50 calibre smoothbore. I took the original to Ron Griffie, and we laid it on plank after plank until we found the matching tiger stripe. With the rifle barrel, the gun weighed about six pounds. I killed my first deer with this rifle.

Henry Albright (1978)

An order for a left-handed longrifle - a great Henry Albright (Lancaster, PA) gun. I had visited and photographed the Kindig Collection (York, PA), so I had slides and measurements of the original to work from.

John Armstrong (1977)

I met Carl Pippert and saw my first original John Armstrong rifle. We took rubbings of the original rifle and he sold me buttplate and trigger guard castigs taken from the original. This gun was a giant step in learning for me. I sold it to a fellow in Maryland to a fellow with a collection of original Armstrong rifles.