Black Powder rifle question

[Bomber Boy]

Hi guy, Sorry if my question does not come out right, But I am new to this Board.

Could Any of you please tell me the Differance between the Kentucky Rifle and the Pensalvania Rifle.
Because I spoke to one guy and he said they are both the same gun.
The other guy said that their are not the same rifle.

So witch one is telling me the truth???

Thanks
Cheers
Bomber Boy

[Dixie Dude]

I think they are slightly different, but similar. 

[simonkenton]

Pennsylvania was settled before Kentucky was. There were many German craftsmen who settled Pennsylvania, and they began making beautiful flintlock rifles.
Pennsylvania became the center of fllintlock rifle making in America.
The Golden Age of flintlock rifle making happened during the 1760s, 1770s, 1780s.
This was when Kentucky was settled. Any white boy, such as Simon Kenton, or Daniel Boone, who went to Kentucky in 1775 and wanted to survive, was carrying a top quality flintlock rifle, which was quite possibly made in Pennsylvania.
So they were taking Pennsylvania rifles to Kentucky.
After a while, as Kentucky became famous as the frontier, where brave men fought Indians and hunted deer,  the rifles came to be known as Kentucky rifles.

Many Kentucky rifles would be the same as  a Pennsylvania rifle, if there are differences, I am sure a more knowledgable poster will inform us.

[flintlock]

I prefer to call them Early American Long Rifles...

In layman's terms you could use either and be correct...

When the flintlock rifle was most popular they were simple called rifles or rifled barreled guns...It wasn't until after the Battle of New Orleans (1815) when a popular ballard was written that the term "Hunters from Kentucky" and their "Kentucky Rifles" came out...
From that time to this the term Kentucky Rifle has been more popular...In the mid 70s it seems that collectors from Pennsylvania wanted to change this to Pennsylvania Rifle but it simply hasn't caught on with the public...

The problem is, what defines the first rifle guns made in Colonial America???

Barrels were being rifled by the mid-1500s, before the flintlock was invented...
There was a gunsmith in Jamestown by 1620, if he took a matchlock and rifled the barrel is this the first rifle made in America???

Germans settled in New Bern, NC in 1710...They were in Salem, NC in the early 1760s, in Rowan County by 1750...The were in the Shennandoah Valley earlier than that...

Daniel Boone moved to NC in 1752 with his mom and dad...He probably had a rifle made in Pennsylvania when he came down here but he traded his deer hides in Salisbury and also Salem...Is it possible that by the time he moved to Kentucky in 1774 that he was carring a North Carolina or did he go alll the way back to Pennsylvania to buy a rifle??? It seems silly to think he would make that trip when they were being made down here at that time...

The fact is that we don't really know when the first rifle was made we do know that most barrels and locks were imported from Europe and stocked over here...We also know that older parts were used again and again...The oldest signed and dated flintlock long rifle is from 1761 but many were made before that date...

[Longknife 76]

If you can get ahold of The spring 2009 KRA bulletin, Vol 35 no 3. Alan Gutchess has written a good article on the origins of the term "Kentucky Rifle". Gutchess claims the term was in use long before the war of 1812. He states that this term was used to describe the lower cost plain working rifles of the period that were often sold to the pioneers that where on their way to settle Kentucky....Ed