Beschreibung:

.58 caliber. 33" round barrel with octagonal breech secured by two flat pinned bands. SN: 14. Browned finish, color casehardened lock and hammer, brass patchbox, iron furniture, walnut stock. Single shot muzzleloading percussion rifle. Lock marked H.E. LEMAN / LANCASTER PA, top of breech stamped with the same marking. Rifle is numbered 14 inside the lock, in the lock mortise, on the base of the rear sight and on the necks of the lock screws and tang screw. Due to the pinned nature of the barrel bands the barrel was not removed for inspection. Equipped with a reversed 1855 style long base long range rear sight, iron blade and base rifle front sight, not equipped to accept a bayonet. Sling swivel missing (or never installed) on the triggerguard bow, no provision to mount an upper swivel is present. Retains the original, full-length tulip head iron ramrod with threads at the end. The gun differs from other known examples of these scarce militia rifles in that it includes a civilian style brass patch box typical of Leman's commercial guns. Additionally the two bands are pinned, not spring retained, the upper band doubles as a nose cap with a ramrod pipe, eliminating the nose cap found on other examples, the use of a single lock screw and escutcheon and the use of a long range rear sight. Moller notes in his section on these guns that one example was known with a reversed rear sight but hypothesized that it might be a later replacement. As this one is numbered to the gun as the other parts are and it is clearly original to the rifle. Moller speculates that fewer than 300 of these Militia Rifles were assembled by Leman, making them quite a scarce secondary Civil War long gun. This is a particularly nice condition example. It is possible that this example with the long range rear sight and patchbox and the one with the long range rear sight noted by Moller were made as samples to show a variety of versions that Leman could produce. This is a really interesting and potentially one of a kind example of a Leman militia rifle. It is further worth noting that the only example of a Leman militia rifle built with 1841 Mississippi style furniture, including the patch box was sold by this auction house on June 8, 2022 as Lot #175 during the Lifetime Collection of Larry Ness sale. This is an important gun for the advance Civil War rifle collector. Condition: Very good to fine. Barrel with some browned finish mixed with a moderately oxidized brown patina with scattered surface roughness and some light pitting. Lock with muted traces of case coloring and mottling. Markings reman legible but weak in some areas. Mechanically functional, good bore with clear rifling and moderate pitting along its length. Stock very nice with some light wear and showing scattered bumps, dings and mars.