Antique gun expo will benefit Historic Harmony
In the long history of firearms, Pennsylvania got short shrift.
“You’ve heard of the Kentucky longrifle — a pioneer gun for hunting deer and for warfare? Well, there’s no such thing,” said Rick Rosenberger, author of “The Longrifles of Western Pennsylvania: Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties” (University of Pittsburgh, 1993). “It’s a Pennsylvania longrifle, developed in Eastern Pennsylvania … with a longer, thinner barrel to get a full burn of powder and a rifled bore to shoot its rounds more accurately.”
Nineteenth-century Pennsylvania longrifles will be among dozens of firearm artifacts on display at the Harmony Antique Gun Show Aug. 11 at Historic Harmony, an eight-property site that interprets some 250 years of Butler County history.
“The Germans and Swedes
that settled in Pennsylvania brought the short, heavy German hunting gun called the jaeger,” said Mr. Rosenberger, a member of the Historic Harmony board. “In Europe, as a weapon it took too long to load. For hunting — particularly in England — only the rich hunted. Here, everyone needed a gun.”
The heavy forests west of the Allegheny Mountains were untamed. It was considered the West, he said, and the Pennsylvania longrifle was an important tool appreciated by settlers, native tribes that befriended them and those they fought.
“Many of the longrifles made in Pennsylvania and Virginia were sold to Indians. That was a big part of the market for the rifle,” said Mr. Rosenberger.
At the show venders and nearly 30 antique specialists will display or sell antique guns, swords and related accoutrements. Mr. Rosenberger said visitors are encouraged to bring items for experts to examine and appraise.