Pennsylvania (Kentucky) long rifle
Fusil largo de Pensilvania (Kentucky)
- Date
- c. 1740 · confidence medium
- Place
- Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States
- Credited to
- German-descended gunsmiths of Pennsylvania
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A rifled flintlock with a long barrel and small calibre, derived from the German Jäger, accurate beyond 150 metres. It armed frontier marksmen and Revolutionary War militias.
It is debated whether it was an American development or an adaptation by immigrant gunsmiths; its decisive role at Saratoga (1777) is in part tradition.
What it led to
- 18th-century sharpshooters and skirmishing tactics
- the British Baker rifle
- the American civilian rifle tradition