Frequently Asked Questions

Check most frequently asked questions here, if you still need help then please contact us at mailto:info@kiblerslongrifles.com.

Yes. We study originals and use the architecture and lines. Gunmaking in the 18th century was a skilled professional trade, not folk art — the carving, the engraving, and above all the graceful proportions were the work of real craftsmen. Our kits are built to honor that standard.

The Appalachian Barn Gun is our plainest, most affordable rifle — iron-mounted, with no buttplate, nose cap, entry pipe, side plate, or patchbox, exactly like the honest working rifles it's based on. And yes: a portion of the proceeds from every Barn Gun goes to the Hershel House Foundation, supporting the traditional crafts that keep this work alive.

Right here in Kensington, Ohio down the road from where Jim grew up. What started in a 500-square-foot pole building has grown into a shop of about 15,000 square feet.

You'll take the wood from the machined surface down through progressively finer grits — starting around 150 and working to 220 — and "whisker" the wood (dampen and re-sand) before staining so the grain doesn't raise later. From there, most builders use iron nitrate to color the wood, then seal and oil. It's a rewarding process and it's where your rifle really becomes yours.
Iron nitrate (also called aqua fortis or ferric nitrate) is the traditional stain for a maple stock. You brush it on, then activate it with heat — a heat gun works well — and the color "blushes" from a dull grey-green to a rich red-brown right before your eyes. On curly maple, brushing on tannic acid first deepens the contrast in the curl, giving that striking black-grey figure builders prize. One tip: neutralize any stain that reaches the barrel channel or inlets with a little baking soda and water, so nothing rusts underneath later.
Gently, and never with a drill. Don't try to enlarge the ramrod hole in the stock — instead, taper the rod itself with a cabinet scraper or coarse sandpaper until it slides freely through the pipes and into the hole. When you cut it to length, use a small gouge to hollow a little recess in the end; that lets the rod seat over the curve of a round ball as you load. It's a small detail that makes loading feel right.
Yes, and it's the important one: never trip the lock unless the frizzen is closed. With the frizzen open, there's nothing to absorb the cock's energy, and that sudden stop can bend the top-jaw screw or damage the lock internals. Snap it only against a closed frizzen. It's an easy habit to build early and it protects the fine lock you just assembled. ---
Here's the current lineup, straight from the kit pages: • Woodsrunner — .45, .50, and .54 (rifled, with smooth-bore available in the larger calibers). 39 3/4" swamped barrel, flintlock. • Southern Mountain Rifle — .32, .36, .40, and .45, rifled. 44" barrel, flintlock, with our CNC double-set triggers. • Colonial — .50, .54, and .58 rifled, plus .54 and .58 smooth. 43 1/4" barrel, flintlock. • J.K. Hawken — .45, .50, .54, and .58, rifled. 31" barrel to the standing breech, percussion. • Fowler — a smoothbore fowling piece in 16 and 20 gauge. 44" three-stage barrel, flintlock. • Barn Gun — .32, .36, .40, .45, and .50 (cut rifling), plus .50 smoothbore. Flint or percussion.

It comes down to what you'll do with the rifle. The smaller calibers (.32–.40) are a joy for target work and small game — light on powder and lead, easy on the shoulder. The middle calibers (.45–.50) are the classic all-rounders. The larger calibers (.54–.58) are the choice if deer or larger game are on your list. When in doubt, a .50 is hard to go wrong with.

Within any one model, the outside of the barrel is a single fixed profile — the same octagon and contour, whatever the caliber. The only thing that changes from one caliber to the next is how much steel gets bored out of the middle. A smaller bore leaves more steel in the barrel, so that rifle comes out heavier; a larger bore removes more steel, so it finishes lighter.

So if you'd like a bit more weight out front to steady your hold, lean toward the smaller calibers; if you want the lightest carry, go larger. (It's also why the barrels are interchangeable within each model— the outer dimensions stay the same across calibers.)

A rifled barrel spins the ball for accuracy at distance and is the choice for target shooting and hunting with a patched round ball. A smooth bore trades some of that precision for versatility — it can shoot round ball or shot, which suits a fowling piece or an all-purpose frontier smoothbore. 

No. That's the whole point of what we do. Our kits are machined on multi-axis CNC equipment to tolerances that let the parts go together with basic hand tools. If you can follow careful instructions and work patiently, you can build a rifle you'll be proud to own. Plenty of our builders start with no prior experience at all.

It means the barrel, lock, and hardware are inletted so precisely that everything seats where it should right out of the box. With most kits, a builder has to remove wood to fit oversized parts and that's where the historical architecture gets lost and mistakes happen. We machine the inletting to match the parts, so the correct lines of the rifle are already there. Your job is to fit, assemble, shape the outside to taste, and finish — not to rescue a rough kit.

The Woodsrunner is our favorite recommendation for a first build. It's an early-style flintlock longrifle with clean, forgiving architecture, a handy 39 3/4" swamped barrel, and a finished weight of about 7 1/2 to 8 pounds — easy to carry and easy to build. If you want the simplest, most affordable starting point, the Appalachian Barn Gun is a bare-bones, iron-mounted rifle designed to get you into the hobby without the extra hardware.

Most of our rifles are flintlocks, in keeping with the 18th-century American longrifle tradition — the Woodsrunner, Southern Mountain Rifle, Colonial, and Fowler are all flint. The J.K. Hawken is percussion, true to the 1840s–50s plains rifle it's based on. The Barn Gun is offered in both flint and percussion. If you're drawn to the earliest longrifle era, go flint; if the western fur-trade era and the Hawken speak to you, percussion is the honest choice. 

We accept VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Paypal. Please note that the available payment methods may change depending on your region. We do not accept cash on delivery.
We currently do not offer cash on delivery when you purchase online.
We offer free returns within 30 days of the date you received it. Please make sure you put items back in their original packaging before you send them back to us. The product must be unworn and unwashed, with hang tags attached, and accompanied by proof of purchase. All products are subject to inspection once we receive them.
Once we receive your item, a refund is initiated immediately. All major credit card providers generally take 5-7 business days to process your refund before it appears in your bank account.
The best way to change your order is to contact our support or simply give us a call during our business hours. If an order is shipped, we won't be able to make any changes to your order and you would need to place a new order.
Orders are processed in the order we receive them unless you've chosen expedited shipping. You can track your order status on a tracking page & also signup for alerts on a courier website.
Carrier tracking would provide you with up-to-date information about your package. If it gets stuck or never gets delivered to you, please contact our support and we can assist you with the next steps.
Chances of receiving defective item is very rare but it could happen. Please take pictures of a product which shows defect clearly & contact our support to check if it's eligible for replacement.

Any bad reputation comes almost entirely from cheap, poorly made imports with bad lock geometry and heavy trigger pulls. A quality flintlock with correct geometry — like the locks we build — is remarkably reliable. Sparks land where they should, ignition is fast and consistent, and a well-tuned flint rifle will fire shot after shot. Reliability is a matter of quality, not of the ignition system itself.

Within sensible muzzleloading distances — roughly 100 to 125 yards — a round ball of the right caliber has taken North American game of every size for centuries. The key is choosing an appropriate caliber for your quarry and getting close enough for a clean, well-placed shot, which is exactly the kind of hunting these rifles were made for. (Always check your state's regulations for caliber minimums and legal seasons.)
It doesn't. That's a long-standing bit of folklore. Careful timing tests by researcher Larry Pletcher have shown that a touch-hole placed slightly lower in the pan gives ignition that's every bit as fast as the classic "sunset" position — sometimes marginally faster. Good geometry and a clean vent matter far more than chasing an exact height. ---

We don't have a timeline to share yet. It's something we're working toward, and we'll announce it by email the moment there's more information — make sure you're subscribed to our store email list to be notified.

Not yet. We're releasing pistol kits later in 2026. We'll announce by email when they launch. Make sure to sign up for our email list!

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