In the early days of America, the frontier had yet to be pushed west, and there was plenty of wild ground ripe for exploration east of the Mississippi.

Many of the people who explored that land did so accompanied by a long rifle — one of the muzzle-loading, single-shot weapons that fired buckshot or lead balls — and a wide variety of those rifles will be on display this weekend at the 17th annual Bushy Run Historic Arms Show.

“It's incredible what people would make in those days using their hands,” said Bill Vance of Export, who has collected long rifles since 1968 and is the volunteer manager for the Bushy Run show.

“They were making weapons that could fire a lead ball 200 yards into a 5-inch target,” he said. “They were quite efficient.”

As demand for firearms increased in the New World, European master gunsmiths made their way to the continent and began supplying pioneers with rifles.

“Relative to other guns back then, it was an amazing weapon,” Vance said. “The barrels were wrought from steel strips, bored, polished and hand-rifled … most of these craftsmen came over from Europe, where they had a guild system. These guys worked their way up through that system to become masters.”

Originally held at the Holiday Inn in Beaver Falls, the show moved to Bushy Run's Battlefield Park Museum, and its current popularity forced a second move, to nearby Colton Hall in Claridge.

The show is conducted by another group to which Vance belongs — the Old Westmoreland Rifles-Collectors Show Association, which stages primitive shoots and re-enactments, along with the annual show.

This year, Vance's display will include a functioning reproduction of an old Pennsylvania long rifle made by local artisan Phil Cravener of Latrobe, who died in 2012.

“He used to be involved in all the re-enactments around here, plus he was one of the finest craftsmen around,” Vance said. In tribute to Cravener, Vance will bring along one of Cravener's handmade scrimshaw powder horns.

More than 75 percent of the show is dedicated to the display of antique long rifles, muskets and powder horns. The remainder features modern reproductions made by using many of the same methods artisans employed more than 200 years ago.

Vance said all of the work he and fellow rifle enthusiasts do is to help keep alive the history and awareness of the large role such weapons played it the country's history.

“It's an awful lot of work, but the reward is that you're promoting the hobby and sharing it with others,” Vance said. “You're helping build a future for it, so that people down the road can appreciate it.”

Vance said long rifles hold a special place in American history.

“No one's going to be holding up a bank with one of these long rifles,” he said with a laugh. “But a lot of hunters do hunt with them.

“There's a romantic nostalgia about these guns. It was a rough time, but the guns were important to the way this country developed. These weapons provided food and protection.”

Patrick Varine is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-871-2365.

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