I was born in Ziegenhain/State of Hessen which was one of the central education facilities of the army of Hessen-Cassel in the rev war area. As far as I know the yaeger rifles were no military weapons. Yaegers (= Jäger) are hunters and in that way people fixed hunting bayonettes to the muzzle of their rifles because of the situation, that there was only one shot to fire - and wild hogs can become very dangerous when hurt. Many of the hessian yaegers started their military career with their own civil hunting rifles and that might be the reason why they often are a little bit different from each other. By the way: that´s a very nice peace of history in your video. Thank you very much for showing 👍
My research indicates that the Hessens did not have a bayonet mounted to their rifles. I believe the Jaegers from Ansbach Bayreauth may have had a bayonet attachment on their Jaeger rifles and they did have troops fighting, under treaty, for the British. By the way the Hesse Kassel involvement in the American Revolution was by treaty also, they were not mercenaries.
@@thomaszaccone3960 Waldeck, Anhalt-Zerbst, and don't forget Brunswick Lunenburg aka The Electorate of Hanover sent troops to Gibraltar to release British Troops for service in North America
@@thomaszaccone3960 There were two Brunswick's Brunswick Wolfenbuttel and Brunswick Luneburg also known as the Electorate of Hanover. Hanoverian troops were not sent to the colonies but to British Gibraltar to free up British troops to be sent to the colonies. And Yes Ansbach Bayreuth was a separate principality/Margravate within The Holy Roman Empire, as were the others, until 1791 when the last Margrave Sold it to Prussia
@@bobthomas4514 And who was Prince-Elector of Brunswick-Lunenburg? Some chap called Georg(e) III. The border between the Hanoveranian state and Hesse(n)-Kassel was at Hannoversch-Münden, the place where the Fulda river (runs along Kassel) and Werra river meet to become the Weser. Today it is the border between the Federal states of Hesse and Lower Saxony (Hessen /Niedersachsen). Do you know the account of the German writer Johann Gottfried Seume? Wandering through Hessen-Kassel as a young man he was kidnapped on the road under the pretence of being a tramp and pressed into the army to be "sold" off to fight in America. Once their river barge had crossed the border at Hann-Münden they were on basically Britsh territory. At the mouth of the Weser they were loaded onto the British troop transports. He writes that for fear of the French corsairs of Saint Malo they sailed around Scotland, got into a storm and came very close to Greenland. "We were freezing right in the middle of summer". The crossing took them 20 weeks ! Diseases spred among the men. The drinking water bacame a sticky and stinking green slime that had to be filtered through sailcloth to be halfway "drinkable" again. The biscuits were full of maggots and had to be crushed with cannonballs. The men slept in bunks, not in hammocks. Six men were squeezed into one bunk. It was impossible to lie on one's back. "We were pickled like herrings". When their convoy reached America the war was almost over and Seume did not see any action. He recalls that when they stumbled ashore at some remote coastline (not in a proper port) they found a spring with clear water! "We drank in long, deep gulps, having done without such a refreshment for a long time". More men stormed to that site, caused a landslide and buried the spring. "It took ages to recover and get clear again and the crowd stood around it and mourned for that loss." No wonder that many of the men, those who had no family ties anyway, took the opportunity to stay in America instead of facing such an "Atlantic cruise" ever again.
The cast moves the stock slightly away from the centerline of the barrel and away from the shooter's face. Cast-off moves the stock slightly to the right of the barrel as you are sighting down it, and cast-on moves it to the left of the barrel's centerline. I did fittings for Orvis custom made shotguns for many years. On every single one I ever fit, I used either cast-off (right handed shooter) or cast-on (left handed shooter). It usually wasn't much - 1/4" for most folks and 1/2" once for a fellow with a wide face. The least I ever did was a cast-off was 1/8" on a woman with a narrow face. The reason for adjusting the cast with the custom fit was to get the eye of the shooter centered over the barrel when it was properly mounted. With the proper amount of cast, the shooter didn't need to make any adjustments after mounting the gun to get the correct sight picture or in the case of a rifle sight alignment. With a straight stock, that is impossible to do because it will require every shooter to tilt his head over the stock a bit to line up the sights. With a properly fit shotgun, the length of pull, cast on or off, drop at heel, and drop at comb, should put your eye centered on and just barely above the barrel at the conclusion of a proper gun mount. With a shotgun this allows you to use the instinctive shooting method. With your shotgun at the ready you focus on the front of the bird (clay pigeon). When you mount the gun, you should not have to make any sighting adjustments. If mounted correctly, and you are concentrating on the bird, when the gun mount is mounted you pull the trigger and powder the target. There is no waiting. With a rifle that you need to aim, the aiming becomes much easier because your eye already has the sights aligned. I have two longrifles myself. One is a straight stock and one has 1/4" of cast-off. The one with the 1/4" cast-off brings the sights up very nicely aligned. You can acquire and fire at a target much more quickly if you don't have to make a bunch of sight picture adjustments. So it's safe to say that Jaeger rifle was made to fit a particular shooter. There were no rifle barrel making machines at the time. That swamped barrel was hammer forge-welded out of wrought iron, which is an incredibly labor intensive process and why they typically cost a year's wages to buy.
Watched this 3 times over. Absolutely gorgeous, even though it's plain I actually appreciate that and have a idea of how much work went into making this Jaeger. Thank you
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Thank you for taking the time to write back. I have since seeing this clip added far more depth in the patch box by just using chisels. Now I can fit jags a worm flints etc. Its not original but nice!
That is one sweet piece there! I keep eyeing up the model offered by Chambers. But with the looming winter, and heat & electric doubling in cost? Yeah, Im not rich by any means. Lol Thanks for showing that
Quite consciously. The German rifle was the British army standard. They purchased many in Germany, contracted for copies in England too plus making their own (first ever Pattern) Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle and continued the type with the Baker Infantry Rifle later on.
Lovely Jaeger very well presented. Thank you. IIRC only one regiment had Jaegers with bayonets but my reference books are in France so I cannot say which.
Might try a smart phone translator sometime, I hear one of the Google apps can translate text through the camera lens. Would be best to see what it says
Cast off puts your eye in line with the sights without having to tip your head over. The piece will just line up with your eye when you shoulder the arm.
@0:41 kind of funny to see the stock splintered where the barrel pin comes out. I've made that same mistake, funny and interesting to see they also had that problem back in the day. Hello from Phoenix, AZ.
I own an original 1760's jaeger that I replaced the barrel, using a Rice custom that duplicates the original, and took it to South Africa in 2022 and shot an antelope. When was the last time that this weapon collected meat?
@@ILoveMuzzleloading I collect original flint muzzleloaders and took that one to South Africa 2022 July. I replaced the barrel with a Rice barrel, 62 cal rifled, 32 inch long 1.130 at breech, swamped, just like the original. I replace barrels and or locks by modifying new metal without changing original wood because I love shooting history. I'll try to send pictures but I'm a dinosaur, got to learn how.
The inside of the patchboxes of those rifles was almost never polished or lined with felt or something. I have a middle 18th century wheellock that has a block of lead that is crudely hammered into the bottom of its patchbox to add more counterweight to the heavy barrel, indicating that those late wheellocks were mainly used for target shooting. That kind of bayonet that has a slot in its (brass) grip which slides over the bar at the muzzle is commonly called "Hirschfänger". "stag-catcher"? Well, German hunter's language, often ridiculed as "hunter's latin", uses its own terms or uses common German words in a different context. "Fangen" in this context does not mean "to catch" but to give the animal the coup-de-grace. "Hirschfänger" therefore is a kind of long bowie-knife that any huntsman carried around at his belt. When the first sharpshoters were equipped with those rifles in the 18th century the question was on the agenda how those men could defend themselves against footsoldiers or horsemen when they had fired their shot and had no time to reload. As an octagonal barrel does not allow a socket bayonet, the idea was born to fix a longer version of that hunter's knife at the muzzle. Origin? Germany (including Austria with its possessions like Bohemia) in that period was the "Holy Roman Empire". It was a strictly federal state with a complicated constitutional structure. Each of its hundreds of bigger and partially very small members had its own forces but they were organized in what was called "Reichskreise". (Kreis=circle/here number of individuals who work together). Each of them was responsible to have a certain amount of men under arms, plus horses and artillery. Especially the very small German states had neither the logistics nor the financial means to have its own arms' industry or staff that developed new models of muskets, pistols, swords, rifles... Logically they bought the same arms as the big states did. So you have a great number of "look-a-likes" that puzzle collectors as they do not have the expected signatures or stamps. As a side effect that meant that some standardization of calibers and ammonition took place. Not all of those arms bear military stamps or engraved letters/numbers from arsenals or troops that used them. That makes it almost impossbible to say where an individual musket or rifle comes from. The small state of Ansbach Bayreuth could well be the origin of this rifle. The Ansbach-Bayreuth rifle is very, very similar to the Prussian rifle of that period. The triggerguard with its characteristic "drop" at the rear end indicates a source from the area that is associated with places like Suhl and Zella-Mehlis. German collectors call it the "Saxon triggerguard", though those places are in Thuringia. It gives the shooter a good grip. The famous Baker rifle follows that tradition as well.
Can it be that all those dents on the stock in front of the patchbox come from constant "hammering" against the metal fittings of a pouch or cartridge box or whatsoever during hours and hours of marching as well as from the mallet that was used to force the patchbox to slide open?
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Can it be that the original fastening of the sling is lost? A typical German rifle of that period has a loop over the middle fastening of the barrel (which is then a bolt and not a pin) and a woodscrew with a 3/4 to 1 inch wide head at the underside of the rear stock. The sling has a simple slot in its rear end that goes over that big head.
I was born in Ziegenhain/State of Hessen which was one of the central education facilities of the army of Hessen-Cassel in the rev war area. As far as I know the yaeger rifles were no military weapons. Yaegers (= Jäger) are hunters and in that way people fixed hunting bayonettes to the muzzle of their rifles because of the situation, that there was only one shot to fire - and wild hogs can become very dangerous when hurt.
Many of the hessian yaegers started their military career with their own civil hunting rifles and that might be the reason why they often are a little bit different from each other. By the way: that´s a very nice peace of history in your video. Thank you very much for showing 👍
The comment section of these videos is always great. The history, stories and gun smithing tips are generally useful. Ive learned alot for sure.
My research indicates that the Hessens did not have a bayonet mounted to their rifles. I believe the Jaegers from Ansbach Bayreauth may have had a bayonet attachment on their Jaeger rifles and they did have troops fighting, under treaty, for the British. By the way the Hesse Kassel involvement in the American Revolution was by treaty also, they were not mercenaries.
I think there were four other German States that provided troops to Britain - Brunswick and Hesse-Hanau but I can't remember the others.
@@thomaszaccone3960 Waldeck, Anhalt-Zerbst, and don't forget Brunswick Lunenburg aka The Electorate of Hanover sent troops to Gibraltar to release British Troops for service in North America
@@bobthomas4514 we missed the sixth. Can't remember which. Brunswick, Hesse-Hanau, Hesse-Cassel, Anhalt-Zerbst, Waldeck, and ??? Wasn't Ansbach-Bayreuth a Prussian marching song?
ua-cam.com/video/kRyD643cbJg/v-deo.html
@@thomaszaccone3960 There were two Brunswick's Brunswick Wolfenbuttel and Brunswick Luneburg also known as the Electorate of Hanover. Hanoverian troops were not sent to the colonies but to British Gibraltar to free up British troops to be sent to the colonies. And Yes Ansbach Bayreuth was a separate principality/Margravate within The Holy Roman Empire, as were the others, until 1791 when the last Margrave Sold it to Prussia
@@bobthomas4514 And who was Prince-Elector of Brunswick-Lunenburg? Some chap called Georg(e) III. The border between the Hanoveranian state and Hesse(n)-Kassel was at Hannoversch-Münden, the place where the Fulda river (runs along Kassel) and Werra river meet to become the Weser. Today it is the border between the Federal states of Hesse and Lower Saxony (Hessen /Niedersachsen). Do you know the account of the German writer Johann Gottfried Seume? Wandering through Hessen-Kassel as a young man he was kidnapped on the road under the pretence of being a tramp and pressed into the army to be "sold" off to fight in America. Once their river barge had crossed the border at Hann-Münden they were on basically Britsh territory. At the mouth of the Weser they were loaded onto the British troop transports. He writes that for fear of the French corsairs of Saint Malo they sailed around Scotland, got into a storm and came very close to Greenland. "We were freezing right in the middle of summer". The crossing took them 20 weeks ! Diseases spred among the men. The drinking water bacame a sticky and stinking green slime that had to be filtered through sailcloth to be halfway "drinkable" again. The biscuits were full of maggots and had to be crushed with cannonballs. The men slept in bunks, not in hammocks. Six men were squeezed into one bunk. It was impossible to lie on one's back. "We were pickled like herrings". When their convoy reached America the war was almost over and Seume did not see any action. He recalls that when they stumbled ashore at some remote coastline (not in a proper port) they found a spring with clear water! "We drank in long, deep gulps, having done without such a refreshment for a long time". More men stormed to that site, caused a landslide and buried the spring. "It took ages to recover and get clear again and the crowd stood around it and mourned for that loss." No wonder that many of the men, those who had no family ties anyway, took the opportunity to stay in America instead of facing such an "Atlantic cruise" ever again.
The cast moves the stock slightly away from the centerline of the barrel and away from the shooter's face. Cast-off moves the stock slightly to the right of the barrel as you are sighting down it, and cast-on moves it to the left of the barrel's centerline. I did fittings for Orvis custom made shotguns for many years. On every single one I ever fit, I used either cast-off (right handed shooter) or cast-on (left handed shooter). It usually wasn't much - 1/4" for most folks and 1/2" once for a fellow with a wide face. The least I ever did was a cast-off was 1/8" on a woman with a narrow face.
The reason for adjusting the cast with the custom fit was to get the eye of the shooter centered over the barrel when it was properly mounted. With the proper amount of cast, the shooter didn't need to make any adjustments after mounting the gun to get the correct sight picture or in the case of a rifle sight alignment. With a straight stock, that is impossible to do because it will require every shooter to tilt his head over the stock a bit to line up the sights. With a properly fit shotgun, the length of pull, cast on or off, drop at heel, and drop at comb, should put your eye centered on and just barely above the barrel at the conclusion of a proper gun mount.
With a shotgun this allows you to use the instinctive shooting method. With your shotgun at the ready you focus on the front of the bird (clay pigeon). When you mount the gun, you should not have to make any sighting adjustments. If mounted correctly, and you are concentrating on the bird, when the gun mount is mounted you pull the trigger and powder the target. There is no waiting.
With a rifle that you need to aim, the aiming becomes much easier because your eye already has the sights aligned. I have two longrifles myself. One is a straight stock and one has 1/4" of cast-off. The one with the 1/4" cast-off brings the sights up very nicely aligned. You can acquire and fire at a target much more quickly if you don't have to make a bunch of sight picture adjustments. So it's safe to say that Jaeger rifle was made to fit a particular shooter. There were no rifle barrel making machines at the time. That swamped barrel was hammer forge-welded out of wrought iron, which is an incredibly labor intensive process and why they typically cost a year's wages to buy.
Honestly, much as I love a Dickert or Beck rifle, Jaeger style rifles are my favorites!
The Marshall Rifle is pretty awesome.
I couldn't agree more.
That's a beautiful Jaeger
Watched this 3 times over. Absolutely gorgeous, even though it's plain I actually appreciate that and have a idea of how much work went into making this Jaeger.
Thank you
Thanks for watching Nick. I love sharing these original pieces with you and everyone else who watches.
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Thank you for taking the time to write back.
I have since seeing this clip added far more depth in the patch box by just using chisels. Now I can fit jags a worm flints etc.
Its not original but nice!
That one is a dandy for sure. I’d definitely love to add a jaeger to my gun cabinet.
You'd look good in this Seth
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Christmas is coming. Let my wife know. ;)
I noticed the swamped barrel right off. Beautiful piece. German and Austrian craftsmanship is right there with early American firearms.
That is one sweet piece there! I keep eyeing up the model offered by Chambers. But with the looming winter, and heat & electric doubling in cost? Yeah, Im not rich by any means. Lol Thanks for showing that
I understand your pain! I’d love to build the Chambers Jaeger soon as well but other things are coming up
Nice! Check out Jack Hinson, CSA sniper during the civil war and his specially made ML he used to shoot US troops
I built a British Baker rifle a few years ago. You can tell the Brits took a lot from the German design
Quite consciously. The German rifle was the British army standard. They purchased many in Germany, contracted for copies in England too plus making their own (first ever Pattern) Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle and continued the type with the Baker Infantry Rifle later on.
Jaeger is not a Company (means „Hunter“) and there was Light Infanterie an Sharpshooters. Like Napoleon Tirailleurs.
A military group carrying the jaeger rifle was commonly referred to as a “company” in my experience researching
@@ILoveMuzzleloading It sounds the same 😉 „Kompanie“ is „Squadron“ , „Company“ is a word for business
Lovely Jaeger very well presented. Thank you. IIRC only one regiment had Jaegers with bayonets but my reference books are in France so I cannot say which.
Might try a smart phone translator sometime, I hear one of the Google apps can translate text through the camera lens. Would be best to see what it says
Cast off puts your eye in line with the sights without having to tip your head over. The piece will just line up with your eye when you shoulder the arm.
@0:41 kind of funny to see the stock splintered where the barrel pin comes out. I've made that same mistake, funny and interesting to see they also had that problem back in the day.
Hello from Phoenix, AZ.
Me too :-(
@@christianx8494 I think everyone does at some point. I chalk it up to part of the learning process.
Amen! I’ve done it too
cool video Ethan.
Thanks Jeff!
I own an original 1760's jaeger that I replaced the barrel, using a Rice custom that duplicates the original, and took it to South Africa in 2022 and shot an antelope. When was the last time that this weapon collected meat?
That's incredible! I'd love to hear more!
@@ILoveMuzzleloading I collect original flint muzzleloaders and took that one to South Africa 2022 July.
I replaced the barrel with a Rice barrel, 62 cal rifled, 32 inch long 1.130 at breech, swamped, just like the original. I replace barrels and or locks by modifying new metal without changing original wood because I love shooting history. I'll try to send pictures but I'm a dinosaur, got to learn how.
The inside of the patchboxes of those rifles was almost never polished or lined with felt or something. I have a middle 18th century wheellock that has a block of lead that is crudely hammered into the bottom of its patchbox to add more counterweight to the heavy barrel, indicating that those late wheellocks were mainly used for target shooting. That kind of bayonet that has a slot in its (brass) grip which slides over the bar at the muzzle is commonly called "Hirschfänger". "stag-catcher"? Well, German hunter's language, often ridiculed as "hunter's latin", uses its own terms or uses common German words in a different context. "Fangen" in this context does not mean "to catch" but to give the animal the coup-de-grace. "Hirschfänger" therefore is a kind of long bowie-knife that any huntsman carried around at his belt. When the first sharpshoters were equipped with those rifles in the 18th century the question was on the agenda how those men could defend themselves against footsoldiers or horsemen when they had fired their shot and had no time to reload. As an octagonal barrel does not allow a socket bayonet, the idea was born to fix a longer version of that hunter's knife at the muzzle.
Origin? Germany (including Austria with its possessions like Bohemia) in that period was the "Holy Roman Empire". It was a strictly federal state with a complicated constitutional structure. Each of its hundreds of bigger and partially very small members had its own forces but they were organized in what was called "Reichskreise". (Kreis=circle/here number of individuals who work together). Each of them was responsible to have a certain amount of men under arms, plus horses and artillery. Especially the very small German states had neither the logistics nor the financial means to have its own arms' industry or staff that developed new models of muskets, pistols, swords, rifles... Logically they bought the same arms as the big states did. So you have a great number of "look-a-likes" that puzzle collectors as they do not have the expected signatures or stamps. As a side effect that meant that some standardization of calibers and ammonition took place. Not all of those arms bear military stamps or engraved letters/numbers from arsenals or troops that used them. That makes it almost impossbible to say where an individual musket or rifle comes from. The small state of Ansbach Bayreuth could well be the origin of this rifle. The Ansbach-Bayreuth rifle is very, very similar to the Prussian rifle of that period. The triggerguard with its characteristic "drop" at the rear end indicates a source from the area that is associated with places like Suhl and Zella-Mehlis. German collectors call it the "Saxon triggerguard", though those places are in Thuringia. It gives the shooter a good grip. The famous Baker rifle follows that tradition as well.
Thanks for all the great information!!
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Welcome, if you have questions about German(ic) arms, please feel free to contact me.
Lots of Hessian history can be seen in Central NJ and East PA
Very cool!
Thank you Rodney!
Castoff was and is designed intentionally to bring the rifle’s sights in line with the eye for ease of sighting
Yep!
What do you think about Napoleon ´so voltigeur light infantry 🤔
They look pretty neat to me!
I'm sure plenty of these changed hands during the War and saw Rebel use. Great piece, definitely military.
Never seen one with a bayonet lug
Can it be that all those dents on the stock in front of the patchbox come from constant "hammering" against the metal fittings of a pouch or cartridge box or whatsoever during hours and hours of marching as well as from the mallet that was used to force the patchbox to slide open?
Thats a great thought, I hadn’t considered repeated dents from other accoutrements!
@@ILoveMuzzleloading Can it be that the original fastening of the sling is lost? A typical German rifle of that period has a loop over the middle fastening of the barrel (which is then a bolt and not a pin) and a woodscrew with a 3/4 to 1 inch wide head at the underside of the rear stock. The sling has a simple slot in its rear end that goes over that big head.
Used by the British? Did the British use them? I know some of the queens rangers did
Did any one else notice the hash marks on the check rest
What's your best guess for auction value?
(Because it's super cool and I want it)
Haha I'm terrible at that. Rock Island Folks might have some insight
Caliber?
62 I believe he said....
Shame it can’t talk
So it's a Baker, before the Baker.
The Baker grandaddy perhaps
I enjoy your channel but will not subscribe due to the focus on modern inline guns.
No Sweat! Thanks for watching
Who cares...keep it to yourself