This long rifle utilizes a system similar to Isaac de la Chaumette's early 18th century design which employs a screw in breech plug connected to the trigger guard which was also later improved by Patrick Ferguson and Durs Egg. However, on this example, instead of a normal flash pan and vent arrangement, the pan is partially grooved into the breechblock and top of the barrel, and the flash is communicated through a small channel at the edge of the breechblock. Another example of this priming style with a different lock design by Brion c. 1730 is noted in "The Ferguson Rifle and Its Origins" by W. Keith Neal in the American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin in 1974. He notes that the Brion design used prepared paper cartridges which were stored in a compartment in the stock. Our present example also has a stock compartment. The barrel has three-groove rifling and a blade front sight. The furniture is iron. The screw-heads have floral engraving, and the cock is nicely sculpted. Otherwise, the metal is mostly plain. The stock has fine checkering on the forend and wrist.

Very good with silver-gray patina overall, some minor pitting mostly by the pan, and generally minor overall wear. The stock has a hairline crack at the upper tang/lock and is otherwise also fine and has crisp checkering, nice oiled finish, and light handling and storage wear. Mechanically fine. This is a very rare rifle. Chaumette and Ferguson pattern breechloading flintlocks are extremely scarce in general, and we have never seen one of this pattern before!