Special Robinson Model 1872 Repeating Rifle by Adirondack Firearms Co. with Heavy Barrel and Full-Length Magazine Tube

Serial #62, .41 RF, 24" heavy octagon barrel with a fine, bright bore that has some freckling and mild pitting within the grooves near the muzzle.  This is a plain, unadorned rifle, built on Orville Robinson’s April 23, 1872, patent, and utilizes a manually-operated toggle lock that rides in a mortise along the top of the receiver operated via a knurled handle on the right side.  The brass frame has an overall dull yellow-ochre patina, but without the impact marks often found on one or both ends of the barrel pin.  The bolt, rear toggle link, and loading gate have an overall mottled gray and plum-brown patina, while the toggle action, though functional, binds when closed and can only be opened via pushing the cartridge lifter up to its fully raised position before operating the bolt handle.  The barrel has an overall plum-brown patina with mild silvering at the muzzle and along the edges of the barrel facets.  The unusual full-length magazine tube retains about 70-75% of the original blue finish, with the balance freckled to a dark brown color.  A period German silver blade front sight and rear semi-buckhorn sight with screw-adjustable elevation are installed.  The walnut buttstock is in very good shape, with only minor handling marks and small blemishes scattered about the original varnish, but there is a stable 1" stress crack on the left side of the wrist running back from the frame juncture along the top tang.  This is a very nice Adirondack rifle, in an unusual configuration.  Antique

Orville Moses Robinson was an upstate New York gunsmith and inventor who received three US patents for breech-loading and repeating firearms.  In 1870 Robinson, in partnership with A.S. Babbitt and two others, formed the Adirondack Firearms Co. to manufacture rifles based on his patents at their manufactory in Plattsburgh, NY.  The firm is known to have employed Daniel Wilkinson (possibly J.D. Wilkinson, another upstate New York gunmaker and inventor) and Robinson’s son, William (who would’ve been about 10 years old at the formation of the company!)  Adirondack Firearms Co. operated until 1874, ultimately producing what is thought to be slightly fewer than 1,000 rifles of all types, when it was purchased by the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. and permanently shut down.  The Adirondack Firearms Co., and Robinson’s repeating rifle designs, represent an interesting footnote in the then rapidly advancing field of repeating breechloading long guns.