Yup, quite a few muzzleloading hammer Purdey's, Boss guns, and other English bests at The Little Bighorn. I've no doubt "Liver Eatin" Johnson owned a pair of best's that he used to strike fear into the indians he encountered. The early, unsettled American west was, of course, where those English best's were marketed, and where they sold the most of them. Thousands, no doubt. The wagon trains were full of stinking rich American settlers on the way out west to open new bank branches, and needed best bird guns to help slay the buffalo. Any day, we can expect to see pictures of the hammer, muzzleloading Parker Invincable they built so many copies of.
Good Lord, 1958, pay attention. The English CLUNG to muzzleloaders until economics forced them to build breechloaders, and forced them later to move the hammers inside. The best builders were especially myopic to this technological change. This is a historical fact. What poor people did in the countryside of the United States with Kentucky rifles has nothing to do with the discussion.
Best,
Ted