Rifle info: Springfield....1879?

[natedog]

A friend of mine has a very interesting piece. It is an old rifle inherited from a grandfather. It has about a 30" barrel (just guessing by looking at it). It is very old, and on the side of the reciever is engraved "US SPRINGFIELD" and on the top is the marking "SPRINGFIELD MODEL 1879". It is a single shot rifle, with a latch that opens up the top, where a single cartridge can be inserted. The bore is still very shining, with ok (but not very deep) rifling. The bore is enormous, almost half an inch wide. I assume that it is a 45/70 because I believe the United States adopted a single-shot rifle in 45/70 at about that time. There is some surface wear and discoloratioin, but overall it is in good mechanical shape. Can anyone tell me approximate value/ and if it is safe to shoot? SHould we get it checked out by a gunsmith first? Also, I understand that the 45/70 was originally a blackpowder cartridge. This rifle appears to be old enough to be from that era, so assume that shooting new smokeless powder 45/70 would cause a KB in the rifle. Any blackpowder 45/70 cartridges still around? Thank you all for your info....

(PS...it has a wicked looking 2 foot long bayonet too )

 

[Detritus]

Are yu telling me that you've been around this board for almost a year and you have to ASK wheter an 1879 Springfield, is a 45/70 trapdoor Springfield is??? I can tell You haven't been keeping up with the "old gun" threads. tsk-tsk lol

Yes, your friend has an old trapdoor, 3rd Model I think, (unless Custer's men went to little big horn with 50/70s). First "trapdoor" aka Allin Conversion, aka "Needle gun" rifles were converted muskets, the "lock work/ receiver" replacing the lockwork and a section of the breech end of the barrel. and retained a .50cal bore size, then a change was made to .45 bore, and new round and several models/improvements were made, up until just prior to the Spanish/American war when the Army began to change over to the Krag, and the Marines (shortly) to the Lee-Navy

Yes (if the gun is in acceptable shape, need gunsmioth familiar with it to take a look) there is comercially available ammo that is safe to shoot in this gun. In fact I THINK that good condition tradoors are the standard by which typical NON-"super-load" 45/70 is loaded, but others can tell you better. Remember that unless the box ID CLEARLY marked (as in "DON"T PUT THESE IN A TRAPDOOR OR SHARPS STUPID!!") that the ammo company has to make the load safe for use in any reasonable arm that you might put it in. (this is why certain Cor-bon and other "heavy" 45 Colt and 45-70 round say "only in X-type guns" on the box, so you don't, stick a high pressure load in a Colt SAA (or clone) or trapdoor, or to some extent sharps or vintage rolling block.)

There ARE a few companies making comercial BP and BP-substitute loads for the 45/70, though since i've been away from the need or want of BP for a bit (gettng laid off, and having to put off the purchase of a sharps, killed my interest in pursuing a source of BP loaded rounds) I don't recall who they were, Black Hills, Ten-X (just check they DO have BP 45-70 here's the price list ) and Old western scrounger come to mind.

Well that's what I know of this, others will give better info I know.

Have fun

P.S. I still remember the first trapdoor I ever shot; it was an early 50-70 cavalry carbine conversion. Was really neat to think that I had near 130 year old gun in my hand that had probably seen more than I would ever known.

 

[Kaylee]

unless custer's men went to little big horn with 50/70s

They did.

I know nothing of the trapdoor other'n that, but I was at the battlefield last year and the museum had several 50/70s. I think the 45/70 was a year or two off at that point?

-K

 

[Detritus]

then the 1879 is the 2nd style that introed the 45-70. thus 3 years after LBH.

if yo think the early M-16 ammo sucked...... you've never been issued a ruptured case extractor with your rifle!! the 7th would have ridden out with 50-70 rifles, using copper case inside primed rounds. unlike Brass copper does NOT "spring-back" after the round is fired, it stays at maximum expansion and holds fairly tight to the chamber walls. this plus combat use of the gun (heavy fouling without time to clean the chamber..) plus the Allin-conversions' "knife like" extractor resulted WAY too many guns put out of action due to stuck cases with ripped off case heads, or simply "stuck rounds" you try, even shoving a cleaning/ram rod, down the barrel of YOUR gun while being attack by a bunch of pissed off, well armed Souix. much less using that "stuck/ruptured case extractor" the army gave the troops.

the big improvement that came with or at least soon after the change to 45/70 (adn was later applied to all further supplies of ammo for the 50-70's still in the supply chain) was the change to outside (i think boxer) primed brass case ammo. not only did this allow for better/easier extraction, but the major selling point to the army was that any spent rounds recovered after a battle, could be reloaded using fresh powder adn lead from the "supply train" and a small had tool given to each soldier/trooper (i always wonder how long THAT lasted)

 

[Jim Watson]

Everybody says get them checked out by a gunsmith, so do that.

To shoot on ceremonial occasions, scout around to find smokeless ammunition loaded to black powder pressures WITH LEAD BULLETS. These old barrels are pretty soft and it won't take many jacketed bullets to do detectable wear. One of the Cowboy ammo lines would be ok.

A friend got out his '84 Springfield Monday. Run the Buffington sight up to 350 and he was getting "minute of hostile" accuracy at 300 meters with no trouble at all. I tried it and could not hit anywhere near the gong target. Turns out he was using the notch window and I was using the peep. Seems like that could be a liability in the heat of action; which sight do I use, Mr Custer?

 

[Detritus]

Seems like that could be a liability in the heat of action; which sight do I use, Mr Custer?

and just think the buffington was the IMPROVED sight (ie custer's men had the more basic original sights)
actually once you're told how it all works teh Buffington sight supposedly ranks near the deletion of Hardtack from the supply chain, for "good thing been done" .

 

[Mike Irwin]

The military experimented with a number of different priming systems after the Civil War. The kind that was eventually chosen for service was designed by Captain Stephen Benet (I think I have the name right). Essentially, it was an inside primed centerfire.

Here's a pic I took of a .45-70 Benet primed round. I've got this one and a .45 S&W with the same priming system in my collection

Copper was used for rifle cases up through the early 1880s for one main reason -- brass is quite a bit harder than copper, and the equipment used for drawing cases simply couldn't make the kind of deep draws necessary to make a case this long.

Until the machinery and the brass mixtures were perfected, the military pretty much had to stick with copper cased ammo.

It's interesting to see how the British dealt with this problem. To deal with the fact that they couldn't draw brass, they used a rolled brass foil/cardboard sandwich for the bodies on the .577 and .577/.450 cartridges. The body was rolled, and then inserted into a punched brass cup. An iron washer was placed on the back of the cup, and a hollow rivet was run through all three pieces, holding the whole thing together. The primer was then set into the hollow rivet, making it look not unlike a shotshell.

 

[Sunray]

Before you go shooting it, have it appraised by a reputable antique gun dealer. It may be far too valuable to be shooting. A quick net search shows them running a $1,000US plus. Shooting it, Especially with modern BP, which is not the same as the stuff Custer's lot had in their 45/70(not 50/70)Trap Door carbines, can drop the value considerably.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Custer's lot had in their 45/70(not 50/70)Trap Door carbines"

Custer's troops were among the last to get the 1873 carbine to replace the 1866 .50-70 rifles.

But, archaeological excavations at the Little Big Horn battlefield show that Custer's men weren't firing .45-70 cartridges in their Carbines...

They were firing the issue .45-55 carbine round.

 

[Grump]

Ah'm gittin' aould!

Okay, I WASN'T there, but here's a rough chronology:

1873: Adopt the purpose-built, all-original .45-70 Rifle, firing a 405-gr bullet on top of 70 grains of compressed BP. The loading technique minimized fouling.

When the carbine was adopted, the 55-gr charge was standard for one of the supply chain loads.

AFIK, most of Custer's troops were issued .45-70 carbines. Custer hissef and a very few other ossifers carried .50-70s (the first all-new trapdoor design, not converted from 1861 MZ muskets). Some people just gotta be "special" that way. An American Heritage or some other historical article I read somewhere between 1976 (the 100-yr anniversary) and 1996 mentioned how the archaologist types were trying to track Custer's movements by the spent cartridges left behind. His shells were noticeably shorter and fatter, etc.

It mighta been around 1883 that they went to the 500-grain bullet, which required a new rear sight for the even MORE rainbow trajectory--by today's standards. .45 was then considered smallbore by the military. Sheesh. The genius of the Buffington sight was its built-in correction for the bullet's drift to the right at long range (it's a bullet rotation thing).

The .45-70 was perhaps the U.S. military's first success in building a combat rifle that could shoot targets at long range and do it well. Unfortunately, the shell casing distribution at the Little Big Horn massacre site (indiginous peoples' victory site?) suggests that the natives with pistol caliber carbine repeaters (leverguns) understood the long-range accuracy potential of the fairly new cartridge arms much better than the troops did.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Hey Mike, what was 7th Cav. Sgt. John Ryan shooting from his rifle. It was a private purchase Sharps with a telescope.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Gary,

Beats me, as I've never heard about him before.

But, given that it was a target rifle, with a scope....

A popular Sharps target rifle cartridge of that time was the .44-77, introduced in 1875.

Other possibilities could have been:

.40-50 BN

.40-70 BN

.40-90 BN

.44-60 BN

.44-90 BN

.45-90

.50-90

Now, that said, it could also have been chambered for the .45-75 Sharps, which was nothing more than Sharps' version of the .45-70 round. I think that's a strong possibility.

All of the cartridges above were introduced in 1876 or before, meaning that they could have been his chambering.

Here's the kicker, though.

Sharps also would chamber one of their rifles for other cartridges, apparently including some of the earlier Peabody target cartridges and... the .50-70 Government.

Who knows...

 

[Jagermeister]

Here is some more info on the subject:

for more information go to:

http://members.tripod.com/firearmsresearch

JM

 

[Iggy]

A somewhat modified 1879 Springer

View attachment 331815

I believe there was a Dr. with Reno's outfit that had a Sharps. He was killed during the retreat up the bluff from the LBH.
Custer was reputed to be carrying a Remington 50 Cal.

Captain French with F Company had a Trapdoor Rifle and used the longer ramrod to clear jammed fired cases out of his troopers carbines. Sgt Ryan also helped troopers in clearing fouled cases from troopers carbines.

There were ruptured 45-70 cases found in some of the Indian firing positions that were assumed to have been ammo taken from Custer's dead troopers and fired in 50-70 guns that the reservation Indians had at the battle.