Trad enough fer ye?

[GF.]

Opened up Grandpaw's Gun Vault and found his grandpaw's 1860 .58 Springfield...

With bayonet. And a full horn o' powder. It has great-great grandpaw's name and... what would it be, the regiment? Massachusetts 3rd Volunteers...

Some of the metal is still nearly white - though damn little has not acquired a natural 'brown' to it. The hammer was chromed or nickel-plated or whatever they used, and is still as bright as the bumper on a restored '57 Chevy. The brass is still bright enough, too....

Looking over the barrel toward the breech end, you can see how heavy a toll the powder and the corrosive primers took. Interestingly enough, the nipple looks like it would fit a No. 11 cap, rather than a musket cap, but I haven't tried on on there.


I'd expect that it's still in shootable condition, though I'm not entirely sure I'd trust it with a hunting charge.... But it would be something else to put just a cap through it, wouldn't it?:cool:

[Badger]

GF,

Very interesting find. FIRST, please be sure that muzzleloader is NOT already loaded BEFORE you put a cap on it! MANY Old guns over fireplaces all over America are LOADED and the owners do not have a clue.

In the Civil War, I did not ever read where troops used powder horns; rather, paper cartridges were employed. As a CW reenactor and president of my county historical society, I wonder if your musket is a M1860. There was a M1855 Springfield, an M1861 and an M1863. Your lockplate may, in fact, say 1860 indicating the date of manufacture.

You are fortunate to have an arm linking your past.

Badger

[DaveHawk]

For Traditional CW ya, That's cool you have that link. A treasure for sure GF!

Where the picture GF?

[Twanger]

Yeah, like, where are the pics!

[GF.]

Honest!

And once I master getting the images from the camera onto the puker... er...um... 'puter... well, then I can show you Grandpaw's Win 1886 .40-82 WCF, the Model 90 .22 pump, and the S&W Model 2 Army .32 short RF, too!

But yeah, this one does say 1860 on the lock plate, and there's a trademark of some sort stamped in there which I think I should be able to look up, since he was a student of just about everything and had a few reference books around on early American gunmakers.

And rest assured - the first thing I did with both the .58 and the 12-ga. was to insert the ramrod and check the depth to make sure they were dropping all the way to the breech. Just in case... But no way would Grandpaw have been so sloppy as to put those old shooters into storage loaded. Especially not in such a humid environment as the NE... But you've still gotta check, check and re-check, 'cuz only 'unloaded' guns cause accidents.

The shotgun is never going to see another load, though... it has seen so much use that the wedge pin rests loosely in a large hole with daylight all around the pin.

And the real shame of it all is that while these old shooters seem to fit me to a T, the fact is that my wife's brothers have the claim to all of these long guns. Neither one of 'em hunts. The last thing the younger of the two 'fired' was probably some form of missile from an anti-sub warfare helo, and the older of the two - despite qualifying 'expert' with a .223 when he was on loan to the Army a while back - has never been a shooter outside o' that experience in Iraq...

If I'm real, real lucky, I may figure out how to borrow the .40-82 for an Elk hunt some day - or maybe even just one of the local whitetails.

Hell, maybe Fortune will smile and I'll get to do both :D

[DaveHawk]

GF possession is 99.9 % of ownership LOL

[GF.]

But when the other claimant is a foot taller, twice your weight and in pretty good condition.... with an Expert marksman badge... and access to a bomber....:rolleyes:


Sometimes it's better to be polite about it

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D