Jeff in Ohio
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2015
I don't want to renew that earlier thread from the owner of a standard looking Birmingham made Model 1853 rifle-musket with lockplate date he read as 1868, but most posters insisted must be a deeply stamped 1863.
It occurred to me that the Snider conversions to cartridge had later dated lockplates, and a quick internet search finds lots with lockplates with dates up into the 1870s. I think these are interchangeable with the model 1853s (only the hammer is different between the Model 1853 rifle-muskets and the later Sniders), and so his gun could have had that lock changed, or perhaps more likely, was a parts gun completed from parts on hand in the later 1860s and at that time, a Snider lockplate dated 1868 used.
It occurred to me that the Snider conversions to cartridge had later dated lockplates, and a quick internet search finds lots with lockplates with dates up into the 1870s. I think these are interchangeable with the model 1853s (only the hammer is different between the Model 1853 rifle-muskets and the later Sniders), and so his gun could have had that lock changed, or perhaps more likely, was a parts gun completed from parts on hand in the later 1860s and at that time, a Snider lockplate dated 1868 used.
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