Rifle identification?

FiremarshalBill

Private
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
My friend has this rifle hanging on the wall in her den and believes it to be her great-great-grandfather's rifle from the Civil War. I don't want to burst her relic history bubble, but with double set triggers and a patch box, I seriously doubt if this is an ACW vintage musket issued by a Massachusetts Infantry regiment. The little S&W Model 1 revolver may have a Civil War connection, but can anyone give me a clue to what the rifle might be?
 

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If it is genuine, and over the past forty years or so tons of these were made as replicas, for black powder hunting, it is a Plains rifle, popular in the west from before the Civil War. Some of these plains rifles were used by armies, both Union and Confederate, in the Western theater of operations, especially the Trans Mississippi region. I doubt it would have been issued to a Mass regiment because of the difficulty of ammunition resupply. The caliber of these plains rifles was usually about .50 or so. The set triggers made for somewhat more accurate long range shooting. What could best help in identifying the gun is a well lit close up of the lock and the top of the barrel near the lock. Please tell the owner not to store the rifle with hammer cocked. That will weaken and damage the main spring.
 
So many of these sporting type of rifles that have been in a family for eons are automatically thought to be CW usage since it is a muzzle loader with a hammer and percussion nipple. The odds are highly against it being such.
 
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If it is genuine, and over the past forty years or so tons of these were made as replicas, for black powder hunting, it is a Plains rifle, popular in the west from before the Civil War. Some of these plains rifles were used by armies, both Union and Confederate, in the Western theater of operations, especially the Trans Mississippi region. I doubt it would have been issued to a Mass regiment because of the difficulty of ammunition resupply. The caliber of these plains rifles was usually about .50 or so. The set triggers made for somewhat more accurate long range shooting. What could best help in identifying the gun is a well lit close up of the lock and the top of the barrel near the lock. Please tell the owner not to store the rifle with hammer cocked. That will weaken and damage the main spring.

I told her the same thing about the cocked hammer but apparently the main spring is already broken so tension isn't an issue. I'll try to get her to send me a close up photo of the lock and top of the barrel.
 
Sorry to jump into this thread late ... but is that a correct holster for the Model 1? If it is, would you mind posting a close-up of it? Model 1 holsters are pretty rare and I'm always interested to see them.

Mike
 
Sorry to jump into this thread late ... but is that a correct holster for the Model 1? If it is, would you mind posting a close-up of it? Model 1 holsters are pretty rare and I'm always interested to see them.

Mike
They would have been private purchase items, I'm not certain there really is a "correct" holster for a S&W. I know of at least one that was never carried in a holster at all but in the breast pocket of the officers private purchase sack coat.
 
They would have been private purchase items, I'm not certain there really is a "correct" holster for a S&W. I know of at least one that was never carried in a holster at all but in the breast pocket of the officers private purchase sack coat.

I agree with you about them being private purchase items, although it's possible that S&W's wholesaler (Joseph W. Storrs, and later Marcus Robinson) were also selling holsters that they sourced from heaven-knows-where.

It looks like the barrel of your Model 1 is nickeled. If it's a factory full-plate model, then it's somewhat rarer than the more common variety (with the silver plated frame and the blued cylinder and barrel).

Mike
 
The more I look at this musket, the more I think it's from the shop of someone like Joab Hapgood, who was importing various gun parts from Europe and assembling them into muskets / rifles in his shop (in addition to making some of his own manufacture). Something about the trigger guard and the patch box hints at that.

I'd wager that it was not a military issued weapon, but that's not to say that someone didn't sling it over their shoulder and carry it off into the war.

Mike
 
That back action lock kinda fits into that category too.

Personally I think it was owned by pappy during the CW but left at home and he carried what was issued.
So in lawyer speak, it WAS his during the CW and of the time but not carried by him.
Just like when I was in the military, I had a house full of firearms but carried the govt issued M4 while enlisted.
 
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I don't know about Massachusetts but in the western theater that might have been brought from home and kept by a sharpshooter because it would have been far more accurate than an issue musket. Civil War connection or not, that is a very nice rifle and should be treasured. Do you know what the bore is? Caliber is the decimal of an inch, ergo a half inch bore is .50 caliber.
 
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