Antique mall trapdoor

[Drydock]

One of the guys at the Muster borrowed it when his Pedersoli broke.  Had a lot of fun with it.

[Drydock]

I used it at our local Cowboy/GAF match, paired with an 1851 Conversion revolver, dressed in USN whites, calling it (as suggested above) my "line throwing gun".  Great fun!  And a clean match.

[Drydock]

One small mystery solved: the barrel band is one made for the 17000 or so Carbines made from 1874-1879 with stacking swivels.  Somebody at the armory thought this was a good idea?  Reports from the field disabused this notion, so most were removed/replaced, returned to the armory and destroyed.  This a fairly rare part.  Interesting that the experimentals in the Waite & Ernst book show the same barrel band?

Oh, the stories I suspect this gun could tell!

[Major 2]

Found this at an antique mall, half buried under a pile of society swords.  When the lady pulled it off the shelf for me and I got my first good look at it, the first thing that popped into my head was "Jaeger".  My bore light showed a nice shiny barrel with sharp rifling

It's mostly M1884, serial number puts it in the 1st quarter of 1888.  An M1879 rifle sight, and the front sight appears to be hammered out of an old (wheat or earlier) penny.  An old conversion, but well done really,  probably started as a rifle with a bent barrel, someone did a lot of work to the stock to get everything to fit.  Barrel is 20" from breech to muzzle.  The sights appear dead on at 50 yards so far.  Trigger is good, 5 lbs or so with just a touch of creep.  A couple of minor cracks, in non load bearing areas.

Waite and Ernst have pictures of at least 3 experimental carbines that look a LOT like this, I was surprised to find.  For $300 (!) A fun walking around rifle.  It handles really well, with the balance point right beneath the block hinge.  Very lively in the hands, the longer stock feeling better in the forehand as it shoulders.

Maybe someday I'll take it down and make a heavy barrel target rifle with it . . .

Since this thread resurfaced in a link on another thread , I revisited it and can can appreciate the attraction to the above
Springfield Hybrid    Drydock bought



I too have cool  short rifle, It was in a collection some 50 years and I decided it need to bark again....

Course it needed conversion from rimfire to centerfire , the bore was mint !

It is a Model 1869-71  Swiss Vetterli Boarder Carbine...and here are other variations on the theme  (Norm Sutton Collection)

and finally my rounds based on Berthier brass & made up box

[The Pathfinder]

Got to admit I do like the look of your ... rifle? I had an 1870 Trapdoor in 50-70 so figured why not and went looking for a 45-70. Found one at the LGS in pretty good shape for $300. Took it home and started to go over it. The bloody thing had been repaired(?) at the lock area, front half of the stock was all 1873, rear half was all 1863 musket, and it was set up with a couple of inches of cast off! They even bent the trigger plate! Quick trip to OGCA and worked with the folks from Trapdoors Inc and I replaced the stock and trigger plate bringing her back to her all original (in appearance anyway) glory. Now I've seen and handled guns with cast off before, but never on a trapdoor. Someone obviously pit a lot of effort into making her that way, and if it ever does pass on the original parts will go with her. She must have made somebody a real nice hunting piece at one time.