"Civil War Carbines - Myth vs Reality" - Peter Schiffers

[PJ Hardtack]

A rifle I haven't added to my inventory as yet is a Spencer carbine. When I do it will be a Taylor's repro in 56-50. In the meantime, like the rest of you, I enjoy reading about them and other period arms.
I recently bought a copy of the above mentioned book in which the author tested original arms with 'original' ammunition as close as he could make it or have it made. Unlike other books on ACW carbines, he scientifically tested them (11 types) as would a modern gun reviewer.
He was very thorough and left no stone unturned. He made bullet moulds, duplicated factory lubes, adapted cases to rim fire, etc. His live fire testing was at 55, 110 and 220 metres (Schiffers is German) and the results were often surprising - good and bad.
His carbine was a civilian model 1860 in VG condition, modified with centrefire breechblock.
He was disappointed in the accuracy he got which he attributed to the 1 x 49" rate of twist and the 8.74 lb. trigger pull. Mechanically, nothing went wrong, which he felt compensated for the overall poor accuracy. He rated it "adopted".

ISBN: 1-931464-33-2 Available from Andrew Mowbray, editor 'Man at Arms' magazine, Woonsocket RI, 02895

[JimBob]

Good book.I liked his info on how he recreated period loadings,he went to some lenghts to reproduce them. Here's the publishers site http://www.gunandswordcollector.com/Templates/catalog.html But a word of advice lol,don't go there you'll be doomed,too many good books to resist,poverty will follow you the rest of the days of your life.

[5judge]

This has been three days of firsts for me. Visiting up in Virginia, I finally sought out Cedar Mountain battlefield (easy to interpret if you'd read-up on the engagement) which is in private hands and still pretty-much unspoiled. I also finally found Brandy Station battlefield and, Sunday, first visited the NRA firearms museum. There I purchased this Schiffers book. Today I bore out the authour's experience regarding the innaccuracy of the 56-56 Spencer carbine. Got mine to the range for the first time this morning. It is not a tack driver. But the little rascal afforded me more fun than I've had with a firearm in a long time. It was made for stand-on-ones-hind-legs gong shooting at 75 yards.

[Herbert]

This was a time of big leep forwards in firarms amunition and ballistics understanding was just begining to be undestood,with the 56-56 the twist rate was too slow for the bullet yoused(it does much better with a shorter bullet).just 5 years latter things had improved in leeps and bounds regarding twist rates and bullet lenths(there were still problems with priming and under sized bullets in the 56-50)the bullet size problem was fixed with the 56-52 and by Springfield by sleeving the barells to a smaller groove diameter.

Having stated this there are many glowing reports of the acuracy of the 56-56 during the civil war,some at distances of over 600yds,as for duplicating the original rim-fire 56-56 I can not see how it can be done as the amount of priming in the rim-fire cartridge will give it a very diffrent start than a center-fire cartridge,I found this out by yousing original 56-52 winchester rim-fire amunition in my Spencer ,then trying to duplicat it with center-fire reloads yousing a bullet copied from the original Winchester bullet,results were I could not get 45gr of pouder in the case,got 40gr in heavly compresed,very good acuracy.the rim-fire load was 45gr compesed powdwe and the priming was another 5 gr this was not as acurate as the center-fire load but 220fps faster on average,I suspect the original 56-56 wouls allso be faster than can be achived with center-fire reloads bringing it closer to matching the bullet lenth ,twist rate ,velocity ratio that is needed for best acuracy,but it would still be slow by 200fps in the rifle and worse in the carbine

[JimBob]

To duplicate original loads with components available today is an impossibility.The cases available today,the powder,are altogether different.And if you weren't conducting tests with a mint condition gun the results will be skewed compared to using a worn 100+ year old one.Schiffer did very well using available materials and guns to determine the results he came up with.

[PJ Hardtack]

Jim Bob

I'm glad to see you giving Schiffers just dues. He was exhaustive in his efforts and it must have cost him dearly for his pains. Anyone with an original or repro of the 11 guns he tested would do well to invest in a copy of his book.

I emailed him re: the success of some guns as related to rate of twist. The Sharps & Hankins was overall 'best' with 1x48", the Burnside with a gain twist, the Sharps '63 3rd with 1x49", Maynard 4th with 1x58.5", Merrill 6th with 1x69", Smith 10th with 1x62" and the Gallagher dead last with 1x72".
There appears to be a direct correlation between rate of twist and accuracy, fouling, etc. He agreed, but felt that there were other factors at play as well. Starnage that it took makers so long to clue in re: twist and accuracy. I thought we had that all worked out in the days of muzzleloading.
I remember pals trying to salvage damaged ML rifle barrels by making pistols only to get dismal accuracy from the shortened barrel.
It would have been better to bore them out smooth.

[JimBob]

PJ,

The twist problem still shows up.A lot of guys using older muzzle loaders that have twist rates for round balls then try shooting the newer saboted conicals find out they can't hit anything.Twist rate won't stabilize the conical bullet.Wonder if anyone has ever tried loading a round ball in some of those slow twist carbines and compared the accuracy to a conical bullet?

[Herbert]

I have tryed round balls in 3 band Enfield muzell loaders 1in 78 twist and got better acuracy than with a mine,in the 1 in 48 twist Enfield round balls are not quite as good as the  short mine but better than the long one,I belive the reason the civil war carbines and newer modle rifles had the 1 in 48 twist was because the 2 band Enfield was conciderd the most acurate military rifle about,so the twist rate was copied not realising that bullet lenth,groove diameter and velocity had just as much to do with acuracy ,this was picked up fast by Springfield and experments were started to fix this in early 1864 and by 1873 the 45-70 & 44-40 rifles had this worked out very well It was not untill the 1880s that maths could be yoused to work this out with confidence.Over the last few decades this problem has shown up again with twists way to fast for cartridges yoused in some rifles fist by Uberti with the 1in 18 twist for the 44-40(now fixed to1 in 36 for the 200gr .429 bullet,very acurate)then the rest of the Italian makers of pistol caliber rifles,some have relised there mistakeb others do not seem to care,fast twists can allso be a problem in magnum revolvers unless the longest bullet posible is yoused,though I have noticed lately that slower twist rates are being yoused by pistol silowett shooters

[JimBob]

Amazing isn't it,they're rediscovering that the technology about twist rates and bullet weights and lengths although over 100 years old is still valid.The 1 in 48 twist used in muzzle loading barrels on so many modern guns seems to be a compromise to try and shoot round balls and conicals both and doen't work all that well with either.