New Canadian Spencer Shooter (..... in waiting NO LONGER .....)

[U.S.M.R.]

The .50 AE which is similar to the .56-50 has a 1 in 19 twist and shoots 300-350 grain bullets accuratly.  You need a hard bullet so that it won't strip.  I use 35 grs. triple 7 and get 2 inch groups at 50 yds. offhand.  When I first started shooting mine (rifle and carbine) I used pure lead.  Over 800 fps it used the whole target and then some.  I tried 1 in 20 and got 900 fps before accuracy suffered.  Using No.2 alloy I get about 1200 fps with good accuracy.  I hope this helps.

[Herbert]

With the short bullet ,I have tryed every ting from very hard to soft lead with bad resuls in my 1 in 20 twist rifle,as have others with the same result ,all bad.Have you tryed groups at 100yds,as 50 the bullet is just begining to become unstable.For acurate rifle barrels the are a some thing that must come together for good acuracy(twist rate of barrel,groove diameter of barrel ,lenth of bullet and velocity of bullet).with the AS Spencer the groove diameter is .512,a resonable expected velocity is 900fps,the Lyman 139D 350gr bullet is .725 inches long,now with these spects you can caculate th twist rate needed mor optium stability,this works out to be 1 in 38(use a longer bullet and the twist rate drops,increase the velocity and the twist rate slows)I realise this is optum stability and with a bullet in flight this will not be maintained for the full lenth of the bullets flight but if you start of with a bullet that is not stabilised it is going to fly so eratic that it can never stabilise.This has been fully understood for well over a 100years but gun makers acouasionly decide the laws of motion do not aply to them.and this is just the rifling ,the chamber is allso very important+concistancy of load and lube

[PvtGreg]

Herbert have you tried Trail Boss in any of your experiments with the Armisport 56-50? 

The 350s I'm using are hard lead & I've been using the cut down 32 gauge cases.  I can get the brinell (sp?) rating on the lead when I get home. 

I've been hoping someone out there would try out trail boss and see is they get similar results.  No local shooters here have an armisport rifle. 

I get accuracy good enough to be competitive at the 100 yrd stage of our long distance shoot & I doubt my rifle is at all special.

[Herbert]

I have tryed Trail Boss with the very hard bullets and it does improve acuracy over BP with the same bullet,but I found using the longer bullets made a much improved result.I shoot BP cartridge compititions mostly at 200meters and the original 56-50 with its slower twist was competive,the AS no mater what I tryed was not acurate enough, so I relined the barrel to 1in 36 twist and have since won a couple of local shoots with it.I had no trouble with the acuracy of the 1in 20 twist rate ( my hunting load for this is the NEI 395 gr bullet sized to .515(bullet .790 long) aver 40 gr of heavely compressed Wanno PP BP)up to a 100 meters for hunting ,but for targets it just could not compete.I will cast some Lymann139D in strait Linotype and try them in a friends 56-50 AS rifle and get back to you on the results

[PvtGreg]

Thanks Herbert.

I think I'm going to try the longer 450s and see what happens.  If not maybe its time for a relining.

[Herbert]

I just tryed the staight linotype bullets (Lyman139D )and improved groups by 1/2 but still a little over 4 inches,I was getting this with the NEI 395-sized to .516 ,I will try it with straight linotype,if it harves the group to 2 inches that would be good enough for me.My 1in 36 twist barrel has no trouble achiving this with this bullet and BP

[sail32]

It would help lessen my confusion if people would specify rife or carbine or barrel length when they add information to a post.

[Herbert]

It would help lessen my confusion if people would specify rife or carbine or barrel length when they add information to a post.

All refrences about loads have been for the AS Spencer rifle with 30 inch barrel and a 1 in 20 inch twist rate ,though these loads will work much better in the AS Spencer carbine with its 1 in 26 twist rate in my opinion

[sail32]

Thank you !

[RattlesnakeJack]

I hate to add to the confusion here regarding twist rates, but Taylor's & Co give that information on their website for the .56-50 Spencers they sell (which are also Armi Sport/Armi Chiappa production).  They indicate a rifling twist rate of one turn in 26" for both the carbine and the rifle .....   

And to introduce yet another fly to the ointment, I have measured the twist rate on my Armi Sport rifle with a tight-fitting bore brush on a rod, measuring the length in which the rod makes one full turn, and come up with 1 turn in 22" ....   

[PvtGreg]

There was a rumor, and I have no idea if its true, that Armisport revamped its Spencer production at the beginning of this year.  Perhaps that's what happened.

Total speculation

[PvtGreg]

Interestingly my armisport rifle is a 1 in 26 twist.  Its 18 months old.

[Herbert]

Interestingly my armisport rifle is a 1 in 26 twist.  Its 18 months old.

My rifle is defintly a 1in 20 inch twist twist rate,the 1in 26 inch twist in your rifle would explain why it groups better than my old 1 in 20 twist barrel.I all so checked my friends rifle and it is a 1 in 20 inch twist ,my serial number is M2139 and I picked it up in 22-11-08,seems very strange that they would go to a 1 in 26 twist,a great improvment in my view then change it to a 1 in 22 twist which will all most certanty decrease acuracy with the short bullets for the 56-50

[U.S.M.R.]

I do not get 1200 fps with that load,it's actually 1000.  Don't know what I was thinking of.  In Marcot's book on page 119 is a letter from Capt. Stockton stating that average velocity is 1030.  I shot my rifle at 100 yds. and got  about a 4 inch group. Considering what this rifle is I'm happy.  I use the Buffalo Arms JIM 515375 bullet.  By the way it has a 1 in 20 twist.

[PJ Hardtack]

This is getting mind bending .....

1 x 22" sounds very fast for the cartridge. I thought 1 x 26"was fast in my Shiloh 50-70, but it was intended for heavy bullets. Fortunately, it stabilizes both 450s and 375s just fine. 600 gr bullets are downright hurtful, so I don't shoot them any more.

But as I mentioned before, my Shiloh 50-70 Military Rifle has 1 x 36" and similarly stabilizes both bullet weights. Velocity seems to be a factor in our differing results on paper.

Grant - put us out of our misery by putting some rounds down range and reporting the results with your 1 x 22" twist rifle.

In the meantime, I'm going to the range with my '03 Springfield and M1 Garand. I KNOW what works in their 1 x 10" twists .... ;>)

[RattlesnakeJack]

Since receiving my Spencer repro, I have acquired (from Blockade Runner) a reproduction 6-tube Blakeslee cartridge box and also a reproduction Pattern 1853 Enfield bayonet, which I hoped would fit the rifle (or at least could be adapted to fit it) since my understanding is that Canadian militiamen issued with Spencer rifles in 1866 used their Enfield bayonets - as would appear to be the case from the photo of the QOR rifleman posted above.

The repro bayonet did not quite fit .... as I had expected would be the case,  having tried an original P'53 bayonet.   When I did that, I could see that the primary problem was that the front sight block on the reproduction Spencer was rather higher than on an Enfield (and presumably also higher than on an original Spencer, if P'53 bayonets did fit them).  I appeared to me that there would be enough "meat" in the arch which passes over the sight blade and block to permit me to increase the height of the slot, so that I wouldn't have to alter the sight on my rifle.  Yesterday I did some filing and fitting along those lines (also needing to square up the slot in the locking ring and dress down the center of its tightening bolt to permit more room for the sight blade and block to pass through) and succeeded in adapting the bayonet to fit the Spencer and lock in place.  The inside diameter of the socket was just a bit too big, resulting in a "rattling fit", but I soon cured that by flowing some silver solder into the socket and then dressing that down until it fit snugly and securely.

Here are a couple of photos I just took of the rifle, bayonet and Blakeslee box:

[Two Flints]

Very nice, but where's your sling

[RattlesnakeJack]

Very nice, but where's your sling

Guess I'll have to pull one off one of my Snider-Enfield or Martini-Henry rifles..... or make a new one!   

[sharps1863]

Jack
What is your opinon on the Blockade Runner Cartridge Box. I have heard they are sub-standard and cheap made.
My last shooting session with my Spencer Carbine at 50 yards it was shooting 8 inches High and to 6 inches to the left at 50 yards. 5 to 6 inch grouping.  I'm not fond of the Spencer Sights.
Load
  8-grns Trailboss
   Lyman 350 Grain bullet soft lead cast at .514 Alox Lubed
   Starline Brass
    W-W Rifle Primers

[RattlesnakeJack]

It seems well enough made to me .... but then I haven't seen too many versions, and in any event am not that familiar with the Blakeslee box to know how "authentic" the construction is ....  

For the price, I suspected that the cartridge tubes might just be aluminum tubing or something like that, but they are in fact tin plate/galvanized with soldered side-seams and end-caps.  That in turn created a bit of a problem in that the soldered seams weren't quite flush and thus resulted in quite a "ridge" down the side of each tube, which caused them to bind in the holes in the wooden block.  I resolved that by inserting a piece of round steel (the handle from one of my loading presses, in fact) and then hammering the seams flat until each tube slides easily in and out of the wood block.

I did another modification to the wood block.  The tube holes are drilled all the way through from end to end - not sure if that is how the originals were, but I found that the tubes sat too far down to allow me to get ahold of them to pull them out .... and that left a lot of unoccupied space under the leather box lid.  So I cut short (1" or a bit longer) pieces of dowel to plug the bottom end of each tube hole.  The diameter of the dowel I used was slightly under which the diameter of the holes, so I sized each piece up to a nice snug fit by simply giving each 2 or 3 wraps with good old fashioned brown-paper packing tape (the kind you have to lick to activate the adhesive).  With the plugs in place, the tubes now come up very close to the underside of the lid, with plenty exposed to grasp for withdrawal of the tube.

Finally, not liking the extreme contrast of the white stitching on the black leather (which many of the more expensive boxes also seem to exhibit) I used a fine black "Sharpie" to color it black.

The more expensive Blakeslee boxes may not have these minor problems, but they were very easily remedied and I am happy with the result .... and the price.