Spencer Research Question

[treebeard]

Back when the Roy Marcot book on Spencers came out I was fortunate enough to receive one as a Christmas present.
Wonderful book but I was wondering if there is good additional research on the Spencers in the form of books or
websites. Any thoughts?  Some of the technical discussions on this site seem to go beyond what is in the
Marcot book.

[Snakeeater]

Writers generally have publishers who advise them on writing styles, particularly for content and difficulty of reading. Christopher Roads (1962) The British Soldier's Firearm, From Smoothbore to Smallbore 1850-1864 is a good example of someone publishing their doctoral dissertation. Marcot's book is not a doctoral dissertation, and though he could certainly have made his book more technical, a writer has to make a choice between writing a book for a general audience with the hopes of multiple sales or in writing a technical manual that will only be purchased by a relative few.

Marcot's book is simply a reference tool that many collectors have at their disposal. Some collectors possess more extensive libraries and collections of documentation that Marcot may have had access but elected to omit because while some data that is a little off-topic may be fascinating to learn about,  you may lose part of your audience if you get too deep in the woods. Once I lent a copy of just the first three chapters of my doctoral dissertation to a friend to read. Three days later she came back with a tablet full of notes she had taken that she wanted me to explain. Typically, for any doctoral dissertation, there are maybe four or five people in the world who are interested in a given topic at that level of academia. You don't want to write a book only to sell four or five copies.

[Two Flints]

Treebeard,

Why go anywhere else  

You have the Marcot book and some very knowledgeable SSS members who can pretty much offer you any kind of information you want to know about Spencers  And from those members you are getting first hand experiences in loading, shooting, history and anything else having to do with spencers  The SORI Thread is just one example of what SSS offers to Spencer owners

Two Flints

[treebeard]

Two Flints--I am thankful for the expertise available on this site--I have now made the great leap into owning a Spencer
as I have an original Burnside M1865 on order. From reading SORI posts and other threads on this site I am looking forward
to an adventure in getting it up and operational again!!

[Two Flints]

Treebeard,

When you get it post some photos of it, especially the receiver area sides and top and bottom with the action in and out.

Any questions SSS is always here to help!

Two Flints

[djossi@yahoo.com]

Although relatively short, there are several interesting articles that I came across online. They are as follows:

• http://www.civilwarguns.com/spencer3.html


• http://www.civilwarguns.com/spencer1.html


• http://www.civilwarguns.com/spencer2.html


• http://www.civilwarguns.com/9202b.html

With the exception of the last article, each contains a bibliography pointing to both books and articles that you might find of value.

Dave J

[Two Flints]

Hi Dave,

Those articles have been posted before, but not altogether as you have done.  Thanks for taking the time.  Whenever I do a Google search and type Spencer Carbine (or Rifle) in the box and get my results shown in the number of pages, I sometimes go way ahead to page (for example) 26 and work my way back to page 1.  Sometimes, you will find an article or link to Spencers that might not show up in a lower numbered page

Two Flints

[treebeard]

Thanks to Davej7806 for the articles on the Spencer -- I'm having a great time delving into these fine rifles!