1866 Springfield Trapdoor

[Ryanod1]

Hey everyone,

Thank you in advance for any help. This is my first post, and was excited when @arizonaghostriders recommended I came here for advice. Also, if this topic is in the wrong place then please let me know. I can put to the correct thread.

Anyways, I had recently purchased an 1866 Springfield trapdoor. I have never owned one until now. I took a chance and purchased it through auction. It said "cavalry carbine" on the posting, but I knew they didn't make those in 1866. I was looking online to figure out a little more on the rifle and can't find much at all. I was hoping y'all may know a little bit about this rifle. What makes it odd is that it is a carbine style rifle with the barrel measuring at 27.5". Maybe Springfield made a bunch of these and I am just bad with research. It does not look like some gunsmith did this randomly but looks more like it was done during the conversion from and 1863 to 1866 Trapdoor. This is the only reference I have seen to it. It states its an "Indian Carbine?"
Anyways, I will let the pro's help, and I look forward to learning a lot from y'all in the future!

Please let me know if you want any more pics. I wasn't sure what was needed to figure this out.

[Ryanod1]

Indian Carbine

[Kent Shootwell]

I know little about trapdoors but yours looks to have been a rifle that was later modified to a half stock. The forearm of a carbine would only be a couple of inches past the barrel band. Notice the rear sight isn't the same as the one in the advertisement.
Nice find none the less.

[Ryanod1]

Thank you for answering! I noticed the sight difference as well. I don't even know if this was an advertisement or anything. It was mostly some random thing I found on the internet that looked similar. Its soo hard to tell. If it was modified it must have been done right around that time where the barrel shows no wear underneath from an extended stock before being cut.

I also see that on mine the barrel band sits just behind the sight vs more towards the front of the stock. These stocks could be the same length but the band is definitely in a defferent spot

[DeaconKC]

Welcome to the place! You will find a lot of good folks here with lots of good information.

[Ryanod1]

Thank you! I have already learned soo much from this group. I have been collecting WWII stuff but have always wanted to collect things from the old west days too.

[38OVI]

It looks like a M1864 Springfield, the solid bands went back on that year, and the M1863 has split screw bands with no band spring, which is why the went back to those with band springs in 1864.  My original M1866 Rifle has a 36 1/2" barrel measured from the breech-block to the muzzle (using a cleaning rod for measuring).  The only 50-70 Trapdoor carbine I know of is the M1870 with a 32 1/2 " barrel (don't know if that is from the face of the block.
We have one at the museum, but I haven't looked at it in several years.  {The Carbine measurement is from Flayderman's Book}  The M1866 is great for shooting, with Black Powder Only.

[Ryanod1]

Interesting! The dates on the rifle are 1863 and 1866 on the trapdoor. Do you know what markings I should be seeing? The barrel itself only has a letter (B) and on the trapdoor itself there is a number 7. I will have to remeasure the barrel tomorrow. Not sure if it will help much. I do have much better pictures if it would help. Unfortunately, the forum is very limiting on detailed pics.

[Arizona Trooper]

You have a commercial carbine conversion of an M-1866 musket. M-1866 breechloading muskets started off as M-1864 (aka M-1863 Type II) muzzleloading muskets. The barrels were sleeved down from 58 to 50 caliber and the breechloading mechanism installed. That's why the lock date is 1863 and the breechblock is 1866. They were fairly successful (see the Wagon Box Fight and the Hayfield Fight). Still, they were soon replaced by the M-1868 rifle, also in 50-70 caliber.

Cutdowns were produced by several companies, probably more than we know, as well as local gunsmiths. They bought M-1866s at Ordnance Department surplus sales for a couple bucks each and resold them on the civilian market, usually cutting them down, converting them to carbines, sporting rifles or cadet rifles for the military schools that sprung up all over the country after the Civil War.

The other source is kind of round about. At the start of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, the French bought as many 1866s as they could get their hands on. The US was neutral officially, but the government took this golden opportunity to unload all their out of date ordnance to surplus dealers, who then sold it at a very handsome markup to French buyers who crated it as "machinery" or some other bogus description and it was off to Europe. In the meantime, France lost the war, so most of what France bought ended up on the surplus market having never been uncrated, courtesy of Germany, and was bought by the same US surplus dealers, now at a considerable discount, reimported and sold into the civilian market.

Cutdown M-1866s were popular in the 1870s and 80s. 50-70 is a hard hitting cartridge, which was available at most forts when hardware stores were few and far between. The 3 banders are a real pain on horseback and there were no collectors looking for "originals", so the market was for cutdowns.

These are collectively known as Bannermans, although many others turned them out as well. Yours is unusual in that the stock does not appear to be a reworked Springfield. The band is much further back that a converted rifle stock, and there is no sign of a band spring, or a filled cut for a band spring. The stock wrist is short, like the later Trapdoor stocks, but the contour is all different. Is there a filled ramrod channel in the stock nose?

Neat carbine! Should shoot well if the bore is in decent shape.

[Ryanod1]

Wow. This is absolutely awesome, Arizona. Thank you soo much for taking the time to write that up. So you think the likely thing is this is a Bannermans type rifle? I have scoured the internet and just can't seem to find anything that matches, and I am addicted to finding the history on stuff.

I do want to shoot this...for sure! Are there any pics that would help identify? Also are there any markings that arent apparent in the pic that could help? I know the side of the barrel has a letter stamped on it, and I believe when I flip up the trapdoor there is a "7". Not sure if this tells me anything or just standard. Thanks again!

[Arizona Trooper]

It is definitely a Bannermans type of rifle.

I'm afraid that there probably aren't any marks that would give you clues. The letters and numbers you see are all armory inspection marks from when the musket was made, or when it was converted. You will find a lot more on the back surface of the lock plate, as well as the bottom and breech end of the barrel, if you take it apart. Since the stock is either new made or heavily reworked, the markings are probably gone. Look on the side opposite the lock, at the back of the trigger plate and possibly just in front of the buttplate tang (where the plate is stamped US).

Check out http://armscollectors.com/trapdoor/bb/viewforum.php?f=3 for a lot of discussion of the whole line of Trapdoor Springfields.

[Arizona Trooper]

By the way, look up Buffalo Bill Cody's Lucretia Borgia, an 1866 Springfield that accounted for at least as many buffalo as any official "buffalo rifle". He once said that of all his rifles, that one was his favorite.

[Ryanod1]

Thank you. I did look up the rifle and that is really cool. Looks good with the hexagonal barrel too. I will have to have mine checked out to see if shes all golden to shoot. I know everyone says the Bannermans are worth less but hopefully I didn't do too bad for $500. Thank you again.