known little bighorn guns

[free1954]

looked interesting http://www.american-firearms.com/american-firearms/z-html/05-Serial%20No%20of%20Custer%20Guns/Little%20Bighorn%20Guns.html

[Dick Hosmer]

I have DuMont's book, but it is nice that someone has extracted the info (believe me it's not so handy, buried in the text thereof) and put it in tabular form for quick reference. Many more numbers have come to light since the 70's. I believe the total now stands at 68 or thereabouts.

The current issue of Man At Arms contains an article about "carbine" 8874, about which I - and numerous others - are VERY VERY dubious. There are NO other carbine (let alone 7th Cav carbine) numbers nearby, at all. We'll probably never know for sure, but I smell a rat, or the opening hype for an auction. The gun is said to match a large number of fired cases, but what bothers me is that (unless the author, and proof-reader, had a grammar breakdown) half of said matches are to dug CARTRIDGES! How does that work? Further, the ONE case picture shown is a rather vanilla overlay of similar-looking hits. Where's the high mag split image?

[5MadFarmers]

Wow, what a house of cards that is. "Known Little Big Horn guns."

They gathered up all the guns from all the Indians they could get their hands on. Not all, nor even most, were at LBH.

http://www.5madfarmers.com/lbh/indian1.jpg

http://www.5madfarmers.com/lbh/indian2.jpg

Yeah, they're a little dark. I didn't bother turning on the photo lights - not needed.

In any event somehow those '73s have moved from "from the Indians" to "LBH guns." That isn't warranted.

[Dick Hosmer]

I am not aware that anyone, including myself, has said the OM115 guns were LBH, however some COULD have been.

Are they of the correct period? Yes.
Do they give some insight into clarifying carbine number blocks? Yes.
Were they recovered from Indians who COULD have been at LBH? Strong POSSIBILITY.

There are only a few LBH carbines/numbers known today which are ironclad, perhaps half or less of the 68 I mentioned, but most of that total probably no longer exist. Mills recovered a few carbines at Slim Buttes - about as close to a hot pursuit as there was. Five carbines in the mid 17,000 range were listed in a (KIA - LBH) sergeant's diary. . Some, like 12221, a "B" troop carbine, have been rebuilt, starting with a receiver.

[5MadFarmers]

I am not aware that anyone, including myself, has said the OM115 guns were LBH, however some COULD have been.

Are they of the correct period? Yes.
Do they give some insight into clarifying carbine number blocks? Yes.
Were they recovered from Indians who COULD have been at LBH? Strong POSSIBILITY.

There are only a few LBH carbines/numbers known today which are ironclad, perhaps half or less of the 68 I mentioned, but most of that total probably no longer exist. Mills recovered a few carbines at Slim Buttes - about as close to a hot pursuit as there was. Five carbines in the mid 17,000 range were listed in a (KIA - LBH) sergeant's diary. . Some, like 12221, a "B" troop carbine, have been rebuilt, starting with a receiver.

Didn't say you did but others? Certainly. The link the OP provided implies exactly that.

"ARTICLE TITLE: Serial Numbers of Known Custer/Little Bighorn Guns"

Not "1873 Springfield carbines taken from the Indians."

http://www.american-firearms.com/american-firearms/z-html/05-Serial%20No%20of%20Custer%20Guns/Little%20Bighorn%20Guns.html

Pretty clear implication.

Guns the Indians received from deserters, picked up off the range, etc., were recovered. Many, and this shouldn't be lost, had a history included with the return. Those "history" documents could be used to cull the list as some were clearly not LBH. The RCO also has that list as I recall.

Many of the guns are at RIA.

[free1954]

5 mad farmers
i said it looked interesting, i didn't say take it as gospel. i found it interesting for all the carbines listed as unservicable.

[5MadFarmers]

I'm not saying you created that page. That page is an indicator that people are taking the guns recovered from the Indians and equating them to LBH guns.


Custer Batle Guns
By John S. du Mont, 1974
The Old Army Press
1513 Welch
Ft. Collins Colorado 80521
University of Montana-Missoula Library

Why do I suspect that book does that? In which case it's been done for 30 years now.

[Dick Hosmer]

No, if you read it, you'll find it certainly does allow the reader to draw some inferences, but it really doesn't come out and say so directly. And, that book has, very much, to be taken in the context of its' time. John Du Mont was a respected amateur scholar of his day, ahead of many of his contemporaries, but NONE of the better TD books had been published, the SRS files weren't available to him, etc.

TDs were whale droppings in the early 1970s - anyone who actually "collected" ("but aren't they all the same?", I used to hear) them was seen as somehow being second class. You had to be into Winchesters or Colts to have any real standing. In some small way, I hope I've helped to change that. The other side of that coin is that many bargains were available to those few who did their homework. I've known what a triangular RB, and an 1875 SA-Lee were, since the 1950s, thanks to avidly reading and collecting back issues of the American Rifleman.

[John Sukey]

whale droppings? Maybe true for the 70's, as I bought my first trapdoor for $45 back then and carbines were at the high end if they went for $85 Times sure have changed
Once had 35 trapdoors.
But then, you could buy a M1 for around $125 and a Lee Enfield for $9.95. 1917 smiths and Colt New Services could be had for $35 and I did own those. Webleys? $25 with a free queeks draw belt and holster!:D

[Dick Hosmer]

Ahh yes, the good old days! I've surely enjoyed the run, and an awful LOT of the fun was in the search, or, perhaps best, that special moment of reaching for your wallet when you knew you knew more about the gun than the seller!

[5MadFarmers]

But then, you could buy a M1 for around $125 and a Lee Enfield for $9.95. 1917 smiths and Colt New Services could be had for $35

My boss, a few years ago, dropped some 1950s and 1960s American Rifleman magazines on me. After I climbed out from under that stack I started digging through them to find the ads for the lend-lease Garands and the Johnson rifles. There were ads for all kinds of military surplus rifles and equipment. What sticks out like a sore thumb is M1 Garands have always been expensive. $80 was a lot of money in 1962. Not that I remember that as I didn't exist but I can tell by the other guns that they were very expensive. The Krags and trapdoors were long gone by then.

Those aren't the ones that make me cry. The ones that make me cry are Dixie's selling of the old gun tools. They went for almost nothing. I was alive by the point. Quite young but I really should have bought gun tools from Dixie.

I can't account for the unpopularity of the trapdoors during that era. Were the CW carbines also not collected in the 1950s? I have enough Colt books around here that I can see those were already being collected 100 years ago. Was it pretty much just Colts and Winchesters?

The days of nailing a flintlock over the mantle as decoration or turning it into a lamp are long gone. As are the days of 13 year olds sporterizing Krags. We've lost something but gained something.

[free1954]

I'm not saying you created that page. That page is an indicator that people are taking the guns recovered from the Indians and equating them to LBH guns.



Why do I suspect that book does that? In which case it's been done for 30 years now.



i wonder what made those guns unservicable? was it cases stuck in the chambers?

[5MadFarmers]

The 1873 carbines in the ordnance notes sound as if they were pulled from an ordnance maintenance facility's scrap pile. How does one manage to lose the front sight? That takes effort. Breaking off the "ears" of the receiver? The stocks are uniformly busted. A trapdoor with a missing lock is useless. 18202 is missing the breech block. 17485 was ran over by a loaded wagon.

Everyone is familiar with the practice of taking a number of broken items and using the good bits to make a useful one. 2 old cars stripped down to make a functional 1 kind of thing. The listed guns sound like what was left behind after the good gun was made.

If you read the full report of Indian guns turned in you'll find it was less "we captured these from the Indians" and more "we asked the Indians for guns." If you were the Indians what would you turn in? The good ones? I'd turn in the chum. These certainly sound like the chum.

[sdkrag]

Spend a little time on theDakota, Wyoming, Montana prairie in the conditions that the Crook expidition endured and you would know what makes a weapon unseviciable. Stocks busted or finish gone, rust (it rained a lot that year), run over and banged around. From what I have read a lot of the weapons captured at the Slim Buttes were destroyed. Unservicable could mean that the weapon really just needed to be refinished after hard use and exposure.

[free1954]

thanks for the replies.

[rayg]

TDs were whale droppings in the early 1970s - anyone who actually "collected" ("but aren't they all the same?", I used to hear) them was seen as somehow being second class. You had to be into Winchesters or Colts to have any real standing. In some small way, I hope I've helped to change that. The other side of that coin is that many bargains were available to those few who did their homework. I've known what a triangular RB, and an 1875 SA-Lee were, since the 1950s, thanks to avidly reading and collecting back issues of the American Rifleman.

I watched where Dixie Gun works created a collectors market for the trap doors. While they were selling for $25.00 or so back then, they must have started buying as many as they could find for those prices until they had quite a few.
Then for a few years, they always mentioned in their catalog that to watch and see, trapdoors will become the next popular collectable. And of course prices for them started rising because of that statement
And low and behold, Dixie then decided to sell their large collection of trapdoors, which of course now the prices were not $25 anymore as now they are a hot collectable items and prices were listed at triple and double what they were bought for. All in a couple of years time. Good business people they were.
The market runs the same way. Let a few leaks out that a certain stock is going to increase in value a lot more, that spreads like wild fire. Of course that's after you bought it already for pennies. Then watch everyone jump on the band wagaon buying it and when it's reached it's high, then sell and go play with all the money you made. Ray

[Dick Hosmer]

Absolutely true, but Dixie probably out sold too soon - the prices in their "Dixie Collection" book are awfully low. But, if you read the descriptions, they had a lot of crap, too - stuff that would never sell in today's educated market. The real laugher, though is in the text. While there are little nuggets of truth, there are bush league mistakes as well - and some of the people he was sucking up to were not the experts he made them out to be. Too, Turner's homespun, clod-kicking attempts to buy up the real rarities still give me a chuckle! He was one hell of a businessman, though. What angered me about Dixie was that, once they took a position, that was it - for over 20 years, at least, they insisted that the rod they were selling for the .50-70 was correct. It wasn't. Thanks for reminding us of the Dixie TDs.

[jon_norstog]

Summer of '80 I spent hitchiking around the NW, chasing women and doing some research for grad school. I wasn't broke, and I had the cafe habit. As in Stcokman's cafe on Front St. in Missoula. After a big breakfast that couldn't be beat I checked out the pawnshop next door. I was in the market for a guiter ...

They had a trapdoor carbine on display, a pretty decent '73, with carpet tacks and a rawhide wrist repair. The sign on it said the S/N was betwen two numbers known to have been issued to the 7th. It was $300.

I was tempted, I had the money bt was not certain how the carbine would fit with my mode of travel. I bought the guitar and my son still plays it to this day. Stockmans is still there but the pawnshop is long gone. I'd give it 50-50 that carbine is still in the Missoula area.

I can think of a lot of ways it could have gotten to that pawnshop besides being picked up on the field of battle. I do like the narrative that Indians kept their good guns and only turned in the junk.

PS noticed the .44 SHarps in 5MF's document, too. Maybe the owner couldn't afford the ammo an didn't need a 13-pound gun?

jn

[Dick Hosmer]

Is the guitar now worth $5,000? Just kidding of course.

Sure would like to know the s/n. I'll bet it is in, or passed through, the hands of Hayes Otoupalik, resident super-collector.

[jon_norstog]

Dick,

Once I worked down the action the guitar played great. I figure it is worth at least $75. I keep thinking about that carbine. It could have been a fake, it could have been a real Indian-owned gun but not one that was picked up at Greasy Grass. As you yourself have pointed out, when it comes to S/N, close is no cigar. Still, I know they shipped the guns out in wooden boxes and would expect that any one box would have weapons with close, if not sequential S/N. Then there's the question of whAT happened once the box was opened at Ft. Union. Did all the guns go to the same unit? Etc. etc.

I guess we'll never now for sure. But I wish I could have seen a way to get that carbine.

jn

[Dick Hosmer]

Jon,
A few 1884 rifle shipping crate manifests have turned up - and the overall span of the 20 guns was often in the thousands. Consecutive s/ns were virtually un-heard of, at least on the lists found, which are all we have upon which to base our theories. Your expectation would certainly seem reasonable, I admit, but, that is apparently not - for some reason - how it was done.

[5MadFarmers]

I know why. Tomorrow.

[11mm]

Jon,
A few 1884 rifle shipping crate manifests have turned up - and the overall span of the 20 guns was often in the thousands. Consecutive s/ns were virtually un-heard of, at least on the lists found, which are all we have upon which to base our theories. Your expectation would certainly seem reasonable, I admit, but, that is apparently not - for some reason - how it was done.
I guess the question would also concern what would the arsenal's incentive have been to have kept consecutive serial numbers together in any one crate. Why would it have mattered? It would have been extra work to have monitored making sure they were consecutive.
Dick-Please PM me (or list here) your address and the cost for your book, as I would like to buy one.

[Dick Hosmer]

Thanks for the interest - do want to make it clear that it covers the .58/.50s only. Second half, with the rare .45s (I've not duplicated Poyer's work on the basics) is at least 1 year away.
Book is $25 to POB 1367 Colusa CA 95932. Advise desired inscription.

[11mm]

Thanks for the interest - do want to make it clear that it covers the .58/.50s only. Second half, with the rare .45s (I've not duplicated Poyer's work on the basics) is at least 1 year away.
Book is $25 to POB 1367 Colusa CA 95932. Advise desired inscription.

I know that it only cover's the earlier ones, but I do have an 1868 dated 1869. Thanks

[5MadFarmers]

Jon,
A few 1884 rifle shipping crate manifests have turned up - and the overall span of the 20 guns was often in the thousands. Consecutive s/ns were virtually un-heard of, at least on the lists found, which are all we have upon which to base our theories. Your expectation would certainly seem reasonable, I admit, but, that is apparently not - for some reason - how it was done.

Short version.
The guns were made in "soft metal" form. Soft metal could be worked. Once it was hardened it couldn't. The numbers were stamped while it was soft metal.

Picture a forging shop. They have a wooden truck (think laundry cart) where they toss forged receivers into. It's then wheeled to the stamping machine. The receivers are stamped and tossed back into the truck. Now it's wheeled to the hardening forge. They "wrapped" the metal in a carbon containing material (old army shoes early on as leather works). There isn't much point in stoking a fire to do one - they did the entire truck. After they cool down, or are dunked in oil or water depending on the part, they are trucked to the assembly room.

That's the short version but you can see why the chances that two sequential serials ending up in the same chest is a slim thing indeed. Early in the '03 production they "sampled" chests to determine the spread. "10,000." Volume was higher by then but it's quite the spread. Trapdoors would be less but still nothing to sneeze at. Picture 10 trucks....

[Dick Hosmer]

Yeah, I didn't go into the long form, but that is at least part of the reason - others include the FILO principle at every stage, assembly occuring simultaneously at more than one station (AFAIBT - SA did not have a formal "assembly line" as we understand the term today) intermediate storage (presumably racked) in the arsenal prior to shipment, etc.

[jon_norstog]

Thanks Dick & 5MF for the clarification. One more thing to think ABOUT.

Heres's another. Cut me some slack here, I'm drawing a picture. By 1876, the NP RR was supposed to be reaching into the northern Great Plains, easing the logistic problems of keeping a samll army in the field. It didn't work out that way. In late 1872, Jay Cooke was getting ready to float a 300 million dollar bond issue to build the NP from Minneapolis out to Kalama, WA. Then the Panic of '73 struck, the US demonetized silver, and everything ground to a halt. Half the railroads in the US went bankrupt. Instead of riding out west in RR cars, those '73 carbines were carried on freight wagons, or maybe on steamboats up to Ft. Union/Buford or Ft. Benton in Montana. The west was full of unemployed white men. One more source of trouble.

The Democrats in Congress were firm in their resolve to limit the size of the US Army, and to reduce its appropriations. It was really a move to end Reconstruction by defunding the military ...

So there were these horrendous supply problems. In your mind you can ride along with those boxes of carbines in "trains" of freight wagons, guarded by a few soldiers. 25 miles in a good day. Shipping by riverboat was faster but depended on how much water was coming down the Missouri.

I'm trying to draw a picture here. So the carbines arrive, the boxes are broken open and the carbines are checked off. Some are issued right away, some later, and some are kept in racks in the armory. The records get lost, there is a new issue rifle and th old trapdoors are no longer that important. Inventory control, which was not that great to begin with, gets even more sloppy. The supply sergeants can't tell you how many carbines are in stock. A lot of civilians have 45-70 carbines. A lot of those civilians are Native American.

jn

[Dick Hosmer]

All good, if not excellent, possibilities. Now, add the fact that all arms under 50,000 were recalled in 1879/1880. Obviously, not all were sent back to SA, but it further screwed up the logistics, and affected what we find today.

[sdkrag]

I would disagree that the inventory control was sloppy. Just because we don't have the records does not mean that the Army was sloppy with their issue items. There are many references that show soldiers being charged for lost items. Some arms went over the hill with deserters ( a major concern in the 70-80s) butr you know dang well the army knew what was where and when it was.

There were a number of arms lost in skirmishes and battles (Couple hundred or so at Greasy Grass), but more recent research shows that the Indians were not that well equipped with all the modern Winchesters and such that people think they were. There were a lot of old trade guns, and anything they could capture or steal. Ammo was at a premium, and usage was hard.

Most of the supplies were shipped by steamboat to Ft. Randall or points above like Ft. Union/Buford of into Montana after 1875/76. Many supplies also ended up in Ft. Robinson or in the Nebraska area which did have rail service.

I guess that my point is that I believe the army kept good control of their arms. I really feel that the serial number question is mor along the lines mentioned in earlier posts with manufacturing and distribution not being concerned with consecutive numbers but getting the job done and arms shipped.

[jon_norstog]

General Sheridan contracted with several riverboat operators for the 1876 campaign season. Terry's command was supported by the Far West, Capt. Grant Marsh. Marsh was known as a man who could drive a boat over a heavy dew. He took the 200-ton Far West up the Yellowstone, then up the Bighorn to the mouth of the Little Bighorn where he tied her up. He had to warp the Far West a good part of the way.


The Far West was whereTerry sent the wounded from Reno's command. Marsh had fresh grass cut and laid on deck for the 50 or so wounded. Then he drove Far West to Fort Lincoln (present-day Bismarck) in 54 hours.

for instance,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887136,00.html


jn

[free1954]

General Sheridan contracted with several riverboat operators for the 1876 campaign season. Terry's command was supported by the Far West, Capt. Grant Marsh. Marsh was known as a man who could drive a boat over a heavy dew. He took the 200-ton Far West up the Yellowstone, then up the Bighorn to the mouth of the Little Bighorn where he tied her up. He had to warp the Far West a good part of the way.


The Far West was whereTerry sent the wounded from Reno's command. Marsh had fresh grass cut and laid on deck for the 50 or so wounded. Then he drove Far West to Fort Lincoln (present-day Bismarck) in 54 hours.

for instance,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887136,00.html


jn



thanks for posting that story. i had never heard of captain marsh before.

[kragluver]

Interesting story about the Far West. I have a gg uncle in my ancestry that was a telegraph man for Western Union or some such. I have a copy of a letter transcribed from the telegram that must have been sent from Bismark as described at the end of that article. He was writing to family back home in Texas.

[jon_norstog]

marsh wrote a book, long out of print. I'm looking for a copy. Apparently he met everyone who was anyone in the old west. he was first mate on the same riverboat that Smauel Clemens was asst. pilot. "MARK Twain!" and they kept in touch ...

jn

[free1954]

marsh wrote a book, long out of print. I'm looking for a copy. Apparently he met everyone who was anyone in the old west. he was first mate on the same riverboat that Smauel Clemens was asst. pilot. "MARK Twain!" and they kept in touch ...

jn





you can read THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI a book written about marsh here http://www.archive.org/stream/conquestofmissou01hans#page/n11/mode/2up

[Dick Hosmer]

Now THERE is one fascinating website!!

[free1954]

Now THERE is one fascinating website!!




i found once looking for a book written in 1915 called OVER THE TOP about an american who went to fight for the british in ww1.
there are a lot of interesting and hard to find anywhere else books on that site.