known little bighorn guns

[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.